| Max-Weber-Kolleg, Forschung

Barbara Theriault's "Die Bodenständigen" is Germany's most beautiful regional book

"Die Bodenständigen. Erkundungen aus der nüchternen Mitte der Gesellschaft" - the book by Barbara Theriault, which was published in the edition überland" in 2020, is "Germany's most beautiful regional book 2020".

A five-member jury had selected five books with a regional reference from more than 100 submissions, which stand out through their design, binding, typography and overall concept and promise to be saleable in local bookstores. The German Publishers & Booksellers Association and the "Stiftung Buchkunst" presented the award yesterday at the start of the nationwide Regional Book Days.

In her book "Die Bodenständigen", Prof. Dr. Barbara Thériault takes a close look at the Thuringian capital - its people, events and special features. At the beginning there was the question: How best to describe the center of society in a city in the heart of Germany? Not with a desire for singularity, but with a desire for down-to-earthness, argues the sociologist.

In her book she explores everyday life in today's Erfurt and Thuringia with a mixture of sympathy and distance. It's about plaid shirts, short hair, tattoos, drinking, youth consecration, secret marriages - topics that sometimes make everyday life seem more exotic than faraway countries, in short: about amusing things in the normality of everyday life. Always with a view from her native Canada and from Eastern Europe, the sociologist reports in a manner that is as astute as it is entertaining. In her texts she encourages us to discover something new in the normality of everyday life and invites us to reflect.

Barbara Thériault was the first student at the newly founded Erfurt University and therefore has a very special relationship with Erfurt. Today she is a professor in Montreal, but she always comes back to Erfurt - for example to work as a journalist or author. She is currently a Fellow at her former place of work, the Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt.

By the way:
Barbara Thérault is presenting her "Die Bodenständigen. Erkundungen aus der süchternen Mitte der Gesellschaft" on 21 October at 7.30 pm in the Dacheröden building in Erfurt.

Barbara Thériault
Die Bodenständigen. Erkundungen über die nüchterne Mitte der Gesellschaft.
edition überland, Leipzig, 2020
ISBN: 978-3-948049-05-8
224 pages
14 EUR