Mourning for Prof. Dr. Karl Riha

Karl Riha in no way conformed to conventional notions of the university scholar. He was no longer personally known to many younger members of the university, which makes the memories of those who have known him since the 1970s as a dazzling, incredibly productive philologist, educator and colleague all the more vivid: Former students remember his unconventional didactic methods, colleagues recall the multitude of creative, often provocative, always stimulating projects, initiatives and encounters with a scientist who was permanently "at the university" in the best sense of the word.

Karl Riha was born on June 3, 1935 in the Bohemian town of Krummau on the Vltava River (now Český Krumlov). In the post-war years, he grew up in Frankfurt am Main, where he studied German language and literature, philosophy and history from 1956. From an early age, he combined his academic interests with journalistic practice: from 1962 to 1967, he headed the features section of the legendary Frankfurt student magazine Diskus, where he published his own literary texts, theater reviews and book reviews. These early Frankfurt years were formative: it was during this time that he developed an interest in literary forms and practices that went beyond the established canons. From 1965, Riha worked as a research assistant in Frankfurt under Heinz Otto Burger, and in 1969 he completed his doctorate with a thesis on the metropolitan motif in German literature, before moving to the Technical University of Berlin as an assistant to Walter Höllerer. In both metropolises, he became a member of an intellectual network of literary scholars and journalists, writers, artists and media practitioners who stood for an open, contemporary and media-oriented approach to literary studies. The combination of theory, criticism and literary practice tested there was to remain constitutive for Riha and decisively prepare his later work in Siegen.

In 1975, Karl Riha moved to the provinces: he was appointed Professor of German Philology and General Literary Studies at the recently founded Siegen University of Applied Sciences. Here he settled with his family in the Weidenau district, where he played a decisive role in shaping the special teaching and research structure of the literature and media studies subjects and used the institutional freedom of the start-up years for his diverse activities. And it was here that he worked for decades until his retirement in 2000 - and for several years after that.

"I am an expert on the offbeat" - with this self-characterization, Karl Riha hit the core of his academic profile. His research interests included the classical avant-gardes, in particular he published numerous books and anthologies on the Dada movement, always with witty titles such as Da Dada da war, ist Dada da (1980), Tatü Dada (1987) or Fatagaga-Dada (1995), he opened the little yellow books of the Reclam University Library for collections of the Dadaists from Zurich and Berlin, for Kurt Schwitters and finally even for Dada total (1994). Throughout his life, he was interested in popular and previously marginalized literary forms: Riha published on comics and picture stories - his book Zok roarr wumm. Zur Geschichte der Comics-Literatur (1970) can be considered the first academic monograph on illustrated literature -, on moritats and ballads, on satirical pamphlets and literary cabaret, on commedia dell'arte as well as on trivial and popular literature, on parodies of classics and on caricatures. He was fascinated by the text-image-sound experiments of visual poetry, sound poetry and mail art more intensely than most literary scholars. Through his works and editions, Riha has made authors such as Ernst Jandl, the Wiener Gruppe around H.C. Artmann and Gerhard Rühm, Ror Wolf and Oskar Pastior accessible to a wider audience.

This makes him - together with Helmut Kreuzer - one of the pioneers of an "expanded concept of literature", with which the subject area of literary studies was decisively expanded from Siegen and the ground was prepared for what is now called "media studies": one of the few global export hits of German humanities since the 1980s. The implementation of an expanded concept of literature led to various interdisciplinary research networks in Siegen - from "screen media" and "media upheavals" to current research into the "transformations of the popular" - and innovative courses of study, none of which would be conceivable without the eccentric innovations that Karl Riha, not least of all, imposed on good old literary studies.

Karl Riha's characteristic form of publication was less the large monograph than the incessant publication of articles and essays as well as the editing of literary trouvailles. As a book lover, he was - in the spirit of Walter Benjamin - a "collector" who was equipped with a proverbial "nose" for literary discoveries. Riha published numerous popular reading editions with major publishers such as Insel, Suhrkamp, Reclam, Hanser and Luchterhand, but just as naturally with smaller, experimental publishers such as Anabas Verlag, Edition Nautilus, Edition Text + Kritik and Eremiten-Presse.

As a "writer's scholar", Karl Riha remained a border crosser between the university and the cultural and literary scene even as a university professor. He always wrote literary criticism, first for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Hessischer Rundfunk and then for many years for the Frankfurter Rundschau. He was director of the Literary Colloquium Berlin (LCB) at Wannsee for several years. At the same time, he wrote his own literary texts, sometimes under pseudonyms such as Hans Wald, Agno Stowitsch or Charlie Hair.

He was a tireless initiator and organizer, planning more than thirty exhibitions in the Siegen University Library, organizing numerous literary events in the Kulturhaus Lÿz and other venues or - to mention just one example - putting on a multi-day festival of international sound poetry in Siegen.

Karl Riha was also not only a formative intellectual figure within the university, but also a driving 'networker' and hands-on 'doer'. He made use of the opportunities offered by the university print shop and initiated numerous publication series such as MuK - Massenmedien und Kommunikation, die Vergessenen Autoren der Moderne and experimentellen texte; year after year he represented the university with his own stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and he founded the magazine DIAGONAL , which was highly regarded at the time and which he of course also sold himself in the cafeteria foyer and whose success ultimately paved the way for the founding of his own university publishing house.

As an academic teacher, Karl Riha was always aware that studying literature did not prepare students for a fixed career. He therefore not only involved his students and staff in his own projects, but also opened up independent work and publication opportunities for them at a very early stage, which paved the way for many later career paths: in publishing houses and cultural institutions, at newspapers and radio stations, at universities and schools, in advertising agencies and press departments.

In Karl Riha, the University of Siegen has lost a scholar who shaped German studies through his openness, wit and intellectual independence. The German Department will honor his memory.

On behalf of current and former colleagues and friends
Jörgen Schäfer and Peter Gendolla