Spiel Siegener Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft

spiel Siegener Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft

Jg.. 30 (2011), Heft 1

Peter Lang Frankfurt am Main · Berlin · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Wien Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.

ISSN 2199-8078 © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2012 Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. www.peterlang.de spiel Siegener Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft

Jg. 30 (2011), Heft 1

Auf dem Weg zu einer Narratologie der „Geschichtsschreibung“ Towards a Historiographic Narratology

Herausgegeben von / edited by Julia Nitz (Halle) & Sandra Harbert Petrulionis (Altoona)

Siegener Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft

Herausgeber dieses Heftes / Editors of this issue: Julia Nitz & Sandra Harbert Petrulionis

Inhalt / Contents SPIEL 30 (2011), H. 1

Julia Nitz, Sandra Harbert Petrulionis (Halle/Altoona) Towards a Historiographic Narratology: Résumé 1

Penelope Frangakis (Athens) The Role of the Historian as an Author/Narrator: The Case of Herodotus’s The Histories 7

Stephan Jaeger (Winnipeg) Poietic Worlds and Experientiality in Historiographic Narrative 29

Hanna Meretoja (Turku) An Inquiry into Historical Experience and Its Narration: The Case of Günter Grass 51

Alun Munslow (Dodsleigh) The Historian as Author 73

Julia Nitz (Halle) In Fact No Fiction: Historiographic Paratext 89

Yair Seltenreich (Upper Galilee) Personal Diaries as Historical Narratives: Yossef Nachmani and the Galilee, 1935-1941 113

Beverley Southgate (London) “All their Feet on the Ground”?: Tidy (Hi)stories in Question 131

RUBRIC

Norbert Groeben (Heidelberg) Empirisierung (in) der Literaturwissenschaft: wissenschaftsinterne und -externe Dynamiken 151

Thomas Wilke (Halle) Mashup-Kultur und Musikvideos. Aktuelle Entwicklungen audiovisueller Auflösung und Verdichtung in Mashup-Videos 159

SPIEL 30 (2011) H. 1, 113–130 10.3726/80121_113

Yair Seltenreich (Upper Galilee, IL)

Personal Diaries as Historical Narratives: Yossef Nachmani and the Galilee, 1935–1941

Yossef Nachmani erwarb in den 1920er und 1930er Jahren im palästinensischen Mandatsgebiet arabisches Land für jüdische Siedlungen. Über drei Dekaden hinweg notierte er seine Aktivitäten in Tagebüchern. In seinen Einträgen verbindet sich seine persönliche Geschichte eng mit der „Geschichte“ der zionistischen Bewegung. Ziel dieses Artikels ist es, durch eine Analyse verschie- dener Aspekte des faszinierenden Zusammenspiels dieser beiden Erzählebenen genauer zu be- leuchten, welche Art der Interaktion zwischen Juden und Arabern in Palästina in den turbulenten 1930er Jahren stattfand, und auf welche Ursachen, insbesondere hinsichtlich ethischer und ideologischer Werte und Ansichten, sich dies zurückführen lässt. Die Tagebücher Nachmanis, als private/persönliche Erzählungen, sind sowohl auf soziologischer als auch auf psychologischer Ebene authentische und ungewöhnliche Zeugen der „Geschichte von unten” (“history from below”), die einen Einblick in die Befindlichkeiten und Vorurteile der arabischen und jüdischen Bevölke- rungsgruppen im Palästina der 1930er Jahre erlauben.

Nachmani’s Diaries as Historical Narrative

In this article, I intend to show how a personal narrative is able to contribute to a better understanding of a historical process despite its subjectivity. I shall base my argument on the personal diaries of Yossef Nachmani written between 1935 and 1941. Nachmani took an active and significant part in the purchase of private Arab lands for Jewish national institutions prior to the creation of the state of Israel. I will locate apparently particular events and attitudes reflected in the narrative within a larger framework. The voice of the narrator in the diaries is seen as an expression of hidden, or perhaps subconscious, conceptions that were common to the Jewish mainstream in Palestine at that time. The contribution of the narrative to the understanding of historical processes therefore lies not in the events it describes but rather in the verbal expression of latent states of mind at a given historical moment. The issue concerning the unclear demarcation line between literary narrative and historiography has been raised through last decades by various researchers such as Hayden White (1973) or Ricœur (1983). I shall point here very briefly at only some elements that contribute to this confusion. They all concern the very problematic transmission (or, should we rather say, interpretation?) of historical “facts” (the very existence of which is rather problematic) in the form of a narrative. Such a transmission is necessarily connected with the personal involvement of the narrator in the historical episode, his or her retrospective evaluation of past events, or the moral significance which s/he attributes to those events. In other words, it is impossible to only narrate what 114 Yair Seltenreich

“happened,” and the historical narrative necessarily becomes a subjective interpretation, a “limited” narrative. In that way, the historical narrative projects sentiments and interpretations from the personal onto the public level. The narrator may attribute different significances to himself through the historical narrative, either as a participant (such as in Yossef Nachmani’s case) or as an interpreter. We may take as an example the classic book of Henry Kissinger (1964) about the Congress of Vienna, a book that reproduces both the narrative of the victory of European conservatism and that of the author’s concept of diplomacy. The book has two heroes: Metternich, the historical personality, and Kissinger himself as a narrator. Indeed, it is not by mere chance that Kissinger later tried to adopt many of Metternich’s methods when he served as U.S. Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977. Kissinger’s book also reflects the tendencies of historical narratives, particularly biographies, to concentrate on elites – political, social, or cultural. We should notice that when the narrator is not a leading personality but part of the rank and file, and formulates the narrative from a peripheral point of view, both the plot and its interpretations are seen from a particular angle, which gives partial emphasis both of facts and of their interpretations. It might be seen as a variation of the meta-narrative. The result reflects, for example, an alternative approach to normative concepts created by the elites. Such a phenomenon can be witnessed through the self-redefinition of schoolteachers’ roles in remote villages in the Galilee during the initial period of Jewish settlement (cf. Dror 2007). In other words, a peripheral narrative can highlight hidden emotional processes generated by macro-historical developments. Personal narrative is often transmitted through memories, a personal diary, or a series of letters (cf. von der Heyden-Rynsch 1997), which necessarily bear an intimate undertone. These private writings, combined with a historical context, formulate a kind of historical narrative in which personal experience is naturally emphasized. Since this article is based on a personal diary, we should consider briefly some aspects related to the characteristics of such a source. In a diary, the events and the narrative are synchronic, that is with no historical perspective. Moreover, because in fact the narrative never “ends,” the plot emphasizes the experiential and emotional elements that become a central factor in the narrative. Manipulative interpretations, either planned or unconscious, are of course possible. They draw from psychological and social, but mainly cultural sources and may appear in the form of judgment, based on generalizations, prejudices, or non-critical interpretations of a fixed set of values. Thus each diary turns into an internal dialogue, in which we find side-by-side retrospective consideration of generalized situations and auto-retrospections, where the role of the narrator tends to be examined through an apologetic spectrum. When the context is national, as in our case, the generalizations might include, for instance, pre-conceived interactions between “Jewish,” “Arab,” and “British” stereotypes, while the apologetic approach is reflected through positive comparisons between the narrator and his or her national group. In a previous article (Seltenreich 2005), I have examined the personal diaries of Yehuda Antebi, a rural schoolteacher in Galilee Jewish settlements. Antebi, a religious conservative who lived in a non-observant community, struggled through his diaries to find the balance between differing interpretations of national terminology given by him

Personal Diaries as Historical Narratives 115 versus those of local farmers, such as the significance of “the land of Israel.” A common factor between them was finally found through mutual hostility to two “other” groups: a national group, represented by the Arabs, and a sociological group, comprised of the cooperative assemblies of Hebrew workers. In that way, the personal narrative of Antebi helped to reflect the state of mind of large social groups. It might be said that in a symbolic way it thus became not only a personal but a public diary.

Historical Context of Nachmani’s Diaries

Modern Jewish immigration to Palestine began in 1882. Three essential characteristics should be briefly examined. The first one is intentionality. Five million Jews left Eastern and Central Europe between the years 1880–1930. Only one percent of them reached Palestine, a country that symbolized for them the mythological fatherland, with the hope of creating a Jewish state. Most Jews who came to Palestine were activists and goal- oriented. Another feature is responsibility. The unusual willingness of these Jewish immigrants to sacrifice private dreams for the sake of public realities can be explained by an extraordinary concentration of ideals and willpower. Thus were born several fascinating, though somewhat naïve, experiments, which tended to turn ideologies into sheer realities. The kibbutzim tried to concretize collectivism in everyday life; many eighteen-year old youngsters preferred agricultural settlement in remote frontier regions to the pursuit of personal career. Much of Jewish society perceived self-obligation to the Yishuv, the whole Jewish community, as a central value. The third component was nationalism. Analyzing the latent features of Jewish nationalism in Palestine is a complicated task. It was imbued, as in other national frameworks that developed at the beginning of the twentieth century, particularly in Central Europe and the Balkans, with romantic views of the “people” or the “fatherland,” underlining historical “justice” and an effort towards cultural uniformity, which emphasized “organic”-genetic motives backed by strong symbolism. Jewish nationalism was perhaps unique, however, in that it highlighted the motive of regeneration: the revival of the people and their symbolic reintegration in the fatherland. Regeneration was also cultural, reflected particularly in the revival of the Hebrew language. Finally, nationalism bore a “genetic” undertone through the aspiration to create a “new” Jew, symbolically named “Hebrew,” a denomination that signified the attachment of the human being to the land. The Hebrew was perceived as mentally and even physiologi- cally superior to the “shabby” Jews who remained in the Diaspora. All three characteristics are forcefully superficial and unilateral, and they evaded social, political, or cultural complexities. This unilateralism is seemingly the main feature of the Zionist meta-narrative in Palestine as well as the secondary narratives it engen- dered. Through these strategies Hebrew society in Palestine created its own particular narrative, a narrative in the present tense, where actions are simultaneously conceived and realized. It is a self-generated historical narrative, comprised of a mixture of values,

