HaFI 020: Erika Runge: Reflections Upon Saying Farewell to Documentary Literature

With the volume Bottroper Protokolle (Suhrkamp 1968) – a collection of eight verbatim recorded memoirs of people in the Ruhr region – the television director and doctor of literature, committed feminist and communist Erika Runge (1939–2023) coined the term and practice of Dokumentarliteratur (documentary literature). Eight years later, Runge published the text “Reflections Upon Saying Farewell to Documentary Literature,” in which she reflects, among other things, on the reception and political effectiveness of the documentary approach.

HaFI 020 publishes Runge’s programmatic text together with its English translation, accompanied by a contextualizing commentary by Regine Ehleiter and a conversation between Clio Nicastro and titre provisoire (Cathleen Schuster / Marcel Dickhage), whose latest film A cold case or happiness is closely based on Runge’s work.

HaFI 020 – Erika Runge: Überlegungen beim Abschied von der Dokumentarliteratur / Reflections Upon Saying Farewell to Documentary Literature
Editors: Regine Ehleiter, Clio Nicastro, titre provisoire (Cathleen Schuster / Marcel Dickhage)
Published by: Harun Farocki Institut
Language: Deutsch / English
Pages: 60
Size: 21 x 29,7 cm
Binding: Softcover
ISBN: 978-3-00-077303-7

HaFI 020 can be ordered from Bierke Verlag at a price of 10 euros.

HaFI 020 is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy in the context of the Cluster of Excellence Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective – EXC 2020 – Project ID 390608380. The translation of the text “Reflections Upon Saying Farewell to Documentary Literature” was financially supported by Halle für Kunst Lüneburg.