DOCSLIB.ORG

The Ethnographic Politics and Poetics of Photography, Skin and Race in the Works of Yoko Tawada

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Ethnographic Politics and Poetics of Photography, Skin and Race in the Works of Yoko Tawada THE ETHNOGRAPHIC POLITICS AND POETICS OF PHOTOGRAPHY, SKIN AND RACE IN THE WORKS OF YOKO TAWADA by JEREMY REDLICH B.A., The University of Victoria, 2000 M.A., The University of British Columbia, 2005 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Germanic Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) October 2012 © Jeremy Redlich, 2012 ABSTRACT This dissertation is a literary studies analysis of select German-language prose, poetry and essays by the contemporary Japanese author Yoko Tawada. In this study I utilize and expand upon Tawada‘s own concept of ‗fictive ethnology‘ as a highly critical and self-reflexive literary approach that can be located throughout her texts. I argue that this fictive ethnological or counter-ethnographic literary technique is what directs the political charge behind Tawada‘s poetics. My focus then is on how Tawada‘s texts as cultural critiques undermine binary distinctions of ‗otherness‘, destabilize the position and authority of the author/narrator representing the other, and reveal the ideology and power structures behind representing, constructing and classifying difference. Unlike the descriptive and textual model of ‗writing culture‘ that engraves and freezes culture into words, Tawada‘s fictive ethnological texts stress the fluid and performative dimension of culture and identity. Therefore, I also demonstrate how these texts are much more about inventing, rather than finding, the self, and about denaturalizing taken-for-granted assumptions about cultural, ethnic and racial differences that are anchored in essentialist, biological and binary logics, than they are an indictment of ethnography or ethnology as research disciplines. The core chapters of this study braid together representations of photography, skin and race and their variegated deployments in Tawada‘s texts, and then explicate their ideological underpinnings. Photography, skin and race, as textual and visual representations, metaphors and themes, are fundamental to how Tawada‘s protagonists are commodified and racialized as ethnographic objects; how they self-identify and are read by others according to restrictive cultural literacies; and how they are classified and made meaningful according to their bodies, especially when these bodies are seen as racially and ethnically marked. Yet, Tawada‘s texts do not simply represent bodies and identities as they already are, but rather the processes, rituals, ii discourses and social practices that make them intelligible as raced, gendered, or ethnically marked beings. Each chapter therefore highlights, in connection to theories of gender and racial performativity, how Tawada‘s texts convey the quotidian, repetitive and ritualistic performance of gendered, racial and ethnic identities, but also how these identities are transgressively (mis)performed against the script. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT..........................................................................................................................................ii TABLE OF CONTENTS...................................................................................................................iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...…….....……………......................…….....…...........……………......vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Goal and Method…...……………....……………............................................................................. 1 1.2 Secondary Scholarship on Tawada.……...............….....................................……………………..20 1.3 Selection of Primary Sources............................................................................................................26 1.4 Chapter Overviews ..........................................................................................................................28 CHAPTER TWO: COUNTER-ETHNOGRAPHY AND PHOTOGRAPHY IN YOKO TAWADA‘S DAS BAD 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 41 2.2 Focusing on the Materiality of the Text: Ein Gedicht für ein Buch .............................................. 43 2.3 The De-Contextualized Image: Photographic Images in Das Bad ................................................ 