116 Yair Seltenreich aims, and plot, of narrators and heroes, with unclear demarcations between reality and imagination. This view is essential when we analyze the Nachmani diaries. Another aspect to consider is related to the tensions that appeared in Jewish settlements between rationalism and emotionalism. While the former reflected planning and realization the latter signified hidden but intensive yearning for emotional recompenses. It was to be found with leaders and ordinary people alike. It might explain the unusual profusion of memorial and commemorative books that accompanied generations of Hebrew settlements. It also filtered into Israeli political discourse that essentially reflects the unending struggle for the role of the “good” hero in the narrative. Before 1948, the heroes of the Zionist narrative were guided by three narratological subjects. The first was the creation of a Hebrew state. A second theme reflected the concept of the land, which was expressed by a symbolic return to agriculture. Land signified the concrete attachment to the fatherland, while agriculture underlined its deep roots and authenticity (cf. Neumann 2010). Particular importance was given to frontier regions, where the sense of sacrifice by the Hebrew settler was more tangible. The Galilee, especially Eastern Galilee where Nachmani operated, was considered a region of wilderness (Ever Hadani 1956), and therefore deemed more attractive (cf. Eisenstadt 1938). A third focus was the particular person. Zionist narrative bore clear stereotyping elements and, as mentioned earlier, Zionist narrative in Palestine considered each Jew mainly in relation to his or her original ethnic group (Kurd, Yemennite etc.), which was seen in a critical, rather than merely descriptive, light. In this way, the Hebrew man was judged in respect to his social position (a worker in a collective community, a city merchant etc.), rather than his personality. Much consideration was given to the “other,” represented by several groups as they created real or imaginary obstacles on the road to the national goals: European “Goyim,” from whom the Hebrews tried to detach themselves while at the same time adopting some of their psychological and cultural patterns, like masculine representations (cf. Mosse 1996; Boyarin 1997; Presner 2007); and the British, who had mandatory control over Palestine; and, naturally, the Arabs, whose very presence in Palestine undermined the aims of the Zionist narrative, according to Hebrews. In his capacity as an official of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), Yossef Nachmani, purchased lands since 1922 from private Arab owners for Hebrew settlement in Eastern Galilee. Born in Ukraine in 1891, he came to Palestine at age 17. From the outset he preferred security matters over agriculture, and at the age of twenty he joined the clandestine guards association, Hashomer. He married a year later, and volunteered for the British police after the First World War. It should be reminded that between 1921 and 1948 Palestine was under a British mandate regime. He was already considered an expert in security matters. From 1921 he lived in Tiberias, and a year later he became land purchaser for the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), presided over by the Baron Rothschild. In 1935 he became head of purchasing activities of the JNF in the Galilee, and it was during this period that he began writing his diaries, which he kept until his death in 1965. As the narrator of his diaries, Nachmani had a complicated task. On the operational level he needed a profound acquaintance with the geographical and political situation. On the socio-psychological level, he needed a thorough cultural and anthropo-

Personal Diaries as Historical Narratives 117 logical understanding of his Arab, British, and Jewish partners (cf. Weitz 1969; Morris 2000; Vabman 2006; Abbasi 2008). The diaries were written in commercial calendars (Nachmani 1935–1941). It is clear that at least at the beginning they served exclusively professional needs. Most contents were pour-mémoire notes with considerations of various lands, prices, or potential sellers as well as for operational planning. Only at the end of the 1930s did they gradually begin to bear more intimate overtones, and at the same time the annotations became longer.1

Narratological Elements: Patterns of Writing

The way that Nachmani described his personal life is most significant, especially as regards two crucial aspects. First is an almost total omission of his family in the diaries. Even when his son was badly hurt in a car accident, Nachmani hardly mentioned this fact, and when he did, he employed rather disinterested wording. In an interview with the author of the article, Nachmani’s daughter explained that, like many of his generation, he rarely expressed his concern through verbal means or physical touch. On the other hand, he wrote much about himself, but almost exclusively on health matters, from toothache to ordinary wounds, writing full of self-pity to a ridiculous level, in distinct contrast to the tone of the rest of the diaries. We shall try later to explain this writing habit. Two writing patterns additionally mould the narrative throughout. The first is in the laconic attitude towards information, while the second is reflected in the incessant commentary on the social phenomena he observed. Indeed, data in the diary are minimal. Nachmani refers to events, rather than describes them, but they are followed with lengthy commentaries, quite selective in nature. As a result, the documentary value of the diaries remains insignificant, but they are invaluable in revealing various stereotypes of that period. Several elements of the narrative can be illustrated through Nachmani’s approach to the Arab revolt in Tiberias. The revolt broke out in April 1936, against British mandate authorities who, so the Arabs believed, had hindered their political positions (cf. Marlowe 1946; Sachar 1974; Porath 1977; El-Nimr 1990; Kolinski 1993; Shepherd 2000). It continued sporadically until 1939, with the Galilee becoming a central arena for military encounters. Though aimed against the British, the revolt clearly affected Hebrew communities, particularly in towns with mixed Arab-Hebrew population like Tiberias. In the diary, details of this militancy remained laconic and quasi-technical, even though the events shocked the entire Hebrew Yishuv. Such was the case of Nachmani’s recording of Hia Hadad’s murder. Hadad was a Hebrew field guard who did not return home after duty. When his body was discovered, Nachmani (22 Sept. 1936)2 gave an apparently detached description: “At 5.30 in the morning the body of Hia Hadad was found. [...] He was beaten with an axe on his head and face and stabbed with knives in his

1 The diaries are conserved in HaShomer Museum in Kibbutz Kfar Giladi (in Northern Israel). All translations are by the author of the article with no editorial changes to the original text. 2 All references to the diary are given by date only.

118 Yair Seltenreich back.” But the next sentence, seemingly also factual, reveal the feeling of disgust: “The police dog could not stand the stench, as the body had been lying for more than 24 hours.” On the night of 2–3 Oct. 1938, in a traumatic event for the Jewish community, Kiryat Shmuel, an isolated Hebrew neighborhood, was attacked. Nachmani (3 Oct. 1938) remained terse: “Monday night was a white night. Arabs attacked the town from all sides. [...]. There were endless shootings around my house. The Government house and the asphalt company building were on fire and illuminated the whole neighborhood.” And then a closing phrase, dry but very significant: “The results of the attack on Kiryat Shmuel: 19 killed, most of them children, women and elderly people.” At the end of that month, the Hebrew mayor of Tiberias, Zakki Elhadef, was killed at a central junction. Nachmani (27 Oct. 1938) was present and recounts the event thus: At 1.05 PM […] the mayor of Tiberias, Zakki Elhadef, was shot. While I was turning my car I heard two shots and saw a man falling. A group of Arabs stood very silently not far away. [...] I stopped the car and jumped out with my weapon, but in the meantime the Arabs disappeared behind the bank building. Three Arab policemen went away with them. [...]. We put Elhadef in the car and took him to the hospital. The closing sentence appeared two days later: “At two o’clock in the afternoon Zakki Elhadef, mayor of Tiberias, died” (29 Oct. 1938). This is the only entry in the diary for that day. This emotionless pattern of writing is not coincidental. It reveals a view of the Hebrew community, which combined the nation-building process with a repression of personal emotion and acceptance of incessant struggle. Nachmani (17 Oct. 1941) commented: “We have to build our fatherland in non-human conditions.” The reaction was: “We have to overcome bad moods that flood us from time to time. They can just increase the difficulties and have a bad influence on us. We should continue our activity no matter what” 3 (8 Apr. 1941). And then again: “We should proceed [...] without stopping. To push and push again, without letting up” (18 Oct. 1939). The correct attitude of the Hebrew settler was “self-restraint.” While facing dead bodies, even of friends and loved ones, and burnt buildings, one should remain “men of action, who are never subject to nervous breakdowns” (6 May 1941). “We should remain patient. Do we have another choice? Patience, though it blunts feelings. I was very depressed but I shouldn’t let that mood overcome me, lest I lose my inner balance” (13 Oct. 1939). Nachmani is em- bodying the male cult of honor and, in fact, “masculinity” in its European interpretation that was one of the ultimate cultural products of the “Hebrew” stereotype.4 There was much haughtiness in that attitude, and since it existed between ethnic groups and not between social classes, whether it was imbued with racist notions will be discussed later.

3 There is not a single exclamation mark in any diary entry over the entire thirty years. 4 For the concept of the “male cult” and “European masculinity” see Mosse 1996; Boyarin 1997; Connell 2005; Presner 2007.

Personal Diaries as Historical Narratives 119

Ethnic Representations in the Narrative

The Jews

In the narrow confines of the article we shall focus on the way Nachmani perceived the main ethnic groups with which he was in contact. He devoted a sizeable portion of his writing to these details, through which we can distinguish many characteristics of his narrative. As we shall see, Nachmani’s approach to these groups was fatalistic. Each group had its pre-assigned role in the plot, which it forcefully “had” to fulfill. His simplistic and one-dimensional sketches abound throughout the diaries. Like many Jews of his time, he saw the Jewish group as having two roles: self- modeling of the new Jew, the self-reliant “Hebrew,” and the constructor of the fatherland. He judged these roles with utmost severity, perhaps because he recognized that his own struggle with both goals was reflected through the Jewish group’s success, and he believed he had given substantially of his time to promote the goals of the Hebrew people through land “redemption.” Time and again he enumerated negative traits in fellow Hebrews, which had not been overcome: “The Jews become enthusiastic in a moment but cannot persist” (11 July 1940); “All cleverness resides in patience [. . .] but this secret remains unknown to the Jews” (4 Nov. 1940). He wondered why Jews didn’t learn from their sorrowful experiences: “Twenty years of Zionism, combined with the latest persecutions in Germany and Poland [...] did not affect at all their minds or their hearts. As if human sentiment, I’d rather not say national sentiment, is struck with idiocy” (20 Feb. 1936). He blamed Jewish leadership for the problem: “Our leaders lack authentic resoluteness. If they could have self-control, the public surely would have imitated them” (15 May 1939). “They come from cultured nations but nevertheless they are not cultured themselves” (12 Oct. 1937). Nachmani’s concept of nascent Hebrew nationalism was amazingly simplistic. It totally ignored other ethnic groups and made the Hebrew aims and needs the sole factor to be considered. Only that which contributed to the goals of nation-building became legitimate. For that reason he inveighed vehemently against Reuven Trifon, a private Hebrew land purchaser, who competed with the JNF: “A normal people would never have allowed such treachery. A Jew allowing himself [...] for money to undermine [...] land redemption. [...]. Others, even Arabs, would have made him pay dearly for it. But yet, he acts overtly, without shame, without hiding. This is a complete moral bankruptcy” (19 Apr. 1939). He looked contemptuously at the Hebrew employees of the Land Registration offices and believed that they should cheat British authorities in order to serve their own people in crucial issues of land purchase. Fidelity to the national group had to precede fidelity to the administrative function: “We cannot count on our Jewish employees. Most of them are [...] frightened for themselves and are ready to sacrifice all our national objectives in order to preserve their jobs” (11 June 1937). He despised them: “How strange are Jewish employees. They would hamper our interests in order to emphasize their neutrality” (14 Aug. 1941). He explained this aversion to himself as resulting from their Asian ethnicity: “Like all other Orientals, Shlomo has no initiative”

