Journal History

Founded in 1953, the Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik (ZAA) holds a unique position in Germany as the only academic journal of English and American Studies published in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), at first by VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften in (East) Berlin, and then (from 1964) by VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie Leipzig, where it stayed until German reunification in 1990. In all these years, the issues of ZAA testified to the tensions between the inevitable political prerogative in the GDR and academic assessments of literature as an institution that anticipated many later cultural studies and book history concerns. Central to ZAA’s agenda in these years was a genuine commitment to making British and American literature available in translation for readers in the GDR, which included a critical monitoring of the translation and publication process. After 1991, ZAA was taken on by West German publisher Langenscheidt (Berlin) and continued with a new editorial board that programmatically bridged the East-West divide. Since then, ZAA has moved to Stauffenburg (Tübingen, 1995-2003) and Königshausen & Neumann (Würzburg, 2004-2013) before it reached its current home with De Gruyter (Berlin and Boston) in 2014, which also signalled its arrival in the digital age: all issues since 2004 have been made digitally available at https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/zaa/html

Attempts at including earlier issues into this electronic archive have so far not been successful; all issues published in the GDR as well as the ones from Langenscheidt or Stauffenburg will have to be accessed through academic libraries.

Given its very particular history, ZAA continues to welcome contributions from English and American Studies in Eastern Europe and beyond to its pages.

In view of its unique position in the post-WWII German cultural landscape, the history of ZAA has itself received some academic attention. See, for example,

• Anna-Christina Giovanopoulos. "'… and the recent obsession for perverted sexual aspects'? Die Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik." In: Simone Barck, Martina Langermann, Siegfried Lokatis, Hrsg. Zwischen "Mosaik" und "Einheit": Zeitschriften in der DDR. Berlin: Ch. Links, 1999: 367-374.
• Sandra Schaur. “Zwischen Nische und Öffentlichkeit . Die Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik (ZAA).” In: Barbara Korte, Sandra Schaur, Stefan Welz, Hrsg. Britische Literatur in der DDR. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2008: 159-181.
• Michael Lörch. “Die Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik (ZAA) als Beispiel für das Zusammenwirken von universitärer Amerikanistik und Verlagswesen in der DDR.” In: Aleksey Tashinskiy, Julija Boguna, Andreas F. Kelletat, Hrsg. Übersetzer und Übersetzen in der DDR – Translationshistorische Studien. Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2020: 129-150.
• “Michael Lörch. “Die Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft.“ In: Oliver Scheiding, Sabina Fazli, Hrsg. Handbuch Zeitschriftenforschung. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2023: 459-467.