56 2.4 The Rhetoric of the Image and the Paradox of the Photograph ..................................................... 65 2.5 Objectification and Commodification of the Photographic Subject ............................................. 72 2.6 The Photograph, the Mirror and Processes of Identification in Das Bad ....................................... 77 2.7 Death and the Photographic Medium.............................................................................................. 88 2.8 Authenticity and the Tourism Photograph...................................................................................... 92 2.9 The Predatory Camera: Colonizing the Photographic Image......................................................... 97 2.10 The Myth of Representing Essence ............................................................................................ 108 2.11 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 119 CHAPTER THREE: A HAUTNAH INVESTIGATION OF SKIN IN THE WORKS OF YOKO TAWADA 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 122 3.2 Writing on the Body: ―Der Schriftkörper und der beschriftete Körper‖ ...................................... 123 3.3 Reading Foreignness on the Face: Physiognomy in Verwandlungen ........................................... 132 3.4 Masks, Masquerade and Performativity in Tawada‘s Texts...........................................................145 3.5 Learning to Read Differently: Encounters with Strangers in ―Das Fremde aus der Dose‖ ....... 149 3.6 Techniques of Defamiliarization: Making the Skin Visible ..........................................................155 3.7 Re-Mapping Skinscapes: Metaphors of Geographical and Bodily Boundaries in ―Eine Hautnahme‖ and ―Wo Europa anfängt‖.................................................................................................................... 160 3.8 Puncturing the Bodily Envelope: The Vulnerability of Skin as Material and Metaphor............... 180 3.9 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 197 CHAPTER FOUR: (UN)SETTLING BOUNDARIES: INTERROGATING SKIN COLOUR, RACE, AND ETHNICITY IN SELECT TEXTS BY YOKO TAWADA 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 200 4.2 Tongues in Yoko Tawada‘s African Texts ………………………………………………….…...211 4.3 Language as Boundary and Belonging: The Role of Afrikaans in ―Bioskoop der Nacht‖…........ 224 4.4 Space, Race and Segregation: Constructing Difference through Racial Policies of Apartheid in ―Bioskoop der Nacht‖……………………………………..………………………………………… 243 4.5 Making ‗Whiteness‘ Visible: The Power of (In)visibility in ―Bioskoop der Nacht‖.....................263 4.6 Reconceptualizing Race in ―Eigentlich darf man es niemandem sagen, aber Europa gibt es nicht‖ ..............................................................................................................................................................276 4.7 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................... 287 iv CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION - TAWADA‘S TEXTS AS CULTURAL CRITICISM............ 291 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................. 300 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I hereby offer my sincere and enduring gratitude to the faculty and staff in the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies at the University of British Columbia. The financial, intellectual and emotional support that I received over the years has allowed me to finally accomplish my goal, and for this I will be forever grateful. Particular thanks go to my dissertation committee members Dr. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young (my experience co-teaching with Geoff was one of the highlights of my academic career) and Dr. Illinca Iurascu (I really appreciated her comments and help with my defense), and especially to my supervisor Dr. Markus Hallensleben, who was patient, supportive and understanding throughout the whole writing process. Your questions and feedback, insight and enthusiasm, were extremely useful to me, and I thank you for all the time and commitment you invested in seeing my project through to completion. Over the course of my graduate studies at the University of British Columbia, many graduate students came and went, and I would just like to recognize (former) Department of CENES colleagues Guido Schenkel, Lydia Jones and Ingrid Petro for being wonderful colleagues and friends. Vancouver‘s loss is Berlin‘s gain. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Victoria, which is where my interest in German literature, culture and history was born. Special thanks go to Dr. Peter Gölz, Dr. Matthew Pollard and Dr. Rodney Symington for your inspirational teaching and