120 Yair Seltenreich

(25 May 1937); “Revach is an oriental type, scary but good hearted” (6 Nov. 1939); “the employee Yahia Kobbi would not return to his office in the afternoon and stopped my progress. [...]. His brain is very limited, less than an ordinary dummy” (19 Sept. 1935). As we see, to Nachmani, not every Jew could become a new Hebrew. Nachamani is also very critical after the massacre in Kiryat Shmuel. He felt that, while Arabs were men of action, the Hebrews passed their time by merely talking: “Assemblies and more assemblies, with profusion of chattering and few deeds” (12 Oct. 1938). He specified: “We tend to overestimate our deeds in Palestine, while the fact is we are still impregnated with the whole set of Diaspora’s deficiencies, at least in Tiberias. Where was the sentiment of self-respect, the inner sensitiveness to danger that even animals have? I am ashamed [...] we have learnt nothing at all” (14 Oct. 1938). The Jews moved in a constant and fatal path: “Nothing has changed. Fear evaporates. Life returns to normal. It seems nothing will be amended, that all would remain as it was. Nobody tries to learn, each one would like to return to daily routine, and so it will remain till the next slaughter” (15 Oct. 1938). At the same time Nachmani (24 May 1939) enumerates the wishful traits, reinforced through friction with the “other,” such as British government officials, whom he represents as hostile to Zionist activities: “Our force should be expressed by constructive deeds, by strengthening Hebrew productiveness, by dominating more economic strongholds. [...]. Our sole weapon is our morality. If we lose it, we shall be doomed.” It was necessary to rely on the force of the heart. In an unusual paragraph, he sketched Avraham Granovski, a senior official of JNF, in a moment of critical decision: “I was watching him, and the inner struggle that was inside him [...]. He has covered his face with both hands and I could have felt how he fought controversial feelings inside himself, like responsibility, necessity and ability. At last he has overcome reason, and the sentiment that calls to deeds has won. I admired him. Yes, the JNF [...] is in good hands of men who are able to take on themselves unending burdens” (23 Feb. 1941). In certain paragraphs, which deal with critical situations in which he was present, Nachmani subtly describes himself as an embodiment of the new Jew. During the Arab revolt in Tiberias, he related how he was informed in every case of casualties, and summoned to evaluate any damage to Hebrew property within the town. He prided himself, saying that “due to the panic that spread they claimed I would absolutely remain in the town” (29 Apr. 1936). It was he who summoned a British armored car after the raid on Kiryat Shmuel, while Hebrew “headquarters remained sequestered at their home, too frightened to get out.” He remarked that “in order to command one has to possess a strong character” and wondered why the Hagana, the Hebrew clandestine paramilitary force, hesitated to give him, with his defense experience, the command over Hebrew forces in town (3 and 7 Oct. 1938). The truth was that, though he was brave and smart, Nachmani lacked true professional military background, and his tactical views were limited. This truth he failed to note in his diaries. He believed the motive was personal: “If I have real influence, it might only emphasize their own incompetence” (16 Oct. 1938). He believed in never ending resistance to problems. When the British Mandate authorities issued the Land Act, which practically stopped Hebrew land expansion, at the

Personal Diaries as Historical Narratives 121 beginning of 1940, he described how both the Nazis and the British hampered the Jews and added, with an amazing mix of self-pity and hyper-masculinity: How miserable we are, being restless all over the globe. [...]. Nevertheless, we should not despair. We should never let bad mood dominate us. We should continue our task no matter what. We draw our strength from our miseries. We shall overcome, as there is no other choice. (28 Feb. 1940) A few days after the fall of France he remarked defiantly: “It might be that our story has come to an end, and we face destruction. But we should continue till the last moment, because a miracle might occur, and that ‘might’ might save us” (26 June 1940). A year later, while Rommel’s troops in North Africa were advancing towards Palestine, he summed up his concept of the new Jew:5 Should we remain peaceful, like other Diaspora Jews and await extermination? We, Hebrews of Palestine, should set an example. We should not let ourselves go passively to the slaughter. We should be armed and with force, oppose efforts to humiliate us and kill us, be it by Arabs or Nazis. We should fight and die honorably, even when we know it is impossible to save the Yishuv. If death is our fate, then we should fall like heroes. It will not help us, but it will be of benefit to our people, to Judaism, in the future. (7 May 1941) A day before, he recorded a symbolic event that happened to him and to Yossef Weitz, his manager in the JNF: We sat on top of the hill which was overlooking the whole Huleh valley. We made plans. [...]. I was very satisfied to note how, in the midst of our hardships, two men were sitting on a desolated summit, in an Arab area, weaving concrete plans as if nothing had ever happened, or would happen, in our country. (6 May 1941)

The British

Nachmani much admired the British Mandate authorities, whom he saw as represent- tatives of male and noble European culture. However, their behavior disappointed him, as they did not mobilize themselves, heart and soul, to resolute support of the righteous Hebrew position. He developed friendly ties with “Freddy” Blackburn, Deputy Governor of the Galilee district, and hosted him several times at his home, where he entertained with lengthy discussions on security matters (17 July 1936). At the same time he followed with unease the relationship of Blackburn with Arab friends, such as Hanna Bulus, a high-ranking district official, “who spent all his free time with the Revolt leaders, who were his close pals” (14 May 1936). He criticized vehemently British traits, such as their leniency, that contradicted the idealistically strong model he created of them. He indicated that Arab rioters were arrested, then immediately released (29 July 1936). Even when Arabs pelted the police building or British command cars with stones, the British did nothing (27 July 1936). He believed that “if the government had paid attention to the situation, as it could and should have done, Tiberias would have seen no riots at all” (20 Feb. 1937).

5 While this text was written, nothing had yet been known about Jews extermination in Europe.

122 Yair Seltenreich

He tried to explain their resistance to arrest or punish by their naïveté: “The English either didn’t or wouldn’t learn anything. They flatter the Arabs, but get the reverse result. Arabs are smart enough to understand that attitude stems from lack of self-confidence. Hence the Jews are the victims, and they remain abandoned” (28 Apr. 1941): The government should appease any revolt with its own forces. [...]. But it does not see it this way, preferring to play a political game which, albeit not overtly anti- Jewish, is at least supportive of the Arabs, perhaps out of caution, as it identifies their potential power. From the Jews it does not demand mere restraint but in fact submissiveness, which is against the basic human right to self-defense. (19 Feb. 1937) He summed up sadly that “[w]e have no other choice but to fight with the British, as our hope is connected with the British people (29 Oct. 1940). He described again and again how Arabs were favored. In a certain case of arson, “the police tried to blur the matter. If it had been successful, surely the Jews would have been blamed” (29 Apr. 1936). He was angry when a local police officer, Broadhurst, during a skirmish between Jews and Arabs, arrested only the former, though they were on the defensive, but not the attackers. He decided Broadhurst was “either a brainless person, or stupid or childish. He couldn’t and wouldn’t control the situation, and was imbued with Arabism” (2 Aug. 1936). A fortnight later, a synagogue was raided by Arabs during prayer time. He described bitterly how a spontaneously formed delegation of Jews followed by the mayor himself, was rejected by Broadhurst (15 Aug. 1936). After the murder of Elhadef, he wrote decisively that “if the government is not able to secure our lives, it should at least allow us the right to self- protection” (1 Nov. 1938).

The Arabs

The Arabs were the ethnic group that received the most attention in the diaries, both in the number of entries, and in the intensity of efforts to describe their cultural codes. This should not come as a surprise, since most of Nachmani’s daily contacts were with Arabs. His attitude towards them was arrogant, inspired by notions of European colonialism.6 Arabs were automatically represented as evil. Their attitude towards the Jewish community was negatively interpreted. Arab representatives voted unanimously in the Town council “as they were united in any anti-Jewish issue” (24 Nov. 1936). Arab prose- cutions against Jews were “fictitious proceedings” (4 Aug. 1936). Arab announcements were always either a “lie” or a “libel.” Nachmani (28 May 1940) felt “we are surrounded by people who will take advantage of any opportunity to betray us.” An Arab police scout failed to follow the tracks of attackers because “one cannot count on an Arab scout in such times” (16 May 1936). Nachmani (2 Mar. 1936) hated the particularities of their

6 Jewish “colonialism” as such did not exist since there was no relationship of dominance between the two ethnic groups. Nevertheless, we can distinguish colonialist or rather paternalist notions that might be explained by the spirit of modernism that fascinated the “Hebrew,” who saw in modernism not only a way of life but a kind of mission. Indeed Nachmani saw himself as a kind of cultural “redeemer,” both of his own people and of the Arabs. In this view, he was largely influenced by patterns of British and French colonialist ideas (cf. Seltenreich 2008).

Personal Diaries as Historical Narratives 123 culture: “Arab festivities are a burden for me. They have their feasts and we are obliged to buy them gifts.” Naturally vulgar, they bore all the mean and unmanly traits of the mob: “The weakness of the government awakens in the primitive mob the sentiment of anarchy, but when they encounter real resistance, all their spitefulness breaks down at once” (9 Apr. 1937). They were cowards too: “When the police arrived [...] the Arabs ran away” (14 Aug. 1936); “Local Arabs, being cowards by nature, having heard an army force is coming to town, have immediately postponed their planned demonstration” (15 May 1936). In conclusion, one must be firm towards them: “Arabs are cowards and submissive, but when they meet politeness, they become spiteful” (18 May 1939). Arabs were fickle and lacked a sense of honor. After the first stage of the revolt ended, Nachmani (13 Oct. 1936) described how “all desired to resume work and cursed their leaders.” This behavior was due to their manipulative nature: “Arabs from neighboring villages and tribes came to greet me, as I returned from my vacation. [...]. Surely each of them has some demand to make. Or they may believe the government is backing us, the Jews. Arabs always have a natural understanding of situations. Maybe they feel so because of their primitive minds” (10 Oct. 1937). He described how “the Arabs from Kaddas, who were the most active during the riots [...] received me honorably like an old friend. They made smooth talk and looked like innocent lambs” (14 Mar. 1940). Regarding another case he described contemptuously how “flattery was obvious and emphasized the lack of conscience and the tendency to lie. [Arabs] had that particular ability to say the opposite of what they were thinking” (19 Aug. 1940). He summed up: “You will never change Arab nature. They are ungrateful, and when they feel at ease they start kicking and become indifferent and even spiteful to their benefactors” (27 June 1941). He cites their childish character: “Arabs, like any other primitive entity, are childlike. When you spoil a child he believes he deserves everything, kicks his benefactor, is not content with what he has and claims more” (14 Apr. 1940). He specified: “Primitive people rarely accept innovations. You should therefore encourage them during the first year to accept the innovations by bribing them” (29 Apr. 1941). Thus, correct encounters with Arabs should never be as equals, but rather from a position of control, in which two main components prevail: resoluteness and bribery. But did Nachmani see particular Arabs in the same stereotyped light in which he per- ceived the whole ethnic group? Two Arabs accompanied him very closely during all the years examined in this article. As will become clear, they influenced deeply the formation of his diary’s narrative. One of them fulfilled the role of “the rival,” the Amir Faour el-Faour (Abassi and Seltenreich 2007), while the other was “the ally,” Kamil Hussein al-Youssef (Abassi 2001). We shall now examine in-depth how these men are reflected in the diaries.

