15TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Local Narratives / Global Narratives of Identity

A WIGS conference hosted by the University of Bath
1-3 September 2003
Open to non-members

Abstracts

The Local & the Global in the Construction of Identities: A Cultural Studies Approach.
Chris Weedon
University of Wales, Cardiff

This paper will argue that identities - both local and global - need to be understood in the context of broad-reaching phenomena: the legacies of colonialism, the creation of diasporas, the changing face of nations, racism, Islamophobia and the search for roots in postcolonial societies. Taking the example of the attempted staging of the Miss World Contest in Nigeria in 2002 and the varied protests to which this gave rise, the paper will argue that identities need to be understood as contingent, non-essential, but linked to broader power relations, many of which have a global reach but give rise to localised forms of resistance.

Three Village Tales: global localities in 1795/6, 1922, and 1985?

Elizabeth Boa

University of Nottingham

In his very short introduction to globalization Manfred Steger suggests 5 periods: pre-history; pre-modern; early modern; modern; and contemporary. I am going to look at three village tales from near the beginning, in the middle, and after the end of Steger’s modern period (1750-1970) looking for global intimations and for continuities or breaks. My three tales are Hermann und Dorothea (1797), Das Schloß (1922/3) and Swiss author Gertrud Leutenegger’s Kontinent (1985). Themes will be topologies of place and space, of borders and thresholds; modern or anti-modern markers including, since this is WIGS, how women are figured; and the interplay of sameness and difference, of universal humanity and cultural diversity, of community or fragmentation.

Sudden Wealth and Going West: Critical Utopias in Der plötzliche Reichtum der armen Leute von Kombach and Die Siebtelbauern

Rachel Palfreyman,

University of Nottingham,

At various stages in the history of the apparently patriarchal and conservative Heimat genre, artists of left and liberal persuasions have nevertheless seen critical potential in it. This paper examines two examples of the subversive turn in the Heimat mode, comparing their different political strategies. Der plötzliche Reichtum der armen Leute von Kombach (Volker Schlöndorff, 1970) abandons the contrived timelessness of the 1950s Heimat film in a historical, pseudo-documentary tale of rural oppression. Schlöndorff weaves strands of critical utopia with bleak naturalism to tell a tale relevant to the 1968 generation. Almost thirty years later, Die Siebtelbauern (Stefan Ruzowitzky, 1998) imagines Schlöndorff’s poor villagers getting a different roll of the dice. A retelling of the 1970 film, Die Siebtelbauern is a bold mix of Heimat narrative in the naturalist mode and fairy tale utopianism. Ruzowitzky echoes Schlöndorff in turning to the home-grown Heimat genre at the start of a career with universal aspiration; this critical Heimat film draws on faint strands of the fairy tale in Kombach and develops them to create a universal political critique that owes much to the critical Western. In Die Siebtelbauern, the potentially conservative sense of belonging and identity intrinsic to the Heimat mode mutates into a violent struggle for land rights creating a revolutionary fairy tale for the age of globalization. The Heimat genre thus endures even into the era of post-national cinema, remaining a point of engagement in the more universalist aesthetic aspirations of the post-Cold War generation.

From ‘das Haus Österreich’ to ‘Häuser in Österreich’. Local, transnational and global images of house, home and Heimat in works by Ingeborg Bachmann, Elisabeth Reichart and Elfriede Jelinek

Juliet Wigmore

University of Salford

In this paper I propose to examine some permutations of the motif ‘houses in Austria’. A dynastic metaphor, translated into a domestic one in Bachmann’s Malina, the image has had reverberations in subsequent Austrian women’s writing in particular. This paper will discuss some examples of the tensions between the domestic siting and its metaphorical implications, which extend beyond the individual to the national, transnational and global.

In Elisabeth Reichart’s fiction, the house is often a site of painful memories, both individual and collective, for instance, in Februarschatten. In her novel Fotze, it is primarily a site of individual memory, of oppression and sexual abuse, yet with transnational reverberations. In her more recent ‘Japanese’ novel, too, Das vergessene Lächeln der Amaterasu, the house is a symbol of the protagonist’s fragile existence, outside her Heimat, where she faces challenges, which have more explicit global implications.

The final section of this paper will consider Elfriede Jelinek’s use of similar, but ironic, symbolism in her recent novel, Gier (2000). Here, it will be argued, ‘das Haus Österreich’ re-emerges as ‘Häuser in Österreich’, an image with which the author subverts the very Heimat of which the ‘houses’ might once have provided a more positive representation. They represent the (alleged) tangible degeneration of the Heimat following the removal of the main political barriers in Europe and with them all constraints on the march of global capitalism.