Load more

Recommended publications
  • BIRGIT TAUTZ DEPARTMENT of GERMAN Bowdoin College 7700 College Station, Brunswick, ME, 04011-8477, Tel.: (207) 798 7079 [email protected]
    BIRGIT TAUTZ DEPARTMENT OF GERMAN Bowdoin College 7700 College Station, Brunswick, ME, 04011-8477, Tel.: (207) 798 7079 [email protected] POSITIONS Bowdoin College George Taylor Files Professor of Modern Languages, 07/2017 – present Assistant (2002), Associate (2007), Full Professor (2016) in the Department of German, 2002 – present Affiliate Professor, Program in Cinema Studies, 2012 – present Chair of German, 2008 – 2011, fall 2012, 2014 – 2017, 2019 – Acting Chair of Film Studies, 2010 – 2011 Lawrence University Assistant Professor of German, 1998 – 2002 St. Olaf College Visiting Instructor/Assistant Professor, 1997 – 1998 EDUCATION Ph.D. German, Comparative Literature, University of MN, Minneapolis, 1998 M.A. German, University of WI, Madison, 1992 Diplomgermanistik University of Leipzig, Germany, 1991 RESEARCH Books (*peer-review; +editorial board review) 1. Translating the World: Toward a New History of German Literature around 1800, University Park: Penn State UP, 2018; paperback December 2018, also as e-book.* Winner of the SAMLA Studies Book Award – Monograph, 2019 Shortlisted for the Kenshur Prize for the Best Book in Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2019 [reviewed in Choice Jan. 2018; German Quarterly 91.3 (2018) 337-339; The Modern Language Review 113.4 (2018): 297-299; German Studies Review 42.1(2-19): 151-153; Comparative Literary Studies 56.1 (2019): e25-e27, online; Eighteenth Century Studies 52.3 (2019) 371-373; MLQ (2019)80.2: 227-229.; Seminar (2019) 3: 298-301; Lessing Yearbook XLVI (2019): 208-210] 2. Reading and Seeing Ethnic Differences in the Enlightenment: From China to Africa New York: Palgrave, 2007; available as e-book, including by chapter, and paperback.* unofficial Finalist DAAD/GSA Book Prize 2008 [reviewed in Choice Nov.
    [Show full text]
  • Insectivory Characteristics of the Japanese Marten (Martes Melampus): a Qualitative Review
    Zoology and Ecology, 2019, Volumen 29, Issue 1 Print ISSN: 2165-8005 Online ISSN: 2165-8013 https://doi.org/10.35513/21658005.2019.1.9 INSECTIVORY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JAPANESE MARTEN (MARTES MELAMPUS): A QUALITATIVE REVIEW REVIEW PAPER Masumi Hisano Faculty of Natural Resources Management, Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Rd., Thunder Bay, ON P7B 5E1, Canada Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] Article history Abstract. Insects are rich in protein and thus are important substitute foods for many species of Received: 22 December generalist feeders. This study reviews insectivory characteristics of the Japanese marten (Martes 2018; accepted 27 June 2019 melampus) based on current literature. Across the 16 locations (14 studies) in the Japanese archi- pelago, a total of 80 different insects (including those only identified at genus, family, or order level) Keywords: were listed as marten food, 26 of which were identified at the species level. The consumed insects Carnivore; diet; food were categorised by their locomotion types, and the Japanese martens exploited not only ground- habits; generalist; insects; dwelling species, but also arboreal, flying, and underground-dwelling insects, taking advantage of invertebrates; trait; their arboreality and ability of agile pursuit predation. Notably, immobile insects such as egg mass mustelid of Mantodea spp, as well as pupa/larvae of Vespula flaviceps and Polistes spp. from wasp nests were consumed by the Japanese marten in multiple study areas. This review shows dietary general- ism (specifically ‘food exploitation generalism’) of the Japanese marten in terms of non-nutritive properties (i.e., locomotion ability of prey). INTRODUCTION have important functions for martens with both nutritive and non-nutritive aspects (sensu, Machovsky-Capuska Dietary generalists have capability to adapt their forag- et al.