124 Yair Seltenreich

Representations of Individuals in the Narrative

The Amir Faour

Faour was head of the Bedouin tribe of el-Fadil, and in fact was the most imposing personality over hundreds of square miles both in the Western part of Syrian Jaulan and in the Galilee panhandle in Palestine. Faour was a hedonist and was an authoritarian and capricious (Abbasi and Seltenreich 2007). He was considered a ruthless person who lived licentiously, despised Islamic laws, and terrorized the whole region with his practices of protection and robbery. Though he was a member of the Syrian Parliament, Faour did not hesitate to sell large parcels of his land in Palestine for Hebrew settlement (Seltenreich 2007). Indeed, Nachmani wished to purchase lands from this kind of rich Arab, whose possessions were almost exclusively immovable. Being in constant need of large sums of liquid money, they were forced to sell part of their lands. Faour’s vast lands were particularly desirable for Hebrew settlement, because possessing them afforded territorial continuity in a highly strategic region (Abbasi and Seltenreich 2007). Faour and Nachmani depended on each other, because the former was in desperate need of money and the latter – land. Nachmani, impatient by nature, could hardly bear Faour’s conduct. He was furious, for example, at Faour’s tendency to cancel meetings, usually with no pretext at all. Nachmani (5 and 15 Apr. 1939) therefore had to visit Beirut twice in ten days, but to no avail, since Faour canceled both meetings. There were many other cases: “I went [...] to Kfar Giladi [...] to meet the Amir Faour. Faour did not come” (3 Dec. 1939); “The Amir Faour did not come to Dafna. This is the fifth time the meeting with him must be postponed. He said he had sprained his leg and would come on Wednesday. I should be patient” (11 Dec. 1939). Nachmani (13 and 14 May 1941) tried to calm himself: “I am sure he will call in a few days, as he is in need of money,” but a day later he wrote anxiously that “we should explain to him once more we will not tolerate any more postponements.” The two finally met, but at the last moment “Faour backed out and was ready to give us [...] only 650 dunams”7 (1 June 1941). Finally the two came to an agreement but the day after “the Amir, instead of giving me an ownership bill so I could pay him [...] went away. [...]. This transaction is definitely cursed with bad luck” (2 June 1941). Nachmani (16 Nov. 1935) described his contacts with the Amir with unveiled contempt: “He has no money and must sell [...] but he looks for a manipulative way, so his prestige among Arabs will not suffer.” The surrender of Faour was described in a patronizing and righteous way: “I have hosted today at my home the Amir Faour and Dr. Sabri [Faour’s lawyer]. They were extremely polite. Surely they understood at last [...] they had better stop their silly threats” (26 Oct. 1940). Nachmani (17 Nov. 1935) had already previously written that “he understands he should not try his slippery manners with me.”

7 Ten dunams were one hectare.

Personal Diaries as Historical Narratives 125

Nachmani openly reveals his disdain of the Amir.8 He wrote for instance that “we should explain to the Amir clearly that unless we finalize matters very soon, we will stop all negotiations, as we have no time for his nonsense” (1 Aug. 1939). He believed, “I have to be patient, though it shatters my nerves, but what other choice do I have? This is the sole path I must follow” (12 Oct. 1939). A deeper reading into the diaries reveals other paragraphs that express not merely anger and spite but deep feelings of despair and anxiety: “Again endless discussions. Again each time Faour raises new claims and objections. [...]. I tried to control myself and succeeded to remain calm till 11 o’clock, but then I became really nervous” (6 Feb. 1940). Most significant is a long paragraph describing the conclusion of the sale of Dwara’s lands: I was thinking all night long and couldn’t believe we had closed a deal with Faour. [...]. I waited for new hindrances to arrive. [...] Faour wouldn’t let me come with him to Barclays Bank, for fear that my presence would be damaging to him. [...]. We decided to meet in Safed. Faour arrived at 2 p.m. […]. We went to Dafna. Then a new saga began: counting of money, obligations, receipts. He behaved like a capricious Bedouin, accepting this, rejecting that. He gave me a headache. [...]. Finally, at 10 p.m. he signed. [...]. He is a difficult and capricious person, who doesn’t understand anything. Everything must match the capacity of his primitive brain. I really can’t believe this matter is over. (4 June 1941) This paragraph is particularly significant because the description shifts from the event to the figure. The figure, apparently, is Faour’s, but it also stands for the entire Arab stereotype as Nachmani perceived it. This example is noteworthy when Nachmani, and not for the first time, uses Faour’s Bedouin origin as an element that explains his whole attitude. Faour’s stupidity is also clearly linked to his ethnic origin: “The Amir got up, very angry, and left. Stupid Bedouin. All his behavior is stupid. [...]. He is accustomed to flattery, but I wouldn’t do that. [...] let him go to hell. I am sure he will return like a lamb” (18 Mar. 1940). When Faour summoned Nachmani in order to give him papers, instead of bringing them himself, Nachmani (20 Mar. 1940) reacted again with angry indignation: “Idiot and ignorant head. [...]. As if I am obliged to come and collect the papers he must supply me. [...]. I will not even answer him. You must be patient and control your moves with the reasoning of the Bedouin.” He considered Faour stubborn and mean: “He is not a human being, he is full of suspicions. His pride damages his own interests” (8 Dec. 1940). He described how the Amir constantly raised unfounded claims, and how he childishly refused to let Nachmani (8 Aug. 1940) photocopy documents he had brought with him. Nachmani believed Faour to be under the influence of Dr. Sabri, his lawyer. He described disdainfully how “[t]he Amir and Dr. Sabri sat the whole time watching my movements like two dogs. [...] I went away. The best thing to do is to keep your distance from them. The Amir is a cruel and difficult person, fickle and dishonest” (9 Aug. 1940). He emphasized: “A man without conscience, a liar and corrupt” (18 Aug. 1940). Though apparently nationalistic, Faour treated his own people with cruelty and did not hesitate to expel Arab tenants from lands he had just sold to the Jews. Nachmani (8 Dec. 1940) himself, on the contrary, took a

8 The title of “Amir” signified he was a direct descendant of Mohammed.

126 Yair Seltenreich humane approach: “The Amir seemingly does not accept my method, which consists of compensation to the tenants. He prefers the Turkish method: to remove them with whips.” It should be noted that these diary entries focusing on interactions contribute very little to our understanding of the processes of Nachmani and Faour’s negotiations, but they do play a role in the narrative. In a personal diary like Nachmani’s, they fulfill the inner psychological needs of the writer. Nachmani led activities that contributed to the Zionist national aspiration while he had minimal material or moral backing from the Jewish authorities he represented. One way of fortifying himself was by constantly relying on symbols: exalting the practical and moral results of his achievements, and at the same time delegitimizing his counterparts. What is important here is the tactic he has chosen, reflected in his obsessive writings about Faour. He identified the individual with his ethnic group, and recreated this individual’s image by employing ethnic stereotypes. Indeed, the persistence of these descriptions implies that Nachmani did not define clear borders between Faour in particular and the Arabs in general. He considered Faour a typical Arab leader: “Liar, false, vapid, cruel. He killed more than one person in cold blood. [...]. Never spends money, never respects services done for him, [...] constantly leaning on his noble origin” (29 Mar. 1940). Nachmani (8 Aug. 1940) was spiteful about the Amir’s ambition for respect: “He accused me of being disrespectful, while the English and the French governments treat him honorably. I told him I was not a politician, and judge each person only by how he meets his promises.” Again, he righteously under- scored his moral superiority over the Arab. This was how Nachmani treated his rivals, but how did he relate to his Arab allies? His relationship with Kamil Hussein supplies us with one answer.

Kamil Hussein

Kamil Hussein was the head of the semi-nomadic Ghawarna tribe. Like Faour, he had the informal status of a local leader, though was much less influential. He had a complex relationship with the Jewish environment. In 1920 he commanded the raid on Tel Hai, an isolated Hebrew farm, whose fall became a cornerstone in the renascent Hebrew nationa- lism. Towards 1929, he reversed roles and started to collaborate with the Jews, while persisting with Arab national rhetoric. In that way he came to cooperate with the JNF and with Nachmani. He accepted a most sensitive task: the removal of Arab tenants from lands recently purchased for Hebrew settlement, since the Yishuv society had attributed symbolic significance to agriculture, and insisted on exclusively Hebrew labor. British regulations, particularly from 1929 (Granovski 1949, 295–305), which reinforced the tenants’ status, made evacuation all the more difficult. It now necessitated the combination of pecuniary compensation with personal pressure in order to get the Arab tenants to leave voluntarily. Kamil had worked for Nachmani since 1935, but over the years Nachmani developed a growing feeling of discomfort in light of Kamil’s natural charisma and dominance. Again he mixed personal and national themes in his diaries. He desired “to do anything to weaken and annihilate the influence of Kamil, who used it in order to harm us. We must prevent the feeling that Kamil can get whatever he wants” (20 June 1941). Nachmani

