THE SPATIAL IMAGINATION OF ACCELERATED GLOBALIZATION IN CONTEMPORARY GERMAN-LANGUAGE NOVELS A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in German By Brooke D. Kreitinger, B.A. Washington, DC August 23, 2012 Copyright 2012 by Brooke D. Kreitinger All Rights Reserved ii THE SPATIAL IMAGINATION OF ACCELERATED GLOBALIZATION IN CONTEMPORARY GERMAN-LANGUAGE NOVELS Brooke D. Kreitinger, B.A. Thesis Advisor: Katrin Sieg, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates how contemporary German-language novels respond to changes in the ways in which people imagine living in relation to others under current conditions of globalization. I pay particular attention to how literary texts evoke alternative frames of belonging and modes of living under conditions of social transformation. I use theoretical contributions from literary scholars as well as cultural and social theories to identify literary models of transnational, cosmopolitan existence. In particular, I draw on Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life to assess how literature grapples with issues of human space as their narrators and characters navigate socio-cultural, spatial and political boundaries. The selected novels explore everyday life on various scales of space. In Die Vermessung der Welt (2005), Daniel Kehlmann engages with Eurocentric notions of the global scale in the early modern era. I contend that the disjuncture between his protagonists’ models of fluid space in contrast to the dominant model of absolute space results from cultural conditions associated with the capitalist logic of competition and individual success, which leads to unethical, alienating forms of intersubjectivity and a lack of agency. I then elucidate how Jenny Erpenbeck’s Heimsuchung (2008) and Kerstin Hensel’s Im Spinnhaus (2003) question cultural dimensions left intact in Kehlmann’s world of flows by depicting the domestic space in eastern German provinces in order to unsettle patterns of behaviors that have resulted in fixity despite social iii transformation. Lastly, I assess how Perikles Monioudis’ Land (2007) and Feridun Zaimoglu’s Liebesbrand (2008) challenge modern approaches to space by engaging with questions of interpersonal proximity and forms of affinity associated with postmigrant existences in translocal settings of post-Cold War Europe. With recourse to the discourse of globalization, I contend that these novels grapple with perceptions and experiences of globalization through themes of alienation, stagnation in the face of acceleration, and difficulty in creating emotional bonds. By investigating the everyday interactions and behaviors that occur in the respective imagined worlds, I uncover notions of Germanness and cultural conditions that the authors associate with the contemporary malaise depicted in their novels. iv This dissertation is dedicated to my family and friends for all of their support along the way. Profound gratitude goes to Adam for his unending encouragement and patience. I also extend deep gratitude to my mother, who has been there for every step of the journey. Many thanks to my faculty mentors and fellow graduate students of the Georgetown German Department. I also dedicate this work to the memory of Otmar Drekonja – his enthusiastic belief in me kindled the fire. Brooke D. Kreitinger v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 A. Accelerated Globalization: Transformation and Anxiety in the German Context ........... 9 B. The ‘Spatial Turn’ and German Studies ......................................................................... 17 C. Contemporary Literary Tactics in Accelerated Globalization ....................................... 25 Chapter 2: Daniel Kehlmann’s Die Vermessung der Welt: Reconciling the Cracks in the Spatial Imagination of Accelerated Globalization .................................................................................... 38 A. Enter the “Literator”: Germany’s Global Literary Fame ............................................... 47 B. Questioning the Myth of the Good German Globalizers ............................................... 51 C. A Corrective Metapoetic of Abstract Interconnectedness .............................................. 59 D. The Ethics of an Aestheticized Life: Alexander von Humboldt’s Approach to the World. ............................................................................................................................ 65 E. Unbending in a Curved World: Carl Friedrich Gauss’ Pained Existence ...................... 78 F. Conclusion: Reconciliation in the Frozen Space of Absolutist Prussia ......................... 89 Chapter III: Cleaning the Glocal House: Breaking Cycles of German Domestic Practices in the East(ern) German Province ......................................................................................................... 100 A. Anxiety in a Post-Unification Gendered Risk Environment ........................................ 107 B. (Re)thinking Heimat and Home ................................................................................... 113 C. Home Wrecking: Coping with Cycles of Territorial Patriarchy in Jenny Erpenbeck’s Heimsuchung................................................................................................................ 119 D. Im Spinnhaus: Working on the Maddening Margins of Gender and Class .................. 136 E. Conclusion: Practicing a Glocal Spatial Imagination in the Post-socialist Provincial Microcosm ................................................................................................................... 153 Chapter IV: Seeking Proximity: Spatial Malaise in Postmigrant Novels ................................... 157 A. A Paradigm Shift in Spatial Metaphors ....................................................................... 163 B. Existence by Comparison: Overcoming Distance in Perikles Monioudis’ Land ......... 170 C. Desiring Proximity in Zaimoglu’s Liebesbrand .......................................................... 188 D. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 205 Conclusion: Relating to Others in an Age of Globalization ....................................................... 211 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................ 217 vi Chapter 1: Introduction This dissertation investigates how contemporary German-language novels respond to changes in the ways in which people imagine living in relation to others under current conditions of globalization. I pay particular attention to the ways in which literary texts evoke alternative frames of belonging and modes of living in conditions of social transformation. I use theoretical contributions from literary scholars as well as cultural and social theories to identify literary models of transnational, cosmopolitan existence. My approach is informed primarily by the work of the so-called spatial turn. In contradistinction to the paradigm of a priori, absolute space as a container or surface for humans and things, the “spatial turn” developed out of postmodern thought and espouses a notion of space as co-produced by social interaction, which includes the perception and use of space as well as the symbolic level of representations of space (Bachmann-Medick 292). Inasmuch as works of imagination and discursive constructs form the meanings of spaces and vice versa,1 common images such as the “global village” or in virtual terms the “World Wide Web” exemplify ways in which many of us have come to imagine an interconnected world. These notions, while implying certain vague features of globalization, such as interconnectedness and, with “village,” an almost idealized sense of traditional community, are symptomatic of the diffuse associations of “globalization.” These images are not solely formed by the “reality” of global dynamics; they also represent images according to which globalization has been shaped. Despite the vagueness of the term, which seems to render its processes and dynamics inscrutable, 1Henri Lefebvre poses a tripartite concept of space comprised of representations of space (eg the conceptualizations of urban planning, science, etc.), representational space as lived through its symbols and images, and the empirical level of daily spatial practices (33). Eduard Soja builds on Lefebvre’s conceptual triad with his notion of “thirdspace” according to which space is always both “real-and-imagined.” See Soja’s Postmodern Geographies and Thirdspace. In Space, Place and Gender, Doreen Massey addresses the meaning of human space specifically in relation to gender, problematizing how notions of gender have been constructed in relation to certain notions of place and space and vice versa. 1 globalization has not simply come into being on its own. Globalization is about politics and relationships of power. Therefore, understanding the ways in which space is organized by and in turn organizes social relations is central to making sense of the diffuse notion that is globalization. This is precisely where I see my approach to literature contributing to understanding how globalization shapes literature and how literature shapes globalization.