It will be argued that the ‘house’metaphor reflects processes which have, on the one hand, expanded individual experience from the parochial Heimat to one which has global implications. At the same time, the image continues to represent a medium through which the individual, and perhaps the female protagonist in particular, seeks to maintain a sense of being at home with her own identity.

‘Die Sehnsucht nach Zugehörigkeit’: Heimat in the early works of Helga Königsdorf

Jean E Conacher

University of Limerick, Ireland

In a lecture held in Marburg on 22 January 1989, the GDR writer, Helga Königsdorf, declares that ‘Heimat ... braucht keine Landschaft, kein Staatswesen, kein soziales Gebilde zu sein, kann aber von allem etwas an sich haben’ (1990:15). In the same lecture, she acknowledges that, ‘ohne mir dessen bewußt zu werden, habe ich irgendwann “Heimat” aus meinem aktiven Wortschatz gestrichen’ (1990:15); in the years to follow, this is to become a concept, however, to which Königsdorf returns repeatedly, both in her political essays and her literary works. Through this loss, if not rejection, of a sense of Heimat, a feeling of hurt and isolation emerges; Heimatlosigkeit becomes a ‘Sehnsucht nach Zugehörigkeit, nach Geborgenheit’, which Königsdorf admits experiencing at least twice in her life – in the postwar period and following the events of 1989.

The aim of this paper is to explore this search for belonging in the early works of Helga Königsdorf through questions such as: what do the concepts of Zugehörigkeit und Heimat mean for her literary figures? To what extent does the GDR, or do the new federal states, provide a sense of Heimat? Where do characters find their point of reference – within the (ex-)GDR or the new Germany? What role is played by personal relationships (sexual, domestic, family) in developing a sense of identity and belonging?

The question as to whether, following political reunification, her characters can ever ‘belong’ raises further questions for the reader: is Königsdorf correct when she maintains that the act of belonging is no longer a static condition, but rather one which must be continually re-created? How does this continuous striving for a fixed point in life, this sense of home which might permit the creation and maintenance of identity, reveal itself? Königsdorf suggests that such a process might be mirrored through language and narrative technique, as aspects of belonging express themselves ‘meistens in einer besonderen Sprache’ (1990:15), whilst not-belonging creates ‘eine eigenartige Kühle. Eine Distanz’ (1990: 16). Evidence supporting or contesting this claim will be sought through a close analysis of a range of Königsdorf’s early literary works.

H. Königsdorf (1990) ‘Dichtung und Wahrheit’ in H. Königsdorf, 1989 oder Ein Moment Schönheit. Berlin/Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, SS. 15-18.

‘Ich lebe nicht wirklich in dieser Zeit’: Negotiations of National and Local Identities in Elfriede Brüning’s post-Wende writings.

Joanne Sayner

University of Bath

This paper analyses the shifting national and international allegiances in Elfriede Brüning’s (1910) autobiographical writings since 1989. Following her autobiography of 1994 (Und ausserdem war es mein Leben), a volume of autobiographical short stories has been published: Jeder lebt für sich allein: Nachwende-Notizen (1999). This paper explores, firstly, how the volume thematises competing notions of national identity through recourse to the past. It argues that contemporary hegemonic narratives of the national are resisted through prioritisation of local (East German) antifascist and gender identities. Secondly, it considers how choices of genre simultaneously accentuate ambiguities within these understandings of memory and identity. Finally, the paper examines how textual claims to representativeness and identification, on both national and local levels, can be viewed in the light of the dismissive reception of Brüning as a ‘tedious and rightly neglected loyal party hack writer’.

From speculation to reflection, from memory to fantasy – acknowledging local identity in East German narratives

Susanne Shanks

Goldsmiths College

In this paper, I propose to look at different views of local identity in four East German novels: Mutmassungen über Jakob, (1959) by Uwe Johnson, Levins Mühle. 34 Sätze über meinen Großvater, (1964) by Johannes Bobrowski, Der Weg nach Oobliadooh, (1966) by Fritz Rudolf Fries and Nachdenken über Christa T., (1968) by Christa Wolf. These four narratives, written and published within a decade of each other, can all be classified as both regional and modern novels. The novels were chosen because they illustrate the similarities and differences in the use of regionality (settings and location as well as movements and displacement, etc.). They have all developed modern aesthetics of writing by showing a variety of narrative structures through their descriptions of the processes of speculation and reflection and their explorations into memory and fantasy. This, and the emphasis on local identity, made these novels oppose the dogmatic guidelines of socialist-realist literature and question homogenous concepts of East German literature, especially the idea of 'national literature' / 'sozialistische Nationalliteratur' so often espoused within the DDR.

Overall, I will propose that these narratives of local identity contribute to a more nuanced understanding of East German literature. In developing the concept of a modern, diversified regionalism, I will show different aspects of regional writing, replacing a concept of homogeneity, like 'national literature', with a more realistic concept of 'regional literature' recognising that the style and diversity of local narratives continue to exist without the need for a "national" identity.

