Description
Book SynopsisWriting against Boundaries. Nationality, Ethnicity and Gender in the German-speaking Context presents a series of essays by prominent scholars who critically explore the intersection of nation and subjectivity, the production of national identities, and the tense negotiation of multiculturalism in German-speaking countries. By looking at a wide spectrum of texts that range from Richard Wagner's operas to Hans Bellmer's art, and to literature by Aras Ören, Irene Dische, Annette Kolb, Elizabeth Langgässer, Karin Reschke, Christa Wolf, to contemporary German theater by Bettina Fless, Elfriede Jelinek, Anna Langhoff, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, and to Monika Treut's films, the volume explores the intersection of gender, ethnicity and nation and examines concepts of national culture and the foreigner or so-called 'other.' Focusing on such issues as immigration, xenophobia, gender, and sexuality, the volume looks at narratives that sustain the myth of a homogeneous nation, and those that disrupt it. It responds to a growing concern with borders and identity in a time in which borders are tightening as the demands of globalization increase.
Trade Review"… the work as a whole is useful and enlightening." - in: German Studies Review, Vol. 27, nr. 3 (Oct. 2004)
Table of ContentsBarbara KOSTA and Helga KRAFT: Introduction: Writing against Boundaries MONIKA SCHAUSTEN: “Only Germany raises real men for the world”: Richard Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen, Nation, and the Third Reich Martha KAARSBERG WALLACH: Exile and Nation, Body and Gender in the Works of Talvj (1797-1870) Vivian LISKA: The “New Woman” as a Foreigner: Individual and National Identity in Annette Kolb's novel Das Exemplar Claudia BREGER: Narratives of Nomadism or Copying German Culture Susanne BAACKMANN: Symptomatic Bodies: Fascism, Gender and Hans Bellmer's Dolls Barbara KOSTA: Murderous Boundaries: Nation, Memory and Austria's Fascist Past in Elfriede Jelinek's Stecken, Stab und Stangl Elizabeth LOENTZ: A Turkish-German Odyssey: Aras Ören's Eine verspätete Abrechnung oder Der Aufstieg der Gündoğdus Helga W. KRAFT: Staging Xenophobia in the 1990s: The Political Plays of Bettina Fless, Anna Langhoff, and Emine Sevgi Özdamar Inge STEPHAN: The Bad Mothers: Medea-Myths and National Discourse in Texts from Elisabeth Langgässer and Christa Wolf Helga W. KRAFT: Searching for a Motherland: Women Breaking Their Generational Chains in Christa Wolf's Kindheitsmuster, Sommerstück, and Medea. Stimmen Elke LIEBS: The Body as Exile in the Works of Irene Dische Andrea REIMANN: New German Cinema's Boundaries Opened: Postmodern Authorship and Nationality in Monika Treut's Films of the 1980s Bibliography and Filmography Contributors to this Volume Index