Personal Diaries as Historical Narratives 127

(5 June 1941) saw him as “smart and cunning, but with a black heart.” He listed five major character faults in Kamil: he was slow, untrustworthy, exploitative, immoral, and arrogant. Slowness: Nachmani (22 Mar. 1939) saw Kamil’s sluggish pace as a sign of indifference: “At noontime I saw Kamil and spoke clearly with him [...] and urged him to take the necessary measures so that the tenants would leave the place. He promised. Let’s see if he does it.” He summed it up for himself: “One must have patience. There is no other way” (22 May 1939). Kamil’s approach increased Nachmani’s (16 Oct. 1939) suspicions: “I find it impossible to understand and grasp his position. Why is he dragging out the matter? I am very worried.” He despised Kamil: “Of course there is no value in his promises, but there is no other way but to go along to the end” (17 Oct. 1941). Lack of trust: The feeling that Kamil, “steeped in politics and drunkenness,” is not trustworthy disturbed Nachmani. He regarded him as a slave who became king: “Coming from a simple fellahin family he is now entering the higher circles of politicians” (26 Mar. 1939). He assessed that “Kamil is disloyal and ungrateful, and will give us a lot of trouble” (9 July 1940). Exploitation: In order to cope with his sentiment of dependency, Nachmani envisaged a reverse situation in which Kamil was dependent upon him, Nachmani (4 Dec. 1941), who provided him with a living: “The man has forgotten that all honor given to him is thanks to the JNF money he received without too much trouble.” He felt that “[w]hen you become fat [from JNF money] you start to kick, and to talk indifferently and disdainfully to your benefactors” (26 Mar. 1939). For this reason Nachmani (8 Oct. 1941) found it particularly difficult to bear the signs of independence that Kamil showed, as when he “waited for Kamil until 11 o’clock. He arrived full of himself and did not find it necessary to explain why he had been absent the day before.” Immorality: Nachmani regarded Kamil as calculating, petty, and dangerous. He noted that Kamil was “a degenerate person without a conscience or moral qualms; a dissolute and spoilt fellah” (30 July 1941). Here, too, personal sentiments induced Nachmani to use stereotypes. He repeated his constant fear lest “Kamil be dangerous to us, as he is capable of changing his mind at any moment” (12 Mar. 1941). Arrogance: In Nachmani’s view, Kamil’s arrogance reached its peak in a particularly bitter quarrel that broke out between the two in the summer of 1941, regarding the long delays in evacuating the tenants from certain lands. Kamil “who was very full of himself [...] has suggested defiantly that the JNF find itself other intermediaries” (4 Aug. 1941). Nachmani felt that Kamil had crossed a tacit ethic. He could not tolerate a situation in which “an immoral fellah, [...] replete with the money of Jews and of the firm [JNF], could be so bold-faced” towards him (4 Aug. 1941). Initially, personal honor prevailed, and Nachmani (4 Aug. 1941) decided that, “no matter what, that impolite fellah must learn the limits set by our money. [...]. With the money those creatures gobble up we might as well manage without such human rags.” However, a few days later he recon- sidered his position and reluctantly sent a mutual Hebrew friend to reconcile Kamil with him. He wrote painfully: “It was difficult for me, as it harms my prestige [...] but [...] one must overcome his feelings and consider only reality and the needs of our [national] enterprise” (9 Aug. 1941). Once again Nachmani turned a personal failure into an issue of public morality. The next day he pointed again to the differences between himself,

128 Yair Seltenreich

Nachmani (10 Aug. 1941), whose sole concern was the good of his people, and Kamil, “who uses us for his egoistic and limitless personal ambitions.” In his frustrating contacts with Arabs, Nachmani could hardly distinguish a friend from a foe, and he interpreted the conduct of Kamil in much the same way as he did that of Faour, through negative stereotyping of Arab culture in its totality: “No doubt Kamil, like all other Arabs, is ungrateful. The day will come when surely he will cause us trouble (20 Aug. 1940); “An ungrateful person, who arrived at his social position only thanks to our money, but like all Arabs he is ready to kick you at the first opportunity. It is better to know who you work with, in order not to be unpleasantly surprised later on” (12 Mar. 1941); “A complete non-gentleman. You can’t change Arab nature” (21 July 1939); “He is naturally indifferent, as are all Arabs” (22 May 1939).

Conclusion

Nachmani’s diaries might be considered historical narratives because they refer interpre- tatively to a historical process, i.e. the purchasing of private Arab lands for a Hebrew national body, the JNF, a process in which the narrator plays a key role. In my analysis I emphasized the interpretative dimension of the narrative. In my view, Nachmani, with his origins, his values, his social status, and his political views represents the mainstream of Hebrew society of his time. We might consider the essence of his conceptions as a reflection of those shared by this era’s larger group of Hebrew settlers. Indeed, we can see how the diaries clearly mirror the symbiosis created between Nachmani as an individual and the Hebrew group in its totality, and how personal role and national goal become integrated in his mind. This symbiosis is especially apparent in his tendency to link each event to “character” and to deny all personal responsibility for failures. Nachmani’s discourse is imbued with distinct ethnocentrism: the Arab is considered essentially inferior to the Hebrew solely on the basis of his ethnic difference. In that way, he raises a distinct hierarchical barrier between “us” (Nachmani/Hebrew) and “them” (Faour or Kamil/ Arabs). This interpretation explains Nachmani’s disdain towards Orien- tal Jews who, he believed, were indeed “Jews” but could not become “Hebrew.” Historical narratives that reflect the attitudes towards a series of events or persona- lities during a certain time span may clarify or at least shed light on the nature of the social and political views dominant at that time. Personal diaries are one of the clearest and most authentic reflections of this kind of narrative because they create an emotional and interpretative connection between the writer and the way he experienced the events described. The more the writer represents his social environment, the more he becomes, through his diary, its narrator.

Personal Diaries as Historical Narratives 129

Works Cited

Abbasi, Mustafa. 2001. “Safed and Its Rural Hinterland: Relations and Conflicts.” [In Hebrew] Cathedra 99 (Mar. 1), 115–38. Abbasi, Mustafa. 2008. “The End of Arab Tiberias: The Arabs of Tiberias and the Battle for the City in 1948.” Journal of Palestine Studies 37.3, 1–29. Abbasi, Mustafa and Yair Seltenreich. 2007. “A Leader on Both Sides of the Border: The Amir Faour al-Faour between Syria and Mandatory Palestine.” Holy Land Studies 6.1, 23–49. Boyarin, Daniel. 1997. Unheroic Conduct. The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man. Berkeley: University of California Press. Connell, Raewyn. 2005. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dror, Yuval. 2007. National Education through Mutually Supportive Devices. A Case of National Education. Bern: Peter Lang. Eisenstadt, Shmuel, ed. 1938. Hashomer Collection. [In Hebrew.] Tel Aviv: Labor Movement Archives. El-Nimr, Sonia Fathi. 1990. “The Arab Revolt of 1936–1939.” PhD Thesis. University of Exeter. Ever Hadani, Aaron. 1956. Settlement in Lower Galilee. A Fifty Year Saga. [In Hebrew] Ramat Gan: Massada. Granovski, Avraham. 1949. Land Regime in Palestine. [In Hebrew] Tel Aviv: Dvir. Kissinger, Henry. 1964. A World Restored. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. Kolinsky, Martin. 1993. Law, Order and Riots in Mandatory Palestine. London: St. Martin’s. Marlowe, John. 1946. Rebellion in Palestine. London: Cresset Press. Morris, Benny. 2000. “Yossef Nachmani and Arab Problem in 1948.” In: Jews and Arabs in Palestine/Israel, 1936–1956. [In Hebrew] By Benny Morris. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 58–103. Mosse, Georges L. 1996. The Image of Man. The Creation of Modern Masculinity. New York: Oxford UP. Nachmani, Yossef. 1935–1941. Diaries. [In Hebrew] Manuscripts in Hashomer Memorial in Kfar Giladi. Neumann, Boaz. 2010. Territory and Desire in Early Zionism. Waltham, MA: Brandeis UP / UP of New England. Porath, Yehoshua. 1977. The Palestinian Arab National Movement, 1929–1939. From Riots to Rebellion. London: Frank Cass. Presner, Todd Samuel. 2007. Muscular Judaism. The Jewish Body and the Politics of Regeneration. London: Routledge Press. Ricœur, Paul. 1983. Temps et récit. (Tome I: L’intrigue et le récit histroique). Paris: Seuil. Sachar, Howard M. 1974. Europe Leaves the Middle East, 1936–1954. London: Allen Lane. Seltenreich, Yair. 2005. “A Diary, an Educator, a Man: The Reflection of a Galilean Teacher’s Life through his Diaries.” [In Hebrew] Dor LeDor 25, 7–27.

130 Yair Seltenreich

Seltenreich, Yair. 2007. “The Sale of Northern Eretz-Israel Lands during the British Mandate.” [In Hebrew] Horizons in Geography 68/69, 35–55. Seltenreich, Yair. 2008. “Cultural Aspects of Philanthropy. Belle Époque Administrators and Jewish Peasants in Galilee.” Mediterranean Historical Review 23.1, 35–52. Shepherd, Naomi. 2000. Ploughing Sand. British Rule in Palestine, 1917–1948. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP. Vabman, Edna. 2006. “Daughter of Nachmani.” Interview. Tel Aviv, Feb. 8. von der Heyden-Rynsch, Verena. 1997. Belauschtes Leben. Frautagenbücher aus drei Jahrhunderten. Düsseldorf: Artemis and Vinkler. Weitz, Yossef. 1969. Yossef Nachmani. Man of the Galilee. [In Hebrew] Ramat Gan: Massada. White Hayden. 1973. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.

Author’s Address:

Dr. Yair Seltenreich Department of Education, Tel Hai College D.N. Galil Elion 12210, Israel E-Mail: [email protected] URL: http://telhai.ac.il

SPIEL 30 (2011) H. 1, 131–148

Beverley Southgate (London, UK)

“All Their Feet on the Ground”?: Tidy (Hi)stories in Question

Bernard, einer der Protagonisten in Virginia Woolfs Roman The Waves, zeigt sich kritisch gegen- über „geordneten“ Lebensgeschichten, das heißt, Erzählungen, in denen alles zu einem sinnvollen Abschluss kommt und alle Protagonisten „fest mit den Füßen auf dem Boden landen“ („with all their feet on the ground,“ Woolf [1931] 1951, 204). Woolf ist eine von vielen SchriftstellerInnen, die Geschichtsschreibung in ihrer narrativen Darstellungsweise hinterfragen. Meiner Ansicht nach haben Literaten und bildende Künstler dem Geschichtswissenschaftler und Geschichtsschreiber vorgegriffen, indem sie die Defizite der heute gängigen „wissenschaftlichen“ Herangehensweise an Geschichte, die eine ganz spezifische Art der Geschichtserzählung generiert, frühzeitig erkannten und anmahnten. Es mag heilsam für uns sein, die wir die letzten Tage des Szientismus erleben, uns in Erinnerung zu rufen und nachzuvollziehen, wie sich Historiker das szientistische Geschichts- model zu Eigen machten. Außerdem will ich aufzeigen, wie die Geschichtsschreibung von den belle lettres lernen kann, um sich von ihrer festgefahrenen Sicht- und Darstellungsweise der Ver- gangenheit zu lösen, die sich in geschlossenen teleologischen Erzählungen niederschlägt.