    [Show full text]
  • The Scientific Basis for Conserving Forest Carnivores: American Marten, Fisher, Lynx and Wolverine in the Western United States
    United States The Scientific Basis for Conserving Forest Carnivores Department of Agriculture Forest Service American Marten, Fisher, Lynx, Rocky Mountain and Wolverine Forest and Range Experiment Station in the Western United States Fort Collins, Colorado 80526 General Technical Report RM-254 Abstract Ruggiero, Leonard F.; Aubry, Keith B.; Buskirk, Steven W.; Lyon, L. Jack; Zielinski, William J., tech. eds. 1994. The Scientific Basis for Conserving Forest Carnivores: American Marten, Fisher, Lynx and Wolverine in the Western United States. Gen. Tech. Rep. RM-254. Ft. Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station. 184 p. This cooperative effort by USDA Forest Service Research and the National Forest System assesses the state of knowledge related to the conservation status of four forest carnivores in the western United States: American marten, fisher, lynx, and wolverine. The conservation assessment reviews the biology and ecology of these species. It also discusses management considerations stemming from what is known and identifies information needed. Overall, we found huge knowledge gaps that make it difficult to evaluate the species’ conservation status. In the western United States, the forest carnivores in this assessment are limited to boreal forest ecosystems. These forests are characterized by extensive landscapes with a component of structurally complex, mesic coniferous stands that are characteristic of late stages of forest development. The center of the distrbution of this forest type, and of forest carnivores, is the vast boreal forest of Canada and Alaska. In the western conterminous 48 states, the distribution of boreal forest is less continuous and more isolated so that forest carnivores and their habitats are more fragmented at the southern limits of their ranges.
    [Show full text]
  • Scholarly Editing and German Literature: Revision, Revaluation, Edition
    Scholarly Editing and German Literature: Revision, Revaluation, Edition <UN> Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik Die Reihe wurde 1972 gegründet von Gerd Labroisse Herausgegeben von William Collins Donahue Norbert Otto Eke Martha B. Helfer Sven Kramer VOLUME 86 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/abng <UN> Scholarly Editing and German Literature: Revision, Revaluation, Edition Edited by Lydia Jones Bodo Plachta Gaby Pailer Catherine Karen Roy LEIDEN | BOSTON <UN> Cover illustration: Korrekturbögen des “Deutschen Wörterbuchs” aus dem Besitz von Wilhelm Grimm; Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Libr. impr. c. not. ms. Fol. 34. Wilhelm Grimm’s proofs of the “Deutsches Wörterbuch” [German Dictionary]; Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Libr. impr. c. not. ms. Fol. 34. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jones, Lydia, 1982- editor. | Plachta, Bodo, editor. | Pailer, Gaby, editor. Title: Scholarly editing and German literature : revision, revaluation, edition / edited by Lydia Jones, Bodo Plachta, Gaby Pailer, Catherine Karen Roy. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2015. | Series: Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik ; volume 86 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015032933 | ISBN 9789004305441 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: German literature--Criticism, Textual. | Editing--History--20th century. Classification: LCC PT74 .S365 2015 | DDC 808.02/7--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015032933 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0304-6257 isbn 978-90-04-30544-1 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-30547-2 (e-book) Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
    [Show full text]
  • 18 Au 23 Février
    18 au 23 février 2019 Librairie polonaise Centre culturel suisse Paris Goethe-Institut Paris Organisateur : Les Amis du roi des Aulnes www.leroidesaulnes.org Coordination: Katja Petrovic Assistante : Maria Bodmer Lettres d’Europe et d’ailleurs L’écrivain et les bêtes Force est de constater que l’homme et la bête ont en commun un certain nombre de savoir-faire, comme chercher la nourriture et se nourrir, dormir, s’orienter, se reproduire. Comme l’homme, la bête est mue par le désir de survivre, et connaît la finitude. Mais sa présence au monde, non verbale et quasi silencieuse, signifie-t-elle que les bêtes n’ont rien à nous dire ? Que donne à entendre leur présence silencieuse ? Dans le débat contemporain sur la condition de l’animal, son statut dans la société et son comportement, il paraît important d’interroger les littératures européennes sur les représentations des animaux qu’elles transmettent. AR les Amis A des Aulnes du Roi LUNDI 18 FÉVRIER 2019 à 19 h JEUDI 21 FÉVRIER 2019 à 19 h LA PAROLE DES ÉCRIVAINS FACE LA PLACE DES BÊTES DANS LA AU SILENCE DES BÊTES LITTÉRATURE Table ronde avec Jean-Christophe Table ronde avec Yiğit Bener, Dorothee Bailly, Eva Meijer, Uwe Timm. Elmiger, Virginie Nuyen. Modération : Francesca Isidori Modération : Norbert Czarny Le plus souvent les hommes voient dans la Entre Les Fables de La Fontaine, bête une espèce silencieuse. Mais cela signi- La Méta morphose de Kafka, les loups qui fie-t-il que les bêtes n’ont rien à dire, à nous hantent les polars de Fred Vargas ou encore dire ? Comment s’articule la parole autour les chats nazis qui persécutent les souris chez de ces êtres sans langage ? Comment les Art Spiegelman, les animaux occupent une écrivains parlent-ils des bêtes ? Quelles voix, place importante dans la littérature.