A concept of regionalism that goes beyond a traditional understanding of the term will ensure that the diversity of East German literature - especially in regard to modern narratives and local identities - can be recognised and given its rightful place in the literary canon.

“Barren Territory for Grand Narratives”: History and (National) Identity in the Works of Libuše Moníková (1945-1998)

Brigid Haines

University of Swansea

Libuše Moníková’s unusual position as a Czech woman writing in German about Czech history and identity within the shifting bounds of modern European history, and her concomitant themes of exile and trauma make her perspective on the interaction of the local and the global both unique and representative. This paper will take as its starting point Derek Sayer’s argument in The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History (1998) that perspective is crucial to our historical understanding: seen from the outside, Czech history, with its many crises and changes in fortune, seems discontinuous, but this very dislocation is actually the condition of our coherence. This paper will explore the (often problematic) interface of historiography and narrative in Moníková’s works, in particular her sprawling novel Die Fassade (1987) which thematises historiography itself and is particularly rich in references to Czech culture and perceptions of the then Czechoslovakia from within and without. It will argue that historical consciousness is crucial to identity, and that the gaps in consciousness caused by trauma are symptomatic of twentieth-century European experience.

The paper represents one output of a current research project, entitled ‘Maritime Bohemia: Representations of “Bohemia” in Libuše Moníková and other contemporary German writers’, supported by the AHRB and the British Academy.

Frauen als völkerverbindende Friedensengel in “1. April 2000” (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, Ö 1952) und der “Sissi”-Trilogie (Ernst Marischka, Ö 1955-57), zwei filmischen Meilensteinen im Kontext der Re-Austrifizierung und nationalen Identitätsfindung Österreichs

Michaela Gigerl

University of Bristol

“1. April 2000”, der einzige österreichische Science Fiction Film, wurde als ein offizieller Propagandafilm inszeniert, der einerseits der österreichischen Bevölkerung das Vertrauen in sich selbst geben sollte, indem es sich auf die friedfertige Natur der “österreichischen Seele” und die kulturellen Leistungen einer tausendjährigen Geschichte beruft; aber diese “utopische Satire” sollte Österreich auch nach außen im besten Lichte präsentieren und auf unterhaltsame Weise für die Unabhängigkeit Österreichs und den Abzug der vier Besatzungsmächte, die 1952 noch in weiter Ferne lagen, plädieren.

Die bis heute äußerst erfolgreiche “Sissi”-Trilogie (1955-57), ist, wenn auch in ganz anderer Gestalt, ebensosehr ein Kind seiner Zeit. Hier dient der Blick in die habsburgische Vergangenheit ebenso der Selbstvergewisserung als Kulturnation. Im Zentrum der Filme steht die historische Person Elisabeth von Bayern, spätere Kaiserin von Österreich und Königin von Ungarn. Ihr guter Einfluss auf den Kaiser, ihre vorbildlichen Mutterqualitäten und ihre politische Rolle als Friedensstifterin, als Mutter der Nation, entsprechen ganz der konservativen Familienideologie der 50er Jahre.

In beiden Filmen ist eine Verquickung von geschlechtsspezifischer und nationaler Identität zu sehen: die Friedensliebe ist ein Kernkonzept der “wahren Frau” und des “wahren Österreichers”.

Dangerous Comparisons: Zafer Senocak’s treatment of History in Gefährliche Verwandtschaft

Margaret Littler

University of Manchester

Zafer Senocak’s novel Gefährliche Verwandtschaft (1998) has a protagonist who, much like his author, is a second generation German of Turkish origin, living as a writer and journalist in post-unification Berlin. Unlike Senocak, however, Sascha was born in Germany, and has an even more complex hybrid German identity as the son of a Turkish father and a German-Jewish mother, whose family was in exile in Istanbul in the 1930s and 40s. The novel revolves around Sasha’s inheritance of his paternal grandfather’s notebooks, and his decision to write a novel about his grandfather in order to gain access to his own origins. Senocak’s novel weaves the history of the Holocaust and the Armenian massacres of 1915-1916 into the German present, a provocative gesture which has so far received little critical scrutiny. While the novel has been justly acclaimed for its critical reflections on post-unification Germany, this essay focuses on the historical comparison at the heart of the narrative, placing it in the context of debates about the representation and comparability of the Holocaust, and raising questions about the responsibility of literature in treating such violent and contested histories. It argues that the function of the comparison in the novel is primarily to serve the purposes of identity-formation in the present, rather than to further historical understanding or to commemorate the victims of past atrocities. A tension is also identified in the novel’s treatment of assimilation which leaves uneasily open the question of a causal relationship between assimilation and genocide.