Introduction

The essence of an historical narrative, as we are conventionally assured, is that it tells a true story about the past; it is derived from, and is based upon, facts that have been gleaned from primary sources, these being customarily in the form of documents housed in archives. So historical narratives are properly founded on empirically derived evidence that can be publicly checked and validated; and they can, further, be seen to form a part of a larger whole – which is to say that they fit coherently into an already accepted body of knowledge. In these respects – their basis in empirical evidence, their public accountability, their consistency with existing knowledge, and above all their consequent truth – historical narratives may be accounted “scientific”; they are constructed in terms of a model derived from the sciences. And they can therefore be seen as quite distinct from, and superior to, any competitors; for those who, as poets or historical novelists, compete in representing the past must, by definition, be producing something only “fictional.” History is history precisely because it is not fiction; it has replaced myth and other unreliable stories with its own reliable account of what actually happened in the past. History, then, as thus defined, can be relied upon to provide a story that can confidently be utilised as the basis for life in the future. Or so it is widely believed. History purports to tell us how we became what we are – whether personally or

132 Beverley Southgate nationally – and it thus supposedly endows us with a sense of identity, explains and justifies our present situation; it provides a sense of direction and of meaning, and sets us in a trajectory that leads on successively into the future. It is thus hugely important, not simply as an intellectual construction, but as a foundation for our selves and for our lives. In fact, it is so important, at an existential level, that we shrink from investigating its validity; we accept it on trust, for fear of confronting what Thomas Carlyle referred to as the “Chaos of Being.” Yet there is an underlying “bad faith” in our refusal to confront what is potentially a threatening encounter; and it is his impatience with that intellectual and emotional withdrawal that leads Virginia Woolf’s character Bernard, in her novel The Waves, to express his dissatisfaction, his frustration, his irritation, with writers who aspire to, and contrive to, tidy life up – to present people and events neatly, as coherent unities: “How tired I am of stories [...] that come down beautifully with all their feet on the ground!” They can land four-square like that only because the ground has been carefully smoothed out, made ready to accept them, with all potential obstructions and sticking-points removed; and because the stories themselves have been just as carefully adapted, creatively restored and modified, with “torn bits of stuff” tacked together, to avoid any revelation of “raw edges.” And that contrived coherence, as Bernard is further well aware, has to do with something more than just aesthetics: all this tidying-up has an underlying socio-political purpose. For by defining people – by positioning them in a story and thereby imposing limits on what it is that they are – any writer (and in our case here, any historian) enables them, or forces them, to cohere within a more extensive narrative, “to fit in with others” (Woolf [1931] 1951, 204); and since those others have no doubt been similarly defined and delimited, all are together enabled, or rather compelled, “to walk in step like civilised people” (222–23). Virginia Woolf’s critique of tidy narratives of people and events was published in 1931, and is but one example of novelists at that time questioning – however implicitly – the basis of historiography; and I want to argue here that artists, broadly defined to include both literary and visual arts, anticipated historians in their realisation of the deficiencies of the then fashionable “scientific” approach to history; for the model of an empirically based historical narrative, as outlined above, is of course itself an historical phenomenon, and subject both to historical analysis and to alternatives. Living now, as we do, in the fag-end days of scientism (by which I mean the application of assumed scientific principles concerning nature to subjects relating more specifically to humanity), it may be salutary to attempt some recall of how historians and historiographers became captivated by a scientific model, and of how they were later decisively outflanked and overtaken by their disciplinary neighbours. For that examination may give some clues about possible directions – about how to avoid just “more of the same” – for the future. So after looking briefly at the ancient roots of scientism and its confirmation in early modernity, I shall turn to its flowering through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, before noting some challenges from the arts, both literary and visual. I shall then consider some post-modern “hybrids,” which have served to erode and further undermine the authority of history’s “factual” narratives; and that analysis will lead finally to some thoughts concerning the desirability of disciplinary realignments for the future. In my

“All their Feet on the Ground”? 133 conclusions here, I, paradoxically as it may seem, draw on recent recommendations derived from science – in this case, neuro-science – itself.

The Roots of Scientism

The aspiration of historians to emulate scientists is as long-lived as their subject, though the nature of their model – “science” – has not itself been static through the centuries. It was medical science that provided the first agenda: as the conventionally claimed “father” of scientific history, Thucydides in the fifth century BCE took as his ideal the programme of Hippocratic doctors. These physicians claimed to be of practical benefit through their application of certain procedures that might reasonably (albeit anachro- nistically) be described as “scientific”: by meticulously recording symptoms, treatments applied, and the effects of those treatments (whether negative or positive), they aimed to arrive at a position of being able to provide a reliable prognosis for the future. By referring to their records, they could diagnose complaints and apply proven remedies (avoiding earlier failures); and they could then forecast probable results. Their aim was to build up a body of medical knowledge from the past, which could then be relied upon for the future; and historians, Thucydides believed, could do something analogous. By making their own accurate records of particular events, they could derive general laws of human behaviour, which could then likewise be utilised in order to predict the future and avoid past mistakes. That adopted procedure marked Thucydides off from his predecessors – notably Herodotus, who too may lay claim to having fathered history, but of a rather different sort. For he, no less, attempted to record what happened in the past, telling the story of the Persian Wars, with the avowed aim of keeping memory alive, and so providing examples for emulation or avoidance in the future. But lacking “scientific” input, he proved less rigorous in checking doubtful sources and validating evidence; and – which brings us to the heart of our concern here – he laid less emphasis on providing a single coherent narrative. Indeed, there are points where he confesses his own inability to decide between conflicting accounts of the same event, leaving his readers to reach their own conclusions: “Such is the account which the Persians give [...]. The Phoenicians, however, [...] vary from the Persian statements [...]. Whether this latter account be true, or whether the matter happened otherwise, I shall not discuss further” (Herodotus 1910, 1: 3, see also 4: 195). That hesitance, concerning the construction and presentation of a singular narrative, and Herodotus’s acceptance of what came to be thought of as unreliable evidence from highly questionable witnesses, reminds us of characteristics of pre-scientific histories that are significant and important for my present argument. His ready acceptance of “colourful” stories, often transmitted by oral tradition and incorporating “myths,” as relayed by “ordinary” people, his reliance on “poetic” predecessors, and his inability, or refusal, to take sides – all these are approaches, outlawed within a scientific milieu, which are now ripe for review. That Herodotean stance, though, has long been characterised by historians as “naïve” and as subsequently, and thankfully, outgrown. For Thucydides, albeit unduly optimistic

134 Beverley Southgate

– hubristic even – in his claims for history’s ability to provide the basis for generalisations concerning human nature, had his professional practice soon confirmed by theoretical underpinning. Aristotle’s demarcation and allocation of disciplinary territories was itself no doubt influenced by – if not derived from – the belief that history was a “science”: it was that that distinguished it, in Aristotle’s terminology, from “poetry” – poetry, which had of course, with Homer, provided the earliest accounts of the past, however unreliable they might come to seem, and however much they exemplified par excellence the very antithesis of scientific history. For under Aristotle’s authoritative dispensation, history is properly concerned with the particularities of the past, as it had actually been; whereas poetry was, by contrast, left free to range more imaginatively over what might be. That implicit appropriation of an ethical dimension, of what ought to be, to poetry’s domain – and its deliberate exclusion from that of history – is again of significance for my own argument in relation to prospective roles for narrative. The influence of Thucydides’s self-justified practice, together with Aristotle’s decisiveness in allotting disciplinary roles, has proved enormous. There may be some paradox in that the latter’s clear differentiation of disciplines may seem to negate the possibility of the sort of transfer of procedures between them that was practised by Thucydides himself and his successors; and indeed that paradox has been at the root of continuing tension – between those who have accepted science as a model for history and those who have not. But for various reasons (intellectual, emotional, institutional, economic, and political), scientism has largely won the day. In terms of my own chosen narrative here, the second phase of scientism’s triumph can be seen in early modernity, with the rise and almost universal acceptance of a “mechanistic” model, in terms of which explanations could evidently, and in principle, be provided for all the phenomena of the natural universe – and thence for human experience tout court. With natural philosophers confident that even such mysteries as love-at-first-sight could be explained by reference to atomic particles, it was hardly surprising that the “mechanical philosophy” (with its associated repudiation of rhetoric and its commitment to a “plain style” of language) should be not only institutionalised in the context of a “new science,” but also widely – if not universally – adopted as an appropriate model in such fields as psychology and sociology, and of course history itself. Fundamental aspects of that cultural zeitgeist were theories emanating from two main protagonists: Descartes, with his insistence that clarity – the perception of clear and distinct ideas – could be achieved only by detaching oneself from the object of study; and Newton, with his promulgation of space and time as absolutes – the fixed coordinates within which theorising could and must take place. These two were to become essential ingredients of acceptable scientific procedures, and so were to have profound – and indeed continuing – effects on historiography, including narrative construction. The ensuing developments along those lines can best be considered by reference to scientism’s third emphatic appearance in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

“All their Feet on the Ground”? 135

Scientism in Modernity

The “default” science of modernity has been Darwinian evolutionary theory. Darwin himself had taken his cue from eighteenth-century geologists, or those of them who had renounced “Catastrophism,” with its implication of abrupt breaks in the natural order of events – its narrative of periodic discontinuities and disruptions, attributable not to nature but to providential intervention – and signed on to a conception of natural law that, after the adoption of a vastly expanded time-scale, accounted for a uniform development, and thereby provided the archetype for a regular narrative that required nothing but the law- abiding unrolling of the years. Within the newly extended and now extensive boundaries of geological time, the evolution of species secured its own place as a practical possibility; and that provided in turn a model of narrative that could be applied, or adopted, elsewhere in human sciences – those sciences including, not least, history (which did, after all, in a sense reciprocally underpin the stories told by the geological and biological sciences). “The great fairy Science,” as Charles Kingsley ([1863], 54) recognised, was “likely to be queen of all the fairies for many a year to come.” And so it proved. It is hard to over-estimate the popular interest in Darwinian theory in the latter half of the nineteenth century, following publication of The Origin of Species in 1859. It became emblematic of a science that provided explanations for phenomena previously considered, and simply accepted, as mystical and beyond the reach of any merely human intellect; and it had the great virtue of propounding a story of progressive development, of which humans stand so gratifyingly as the culmination. So the authority of Darwinian evolution, and its proselytising power, is hardly surprising; and it duly went on to provide the template for another emerging discipline – the newly professionalised history, with its recently refreshed roots in Leopold von Ranke’s Germany, and its tentacles extending through academic Europe. Once again, then, history was to be emphatically defined by reference to science – this time, to a science that blended the mechanistic explanations of the Newtonian universe, within its reassuring framework of absolute space and time, with the narrative convictions of Darwinian evolution, which promoted the welcome trajectory of progress. It is in scientific terms that historians attempt to re-define themselves, endeavouring, as Lytton Strachey (1933, 170) later described, “to reconstruct the past solidly and patiently, with nothing but fact to assist them – pure facts, untwisted by [...] bias and uncoloured by romance”; the resultant story being enshrouded, as in the case of one eminent practitioner, in “a perfectly grey light [that] prevails everywhere [...] every suggestion of personal passion [...] studiously removed” (208–09). Highly appropriate was Strachey’s attribution of such greyness, pervading a passion-free zone, to Mandell Creighton (1886, 5), as one of the founding editors of the English Historical Review, with its avowed aim of “pursuing [history] for its own sake in a calm and scientific spirit” (my emphasis); and it was altogether consistent with J. B. Bury’s agenda as Regius Professor in Cambridge at the turn of the century, whose own proposed disciplinary realignment involved the repudiation of erstwhile associates in the humanities, and the forging of closer ties with “the sciences, which deal objectively with the facts of the universe.” It was, after all, in the nature of history to be “true; and that can be attained only through the discovery,