    [Show full text]
  • Program in Comparative Literature
    Program in Comparative Literature Course numbers, sections, times, and campus locations are listed below in the left margin. For more information see http://complit.rutgers.edu/academics/undergraduate/. COURSE DESCRIPTIONS – FALL 2019 195:101:01 Introduction to World Literature: Study of outstanding works of fiction, plays, and poems from European, CAC North and South American, African, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Middle-Eastern parts of the world through MW4 a different theme every semester. Focus on questions of culture, class, gender, colonialism, and on the role of 1:10-2:30pm translation. Fulfills SAS Core Requirement AHp. CA-A1 MU-212 HB- B5 195:101:90 Introduction to World Literature: Study of outstanding works of fiction, plays, and poems from European, Online North and South American, African, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Middle-Eastern parts of the world through TBA a different theme every semester. Focus on questions of culture, class, gender, colonialism, and on the role of translation. Hours by Arrangement. $100 Online Course Support Fee. Fulfills SAS Core Requirement AHp. 195:110:01 Heritage Speakers: More than half of the world’s population speaks or understands a minority language in CAC addition to the majority language. This course looks at the way they use and process each of those languages, M2 the effects bilingualism has on their mind, their culture and their place in society. This is a hybrid course that 9:50-11:10am requires completion of a substantial portion of the work online. The goals of the course are to analyze the FH-A1 degree to which the bilingual experience shape a person's perspectives on the world and the world’s Sanchez perspective on individuals; to examine what perspective bilingualism brings to human experience and cultural production; and to understand the nature of human languages and their speakers through the lens of bilingualism.
    [Show full text]
  • YOKO TAWADA Exhibition Catalogue
    VON DER MUTTERSPRACHE ZUR SPRACHMUTTER: YOKO TAWADA’S CREATIVE MULTILINGUALISM AN EXHIBITION ON THE OCCASION OF YOKO TAWADA’S VISIT TO OXFORD AS DAAD WRITER IN RESIDENCE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, TAYLORIAN (VOLTAIRE ROOM) HILARY TERM 2017 ExhiBition Catalogue written By Sheela Mahadevan Edited By Yoko Tawada, Henrike Lähnemann and Chantal Wright Contributed to by Yoko Tawada, Henrike Lähnemann, Chantal Wright, Emma HuBer and ChriStoph Held Photo of Yoko Tawada Photographer: Takeshi Furuya Source: Yoko Tawada 1 Yoko Tawada’s Biography: CABINET 1 Yoko Tawada was born in 1960 in Tokyo, Japan. She began to write as a child, and at the age of twelve, she even bound her texts together in the form of a first book. She learnt German and English at secondary school, and subsequently studied Russian literature at Waseda University in 1982. After this, she intended to go to Russia or Poland to study, since she was interested in European literature, especially Russian literature. However, her university grant to study in Poland was withdrawn in 1980 because of political unrest, and instead, she had the opportunity to work in Hamburg at a book trade company. She came to Europe by ship, then by trans-Siberian rail through the Soviet Union, Poland and the DDR, arriving in Berlin. In 1982, she studied German literature at Hamburg University, and thereafter completed her doctoral work on literature at Zurich University. Among various authors, she studied the poetry of Paul Celan, which she had already read in Japanese. Indeed, she comments on his poetry in an essay entitled ‘Paul Celan liest Japanisch’ in her collection of essays named Talisman and also in her essay entitled ‘Die Niemandsrose’ in the collection Sprachpolizei und Spielpolyglotte.
