In the fall of 1985, around the time that DDR-Literatur im Tauwetter finally appeared in print, I contacted Dr. Jay Wilson, Editor in Chief at the New York office of Peter Lang Publishing. I wanted to explore the possibility of establishing a series of scholarly monographs, published in English or German, on topics in the humanities and social sciences pertaining to the GDR. Wilson supported the idea and in 1986 I became General Editor of DDR-Studien/East German Studies, the only monograph series in the US focusing exclusively on the GDR. The first volume, published in 1987, was not a monograph but a Handbook of East German Drama: 1945 – 1985 by well-known theater specialist Herbert Lederer. Over the years, we published books on important GDR authors such as Jurek Becker, Peter Hacks, Wolfgang Hilbig, Irmtraud Morgner, and Christa Wolf, and on topics such as Science Fiction Literature in East Germany, Searching for a New German Identity, Protokolliteratur in der DDR (Protocol Literature in the GDR), Heinrich von Kleist in der Literatur der DDR (Heinrich von Kleist in GDR Literature), and Unvollendete Trauerarbeit in der DDR-Literatur (The Unfinished Process of Grieving in GDR Literature). I remained general editor of this series until 2014, the year in which I retired.
Remembering East Germany 