136 Beverley Southgate collection, classification, and interpretation of facts – through scientific research” (Stern 1956, 215–17; my emphasis). The new historian, then, was to exemplify “the scientific man,” as characterised by Karl Pearson (1892, 7–9): one who has “above all things to strive at self-elimination in his judgements,” and so make assessments “unbiased by personal feeling” and “independent of the individual mind.” Here enters with a vengeance “the narrator from nowhere,” the purveyor of narratives, which are not so much constructed by historians as revealed to them and, rather like fossils or divinely inscribed tablets, awaiting retrieval by those whose self-effacement makes them worthy recipients. Such freshly revealed narratives tell it simply as it is, or was; not relative to any time or place, they are “objective” in the sense of lacking any specific viewpoint, and have no more ethical input than a mathematised description of nature. They simply “tell the truth.” (And if that method seems to stretch credulity, consider the expectations laid by the public on twenty- first century news-reporters, who are still conventionally required to, and, where approved, believed to exercise “objectivity” and “balance” by remaining properly “uninvolved,” “non-judgemental,” and “detached” from their subject-matter.) A component of the living, or human, dimension of the past, of which scientistic historians have thus been deprived, is that of ethics. Since its reform in early modernity, science deliberately excluded ethics from its purview: scientists qua scientists are to keep nature at arm’s length, avoiding any emotional involvement or “subjective” input. Nature, after all, is simply as it is, and science is its systematic revelation; so how we might wish it, or think it ought to be, is irrelevant. And similarly, then, with the past: historians must avoid what Marc Bloch (1954, 31) called the “satanic enemy of true history: the mania for making judgements”; study of the past, as constantly reiterated by historians in the mid-twentieth century, must be strictly “for its own sake.” And that view lives on in, for example, the more recent recommendation of one British educationist, that history teachers eschew “any attempt at ‘making the world a better place’” (Kinloch 1998). That, he asserts, is not their function: they should, it seems, continue to be as intellectually fastidious as Mandell Creighton, who was described by Lord Acton (1887, 573) as contriving “to pass through scenes of raging controversy and passion with a serene curiosity, a suspended judgment, a divided jury, and a pair of white gloves.” White gloves continued to be the preferred attire of historians through much of the last century, when narrative itself and per se became suspect – as being a relic of that literary and rhetorical culture, which was to be replaced by science and scientific analysis; for if science itself was now essentially mathematical, history too must concern itself with what could be similarly quantified and reduced to statistical analysis. That “cliometric” trend was re-emphasised with the advent of computers, which seemingly enabled such analyses to be carried out far more widely, with far more numbers; and databases continue, of course, to be all the rage. Yet a requirement for narratives quickly re-emerges in a socio-political context in which histories are (as they habitually are) needed to justify militarism, imperialism, newly formed nation-states, newly constructed political conglomerates (such as the European Union), and older unions in need of reaffirmation (such as the disintegrating so-called “United Kingdom”). And such stories almost inevitably take the form of progressive narratives, arriving squarely at the

“All their Feet on the Ground”? 137 required destination, however much such comforts may be theoretically decried as “whiggish.” “Whiggishness,” indeed, when defined in more than purely political terms, is hard to avoid in long-term historical narration, and, despite the presence of periodic diversions down (sometimes temporary) blind alleys, it has been particularly easy to justify in histories of science and technology – at least until environmental issues began to take centre-stage. The history of art, too, following Vasari, could (until comparatively recently) maintain a similarly progressive trajectory in its own terms of increasingly accurate representations of nature. And historians more generally (unless naturally pessimistic) want to see socio-political development as ultimately progressive – using such criteria as living-standards, democratic institutions, or human rights. So to give one recent example, a biography of the American President Barack Obama introduces him as one who “just might be [the] culmination” of “a narrative of moral and political progress” (see Lelyveld 2010, 4). Those are the sorts of narratives that most of us might wish to be a part of, landing as they do, so comfortingly and tidily, with all their feet on the ground. But they have come under threat from other quarters.

Challenges from the Arts

Even at the height of the enthusiasm for science evident in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, there were of course dissenters from the mainstream intellectual outlook.1 So in the earlier period, Méric Casaubon (1669, 24) provides one example of a humanist inveighing against what he saw as an increasingly dominant culture, which, he said, was so exclusive – so dogmatically assured of its own rightness – as to admit of “no other wisdom.” And similar challenges were made, through the nineteenth century, to what was then a fashionably scientific approach that again seemed to negate the value of any alternative approaches. Some of those dissidents in the later period retained their own reputations as historians; which is to say that history was still a sufficiently broad church to accommo- date some of those who were later to be denounced as disciplinary heretics, or at best as amateur relics from pre-professional scientific days. Of these, Thomas Carlyle is one important example; and I feel justified in taking him as a “poetic” critic of history, since, despite his contemporary reputation, he barely qualifies today, in our own scientifically oriented times, as a “proper” historian. Indeed, even in his own day, his narrative of the French Revolution was described by John Stuart Mill (1965, 184) as “not so much a history, as an epic poem” – an assessment that would now result in automatic profess- sional disqualification, but which for Mill himself (as a recent convert to such an

1 I say, “of course,” because I believe that what is fundamentally at issue here is a tension between (in Coleridge’s terminology) “two classes of men.” I should further clarify that when I refer to a “mainstream” outlook, I imply that that is the outlook for which there is currently most evidence from the time.

138 Beverley Southgate approach) indicated that Carlyle’s work was to be accounted as nothing less than “the truest of histories.” Carlyle’s (1836) poeticising of history is entirely consistent with his own theorising on the subject, as shown both in his essays and in his account of the fictional German Professor Diogenes Teufelsdröckh in Sartor Resartus. For in the first place, he was deeply sceptical about the supposedly “factual” basis of history. “What are your historical Facts?,” he asks; and “What if many a so-called Fact were little better than a Fiction?” (134). “Fact” and “fiction” are not so easily distinguished, and anyway any supposedly “authentic fragments” will inevitably be “mingled with Fabulous [fictitious] chimeras” (76; my emphases). Secondly – and this brings us back directly to our own subject – there is a further problem inherent in the “stringing together” of supposed facts into a coherent narrative. A part of that problem derives from difficulties associated with causation: we blithely assign causes to effects, and vice versa, failing to recognise that they are parts of a much wider picture; so that “our ‘chains’ or chainlets, of ‘causes and effects’” need to be seen within “a broad, deep Immensity [...] [in which] each atom is ‘chained’ and complected [i.e., interwoven] with all!” What historians are actually confronted by is an “unfathomable” chaos – the “Chaos of Being” – so it is impossible ever to draw through it a single satisfactory narrative line: any such narrative must, by definition, be only one-dimensional; “Narrative is linear.” Whereas what requires repre- sentation is essentially complex and multi-dimensional: events are often not “successive” but “simultaneous”; “Action is solid” (Carlyle [1830] 1915, 84–85). And so too are hu- man beings. They too constitute an entity, which cannot be reduced to the discreet parts required for scientific analysis; so as a third point, Carlyle (1836, 134) asks: “Wilt thou know a Man [...] by stringing together beadrolls of what thou namest Facts?” Carlyle’s critique of “scientific” history goes one step further in a way that impinges directly on narrative; for he specifically challenges history’s foundational space-time framework. Taking a huge imaginative step, he questions those fundamental constituents of the intellectual framework – asking whether they are indeed naturally just there, as essential parts of the universe, or whether they themselves are but tools that humans use, imposing them as a grid upon what would otherwise appear as chaotic experience. “SPACE and TIME,” as his Professor Teufelsdröckh describes, “lie all-embracing, as the universal canvass, or warp and woof, whereby all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm existence, weave and paint themselves” (Carlyle 1836, 170); which is to say that they are woven into the very fabric of our thought – or rather that our thought is woven into their fabric. It is only by slotting experience into the mental structure that they provide, that we can hope to comprehend it, make some sense of it, and so construct a narrative. Those parameters of space and time may, then, for practical purposes be essential; but as Carlyle goes on to point out, they seem to be determining more than the merely practical aspects of life: they seem further to be imposing constraints, beyond their remit, in the spiritual dimension of our lives. For by narrowing down our focus, they blind us to the wonders that lie all around us, and that we might otherwise see. They enjoy a “quite undue rank of Realities,” and really should not be recognised as “realities” at all. Without them, we would be enabled to perceive an alternative reality that included the miraculous: “we should see ourselves in a World of Miracles” (Carlyle 1836, 171).

“All their Feet on the Ground”? 139

That envisaged “world of miracles” has little to do with the empirical world with which historians have traditionally been concerned, but Carlyle may provide hints here that even historiographical concerns may profitably be extended. Certainly, since his time there have been many philosophical discussions concerning the nature of both space and time, but these seem (at least until very recently) to have had little impact on the thinking of historians and theorists. Even after relevant early twentieth-century developments in science, few have questioned these fundamentals of a discipline to which accepted definitions of both space and time as “neutral and homogenous” continue to be central, or, in Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth’s (1992, 20) words, a “generally unexamined article of cultural faith.”2 Carlyle’s critique of “scientific” history was reiterated, and more widely disseminated, by his friend Charles Dickens;3 and through the nineteenth century it is novelists who most obviously resist the scientific emphasis – not least by providing their own alternative narratives in the form of what came to be the separate genre of “historical fiction.” Of that genre, Walter Scott is the great exemplar – himself originally an orthodox historian, but one who came to be dissatisfied with what he disdainfully referred to as a “dryasdust” approach. Despite (or because of) his huge popularity, he was – as his successors long continued to be – denigrated by historians as a mere amateur; and, in an atmosphere of mutual hostility, novelists in turn provided less than flattering representations of historians as professional pedants who squeezed the life out of any narrative, or who failed to recognise that any life was actually there in the first place. André Gide’s ([1902] 1960) fictional historian in The Immoralist, for instance, is the disillusioned Michel, who follows Carlyle in realising that “the facts of history [...] had once [...] been juicy with sap and alive in the sun,” but that they had, for the purposes of scientific analysis, been reduced to a “fixity” that resembled “the immobility of death” (49–50). He himself finally renounced any merely “abstract and neutral acquaintance with the past” (64; my emphasis), and strove, after ridding his mind of “all this intolerable logic” (147), to focus more on feeling, with an attendant “influx of a richer, warmer blood” (52). And his is but one example of the way that historians’ addiction to a “scientific” methodology, with its related reliance on conventional narrative form (within a Newtonian and usually Eurocentric framework), came under attack from disciplinary neighbours in both literary and visual arts in the early twentieth century. Thus, literary narratives began to show signs of deliberate disruption: Joseph Conrad is but one early exemplar of a trend that has continued through such writers as William Faulkner to Gabriel Garcia Marquez; and examples of multiple narratives (where alternative narratives are provided from a variety of perspectives) in fiction have now become a commonplace. So too in the visual arts, where practitioners have similarly repudiated any attempt to represent natural phenomena or human experience in tradition-

2 For the theoretical implications for history of Einstein’s challenge to the absolute nature of space and time, see further Ermarth 1992; and see also Corfield 2007, where further references are given. Corfield accepts that, after Einstein’s relativity theories and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, “the unfolding framework for history [...] began to seem much more wobbly and uncertain than had previously been imagined” (10). 3 Dickens (1854) dedicated his novel Hard Times, with its famous treatment of “facts,” to Carlyle.