    [Show full text]
  • (With) Polar Bears in Yoko Tawada'
    elizaBetH MCNeill university of Michigan Writing and Reading (with) Polar Bears in Yoko Tawada’s Etüden im Schnee (2014)* Wir betraten tatsächlich ein sphäre, die sich zwischen der der tiere und der der Menschen befand. (Etüden im Schnee 129) in 2016, the kleist Prize was awarded to the Japanese-born yoko tawada, a writer well known in both Japan and Germany for her questioning of national, cultural, and linguistic identities through her distinctly playful style. to open the ceremony, Günter Blamberger reflected on tawada’s adaptations of themes in Heinrich von kleist’s work. Blamberger specifically praised both authors’ creation of liminal beings who not only pass through, but make obsolete the “Grenzen zwischen sprachen, schriften, kulturen, religionen, ländern, zwischen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, Mensch und tier, leben und tod” (4). He then highlighted a sample of tawada’s art of transformation, her 2014 novel Etüden im Schnee (translated as Memoirs of a Polar Bear in 2016), which features the narrative voices of three polar bears, much in the style of e.t.a. Hoffmann’s Lebensansichten des Katers Murr (1819) and franz kafka’s “ein Bericht für eine akademie” (1917). Upon consid- ering kleist’s use of the bear in his texts, Blamberger simply characterized tawada’s bears as friendly animals who want to understand—and not eat—their human companions. for Blamberger, tawada gives voice not just to these three border-crossing bears and their “Bärensprache,” but more generally to “Misch- und zwischenwesen” in practicing her own migrational literary theory of culture and communication (4). the resulting “Poetik des Dazwischen, der zwischen- zeiten und zwischenräume” foregrounds the metamorphic, even evolutionary, process at work in moving between languages, spaces, cultures, and forms (5).
    [Show full text]
  • The Future of Text and Image
    The Future of Text and Image The Future of Text and Image: Collected Essays on Literary and Visual Conjunctures Edited by Ofra Amihay and Lauren Walsh The Future of Text and Image: Collected Essays on Literary and Visual Conjunctures, Edited by Ofra Amihay and Lauren Walsh This book first published 2012 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2012 by Ofra Amihay and Lauren Walsh and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-3640-0, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-3640-1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface....................................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Image X Text W. J. T. Mitchell PART I: TEXT AND IMAGE IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY Chapter One............................................................................................... 15 Portrait of a Secret: J. R. Ackerley and Alison Bechdel Molly Pulda Chapter Two.............................................................................................. 39 PostSecret as Imagetext: The Reclamation of Traumatic Experiences
    [Show full text]
  • MATTERS of RECOGNITION in CONTEMPORARY GERMAN LITERATURE by JUDITH HEIDI LECHNER a DISSERTATION Presented to the Department Of
    MATTERS OF RECOGNITION IN CONTEMPORARY GERMAN LITERATURE by JUDITH HEIDI LECHNER A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of German and Scandinavian and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2015 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Judith Heidi Lechner Title: Matters of Recognition in Contemporary German Literature This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of German and Scandinavian by: Susan Anderson Chairperson Michael Stern Core Member Jeffrey Librett Core Member Dorothee Ostmeier Core Member Michael Allan Institutional Representative and Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded September 2015 ii © 2015 Judith Heidi Lechner This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDervis (United States) License. iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Judith Heidi Lechner Doctor of Philosophy Department of German and Scandinavian September 2015 Title: Matters of Recognition in Contemporary German Literature This dissertation deals with current political immigration debates, the conversations about the philosophical concept of recognition, and intercultural encounters in contemporary German literature. By reading contemporary literature in connection with philosophical, psychological, and theoretical works, new problem areas of the liberal promise of recognition become visible. Tied to assumptions of cultural essentialism, language use, and prejudice, one of the main findings of this work is how the recognition process is closely tied to narrative. Particularly within developmental psychology it is often argued that we learn and come to terms with ourselves through narrative.
