America's Function in the Imagination of a (Re
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An Obsolete Hegemon? America’s Function in the Imagination of a (Re-)unified German Nation Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Simon Losch, M.A. Graduate Program in Germanic Languages and Literatures The Ohio State University 2017 Dissertation Committee: John E. Davidson, Adviser Nina Berman Robert C. Holub Paul Reitter Copyright by Simon Losch 2017 Abstract German cultural artifacts after 1990 use the representation of America in an attempt to come to terms with and construct a German nation after the fall of the Wall. America has long been a reference point for discourses of German nationhood, often in very dichotomic terms of utopia and dystopia. The (re-)unification provided a unique historical situation in which modes of German communal identification had to be (re-)negotiated, as it brought together two different forms of social, political, and economic organization. Postmodern multiplicity and the German historic guilt seem to make modern modes such as nation impossible to hold up. This dissertation, however, looks at the persistence of German national tropes in representations of Amerika in (Eastern) German literature and film. Next to nation, the term obsoleteness grants this dissertation its specific perspective, as it unites the concept of nation in large parts of the German erudite discourse with the historical situation of the dissolution of the GDR, and the resulting personal, political, and economic situation of the former citizens of East-Germany. In the chapters divided by the two forms of media and subdivided into narratives of America as refuge and as adventure, as well as Americanization, it examines the media-specific constructions of America and how they reflect on discourses of German nationhood post-Wende. The image of America portrayed in these texts and films actually suggests the systemic unwillingness or even impossibility of a communal construction that transcends the borders of the nation. America’s position in its paradigm of the Self and the Other, however, has been shifting. Due to its medial overdetermination, it can no longer fulfill the ii nineteenth-century fantasy of the absolute Other, despite the persistence of those fantasy of adventure and refuge. Instead, I argue, it works in the dialectic incarnation of the Other that endangers the Self and as a model for the inclusion of difference and hybridity. No matter how the cultural products evaluate America and the German nation, they appear as interdependent in the formation of personal and communal identities. iii Dedication Dedicated to Sharon iv Acknowledgements The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the participation and assistance of so many people whose names may not all be enumerated. All their contributions are sincerely appreciated and gratefully acknowledged. However, I would like to express my appreciation particularly to the following people, to whom I am deeply indebted professionally and personally. I would like to sincerely thank Professor John Davidson for a sometimes bumpy but always enlightening ride through the production of this dissertation. In addition, I would like to express gratitude to my committee, Professor Nina Berman, Professor Robert Holub, and Professor Paul Reitter for their fruitful feedback and guidance along the way. Some special thanks also to the Professors Bernhard Malkmus and May Mergenthaler for their insights, ideas, and thorough critiques of my work. I want to thank Barbara Heck and Dr. Kevin Richards for their help with the dissertation’s language and content, Harrison Baldwin for his help as proxy, as well as Natascha Miller for the prompt assistance and good talks. Further, I would like to extend my gratitude to the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at The Ohio State University for all the opportunities for personal and professional growth. Finally, I want to thank all the friends and family that kept me sane and grounded during the inspiring but tasking times. I want to especially single out Sharon Gardner-Losch for her patience and unending moral support, Jonas Hariri and Katharina Kuhr for the open ear and the distractions, Marcus Breyer for the inspiration and the heated discussions, as well as Ruth Gräf-Lösch and Klaus Lösch for their care. v Vita July 2004 ...……………………......... Bertolt-Brecht-Schule 2010 ………………………………… M.A. German Studies, The University of Alabama 2011 ………………………………… M.A. Areastudies North-America, Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen – Nuremberg 2015 to 2015 ……………………….. Fellow, Technical University Dresden 2011 to 2017………………………… Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of Germanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: Germanic Languages and Literatures Minor Field: Film Studies vi Table of Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………............................ ii Dedication …………………………………………………………………………...… iv Acknowledgemets …………………………………………………………………........ v Vita …………………………………………………………………………………....... vi Chapter 1: Introduction ………………………………………………………......…… 1 1.1. America, Amerika, and the United States ………………………………...... 4 1.2. Objects of research and analytical horizons……………………………........ 8 1.3. Literature overview ………………………………………….................. 11 1.4. Nation as construct of communal identification ...……………………….... 18 Chapter 2: The Obsoleteness of the Nation …...…....………………………………….. 25 2.1. Origins, differentiations, and effects of obsolescence …………...……….. 30 2.2. History and obsoleteness ...…………….…………………………..........….. 34 2.3. Nation and the subject of a lack ………………………………………......... 45 2.4. The cultural specificity of the Nation-Thing: America and Germany ........... 59 2.5. Amerika as Ersatz for the obsolete Nation-Thing ………………………..... 72 Chapter 3: Amerika as a Refuge – The Quest for a Lost Fantasy …….....………………...99 3.1. Stadt der Engel ………………………………………………………….... 107 3.1.1. The theme of memory and obsoleteness ……………………………...... 112 3.1.2. Refuge and confrontation: Amerika’s initial role for the protagonist ...... 127 3.1.3. Solutions: hybridity, acceptance, and the global in the local …………... 136 vii 3.2. Schultze gets the blues …………………………………………………..... 159 3.2.1. Schultze as Heimatfilm ………………………………………………..... 163 3.2.2. Ubiquitous Amerika …………………………………………………...... 167 3.2.3. Amerika and the power of disruption ....……………………………........ 171 3.2.4. Amerika as path into hybridity .....……………………………………..... 173 3.2.5. Music between Heimat, disruptive force, and connective semiotic system ……………………………………...... 176 3.2.6. Amerika as refuge ……………………………………………………... 181 3.2.7. Obsoleteness and change - Amerika as possibility in Germany …......... 191 3.3. Chapter conclusion ……………………………………………………...... 194 Chapter 4: Amerika as an Adventure …………………….………………………….... 201 4.1. Berlin–New York – the discovery of the Other and the nation in the everyday ……….……...... 218 4.2. Wie ich nach Chihuahua kam – in search for an Other and a stable concept of the German nation ...…..... 238 4.3. Formen menschlichen Zusammenlebens – adventure into Amerikanization ……………………………………....... 251 4.4. Friendship! – or the German fantasy of Amerika as a Global Village …... 264 4.5. Chapter conclusion ……………………………………………………....... 279 Chapter 5: Amerika in Germany ……………………………………………………..... 287 5.1. The history of Amerikanization between Amerikanism and Anti-Amerikanism ………………………....... 289 5.1.1. Amerikanization and West-Germany ………………………………….. 290 viii 5.1.2. Amerikanization and East-Germany …………………………………... 297 5.1.3. Amerikanization after the Wende ............................................................. 302 5.2. Amerika/Amerikanization in cultural products - Ostalgie and the romantic Amerika …………………………………....... 304 5.3. Vergiss Amerika – the catastrophes of Amerikanization ……………...... 310 5.4. Die Atlantische Mauer and the failed emigration ……………………….. 332 5.5. Chapter conclusion ……………………………………………………..... 352 Chapter 6: Conclusion: The Discourse on Amerika and the Problematic Constitution of a (Re-)unified German Nation ...………... 357 References …………………………………………………………………………...... 377 ix Chapter 1: Introduction “Amerika,” as totum pro parte for the United States of America, has been an important discursive figure in Germany for the last 200 years, as it went from the new land of opportunity to the world’s military, economic, and cultural hegemon; West Germany’s occupying authority, important ally, and trade partner; and East Germany’s identity- forming political enemy. After the collapse of the Soviet system and German (re- )unification, American hegemony appeared to be the new world order and many already speculated about “the end of history,” in which the world would eternally live in a neo- liberal capitalist system under the control of the United States. But soon enough the system revealed its weaknesses and inhumanities and the United States actually began to lose influence around the world. In the last twenty years, the continuous global reign of the United States and the continuation of the “pax Americana” have been thrown into increasing doubt over an insecurity about the United State’s future and its shifting role in the world that has reached its climax with the election of Donald Trump and its subsequent erratic behavior (cf. Kupchan 40-41; Clarkson “End of Pax Americana”). Trump’s election, however, simultaneously is a direct result of the diminishing