    [Show full text]
  • Reflections on Exophonic Strategies in Yoko Tawada's Schwager in Bordeaux Flora Roussel
    Nomadic Subjectivities: Reflections on Exophonic Strategies in Yoko Tawada’s Schwager in Bordeaux Flora Roussel Department of World’s Literatures and Languages University of Montreal Pavillon Lionel-Groulx, C-8 3150 rue Jean-Brillant Montreal H3T 1N8 Quebec, Canada E-mail: [email protected] Abstract: The author Yoko Tawada is well known for her exophonic and experimental work. Writing in German and in Japanese, she joyfully plays with questions of identity, nation-state, culture, language, among other. As exophony in theory and practice is at the center of each of her novels, it thus appears interesting to look closer to the strategies Tawada develops in order to disturb and subvert categorizations. Taking Schwager in Bordeaux as a case study, this paper intends to analyze how Tawada’s exophony de/construct subjectivity. It will first put light on the very concept of exophony, before leaving the space for a close reading analysis of the novel on two specific aspects: dematerialization and rematerialization, which both will aim to draw an exophonic portrait of nomadic writing through its focus on subjectivity. Keywords: Exophony, Subjectivity, Language, Yoko Tawada, Schwager in Bordeaux. Introduction: Marking the Subject/s In response to being asked why she writes not only in German, but also in Japanese, Yoko Tawada [多和田葉子/Tawada Yōko] explains: “I am a bilingual being. I don’t know why exactly, but, for me, it’s inconceivable to stick to only one language.” (Gutjahr 2012, 29; my translation)1 In her portraying a subjectivity navigating offshore, that is, away from monolingualism, the author has created an impressive body of work: since 1987, she has published more than 55 books – approximately half of which are in German, and performed 1170 readings around the world (Tawada 2020, online).
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to German Literature
    Introduction to German Literature Course Number GERM-UA 9152 D01 Fall 2019 Syllabus last updated on: 29-7-2019 Lecturer Contact Information Course PD Dr. Elke Brüns [email protected] Details Tuesday 10:00am to 12:45pm Location: Rooms will be posted in Albert before your first class. Please double check whether your class takes place at the Academic Center (BLAC – Schönhauser Allee 36, 10435 Berlin) or at St. Agnes (SNTA – Alexandrinenstraße 118-121, 10969 Berlin). Prerequisites Intermediate German II. Furthermore, it is strongly recommended that students also take Composition & Conversation before taking this class. Units earned 4 Course Description Der Kurs führt in die Geschichte der deutschen Literatur vom 18. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart ein. Anhand repräsentativer Werke vermittelt er einen Überblick über zentrale Epochen und Gattungen, erste literaturwissenschaftliche Fachbegriffe werden erläutert. Kontinuitäten und Brüche, die als signifikante Entwicklungslinien oder Zäsuren die Literaturgeschichte markieren, werden im historischen und gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhang diskutiert. Der Kurs beinhaltet Exkursionen innerhalb Berlins, zudem werden wir mit einer Autorin über Gegenwartsliteratur diskutieren. Der Kurs wird durchgängig in deutscher Sprache unterrichtet. This course provides an introduction to the history of German Literature from the 18th century up until the present. By reading representative texts, students will receive an overview of various epochs and genres. In addition, the basic terminology of literary studies will be explained. Continuities and disruptions that have significantly influenced the history of literature will be discussed in their historical and social contexts. Some Sessions will be held outside the classroom, and we will discuss with an author about contemporary literature. The class will be taught entirely in German.
    [Show full text]