140 Beverley Southgate nal ways. Again from the early twentieth century, artists such as Picasso and Braque attempted to meet the challenge of representation from a multiplicity of viewpoints. Their aim was quite self-consciously to bring together different perspectives on an object: by breaking it into constituent parts, and then reassembling it in alternative ways, and in variant relations to its context, “reality” itself was shown to be ambiguous. With a profile, perhaps, superimposed upon a full-face portrayal, and with constituent features – eyes, ears, nose, and so on – placed in unexpected ways, viewers were (and are) challenged to reappraise their own interpretations, and may be faced with the realisation that other variants too may be possible, and that all the innumerable possibilities for reconstituting the parts may be equally valid, equally “true.” In the literary and visual arts, then, any belief in the possibility of definitive represen- tation has long since lost all credulity; and scientists themselves have become resigned to uncertainties, to the effects of their own (unavoidable) intrusiveness, and even on occasion to being held in suspense between competing and seemingly mutually exclusive hypotheses. But as a discipline history seemingly remains a thing apart: historians have continued to be reluctant to abandon their outmoded conception of science and their subscription to a unitary, monologic – even “definitive” – narrative.

Postmodern Hybrids

Still, that model of an intellectual procedure characterised by clarity, precision, rationality, and detachment, and a method that reliably culminates in certainty and truth – that idealised model of a perfectible science – has become ever more difficult to maintain. Even for historians, the last half-century has proved especially challenging as their long- lived, carefully constructed, and assiduously maintained distinction between “factual/historical” and “fictional” narratives has suffered increasing erosion, with a pro- liferation of what might be called “postmodern hybrids.” For not only theoreticians, but also some less conventional practitioners, have laid siege to history’s citadel and undermined its individual integrity, until what remains is not so much a barricaded boundary between history itself and its threatening neighbours (including especially fiction), as an extensive borderland between what are proving to be two highly permeable frontiers. Those frontiers are still policed, but to limited avail, as the old criteria for citizenship on either side become perceived as increasingly irrelevant, if not actually meaningless. Meaningless, since it simply makes no sense to aspire to a “factual,” “truthful” narrative of a past to which we have no direct access and from which we are inevitably distanced, if only for reasons of inherent linguistic and representational limitations. “All stories are fictions,” Hayden White (2010, xxv) has concluded; “nar- ration itself has been shown to be inherently fictive, whatever its subject matter” (236); stories, whether told by novelists or historians, are to be assessed by virtue, not of their truth or falsity, but of their coherence, consistency, intelligibility, and persuasiveness. For far from being a neutral medium in which events can be transparently represented, narrative can be seen as an attempt from a specific standpoint to provide an explanation of what has happened – and so as an interpretation, in whatever literary genre.

“All their Feet on the Ground”? 141

Historians themselves (or some of them) have come to recognise just how precarious their position has become. Greg Dening and John Demos, for example, have suggested that historians might extend their range of operations to include territory previously excluded as professionally off-limits. The former, while wishing still to retain his reputation as “a teller of true stories, as distinct from being a ‘mere’ writer of fiction” (Dening 2007, 101, my emphasis), has suggested that the past might be represented not only through words, but also by such unorthodox means as “paint or dance or music or play” (102).4 Demos is less radical with regard to history’s conveyance, and insists again on a clear distinction between fact and fiction. But he goes on to wonder if historians might be liberated sufficiently to embrace hitherto forbidden territories, so long as they indicated, perhaps by the use of different typefaces, when they entered areas of which they claimed knowledge, but for which they lacked “full ‘proof’” (Demos 2005, 334). Those two examples reveal the tensions within a historical profession, some members of which seem torn between their intellectual apprehension of scientific history’s defeat and their emotional attachment to a model in which they have made such a heavy professional investment; and those tensions can only be exacerbated by the numerous “hybrids” – by which I mean deliberate blendings of what is taken as “fact” and “fiction” – that have become of late so popular as forms of entertainment. In addition to the ubiquitous and long-lived genres of historical fiction and historical dramas, contemporary examples include “faction,” “non-fiction novels,” “fictionalised” biographies, television “docudramas,” “historical” films and biopics, and a mass of “heritage”-inspired creations. All these have some basis in “fact,” but include more ima- ginative, or potentially “fictional,” input than would be (or often is) admitted to by their authors, or approved by professional historians. Yet all perhaps may have more emo- tional impact by focusing more directly on those stories or parts of stories that would be disallowed under the accepted criteria of scientific history. And they may, of course, convey a “truth” about the past, which, though different, or perceived from a different perspective or by different means, is no less valid. For truth, perhaps, may be appre- hended by the gut as well as by the mind; and although Thucydides was disdainful of his poetic predecessors, the “truth” (or some truth) of the past wars of which they each wrote may have been as effectively conveyed by Homer as by him: representation of the sheer pathos of war, as revealed in, for instance, Hector’s leave-taking of his wife and baby son, or in the death of Patroclus, has surely never been surpassed in “proper” histories. Some poetic “truth” in these episodes connects through the centuries (just as Mill recognised in the case of Carlyle’s French Revolution) – and that may have lessons for today.5

4 This is not quite as original as it may sound, but has eighteenth-century antecedents: Condillac favoured the use of actions and gestures, as constituting a “language of simultaneous ideas,” for the direct expression of mixed feelings that may be experienced simultaneously (Rée 1999, 133). 5 This is not to say that Thucydides himself is not well able to stir the emotions of his readers: his account of the reception by Athenians of the news of their doomed Sicilian expedition in 415 BC is indeed “poetic’’ but is an episode that, under John Demos’s suggested rule, may have had to be written with a different type-face.

142 Beverley Southgate

Disciplinary Realignments for the Future

Academic “disciplines” are constituted for a purpose: to narrow down a focus, and within that narrowed perception to formulate rules of proceeding that will enable appropriate questions to be answered by appropriate means; and then to keep practitioners on the straight and narrow, as that has been defined by their predecessors. In this way, within a deliberately circumscribed field, problems can be solved, a consensus maintained, and a body of knowledge built upon secured foundations. The future of any established discipline will therefore resemble its past through the continuing acceptance of rules, procedures, subject-matter, and methodologies that have become traditional; and, as but one example, history will endlessly recycle the definitions and procedures promulgated by its own originators – Aristotle or Leopold von Ranke, or others to whom authority is conventionally ascribed. Unless, that is, some upstart kicks over the traces and deter- minedly re-defines its programme. It may just be time for some such realignment; and that process might start with a look at what is expected today from an historical narrative. What we currently expect – and this was our starting-point – is a “true” story about the past, a coherent and singular story telling it how it was. It is for that reason that Simon Schama has (not without a measure of self-righteousness) recently referred to historians as “party-poopers” – as spoiling people’s fun by replacing their enjoyable “myths” with something rather more serious – “the truth.”6 This example of historians’ continuing aspiration to tell “the truth” could readily be multiplied; in similar vein, academics still regularly refer to “definitive” works that supposedly provide the last word on a subject – and the public is still, remarkably, advised of how an historian “has managed to capture the essence of the Second World War in a compelling single volume” (Lowe 2009, 19; my emphases). Believers in a unitary truth – “fundamentalists” – are to be found not only in churches, mosques, and tabloid newspapers but also (and no less) in university depart- ments; and apart from a few aberrant theorists, historians for the most part continue to assert the scientific virtues of objectivity, detachment, rationality, empirically derived evidence, and the repudiation (within their own work) of anything that might be construed as subjective, emotional, political, ideological, or ethical. Fortunately, however, there are a few signs of change, which may be indicative of future directions. In a recent review, the eminent historian of early modernity, Blair Worden (2010, 50), has questioned whether such horrors as the burning alive of human beings for their religious convictions can properly be handled by those encumbered by professionally ordained “white gloves”: an overly analytic approach to such matters, eschewing narrative, can, he suggests, lead to a history exuding “a faintly disembodied air”; and he hints that in the art of story-telling – which is “the most instructive form of historical writing” – professional historians “have no advantage” over their competitors. That is a particularly interesting criticism, however implicit, of conventional historio- graphy. For Worden notes that it is narrative that enables, or should enable, “the re- creation of the moods and pressures under which the shapers of events make their

6 John Burrow (2009, 385) writes similarly of how history’s “austere professionalism spoiled the game,” from the nineteenth century.

“All their Feet on the Ground”? 143 choices”; and his suggestion that that terrain might just as well (if not better, presumably) be covered by amateurs (as is implied) must indeed constitute “an uneasy thought for professional historians.” Their uneasiness might be compounded by the realisation that the stress on the priority of narrative as being “most instructive” has long been apparent in works of fiction – unsurprisingly, since (despite a few experiments) the very existence of novelists depends upon it. “Man,” asserts Graham Swift’s ([1883] 1992, 62) history teacher in his novel Waterland, “[...] is the story-telling animal,” for he needs to see himself within some meaningful narrative. Children have always been told stories, “in order to quell restless thoughts” (7); but adults too need their comforter. They too need to have their fear of the dark dispelled. They too want in their own lives to see direction and purpose – “to leave behind not a chaotic wake, not an empty space, but the comforting marker-buoys and trail-signs of stories” (63). It is that trail of stories, that comforting narrative, which history, at both personal and public levels, contrives to provide. Which is what another novelist, Julian Barnes (1990, 242), means when he writes that “[o]ur panic and our pain are only eased by soothing fabulation; we call it history” – the sort of history that so conveniently provides “connections, progress, meaning.” History’s buoys and signs may be “fabulated,” made up, and variously deployed; they need make no pretence of indicating the only possible route through the far from “empty space” of the past, or correspond uniquely with a “truth.” All that is required from them is some sense of direction, or, in human terms, some meaning. And that direction, as another novelist confirms, by no means need involve imbuing the past with the characteristic “greyness” described by Lytton Strachey. History may admittedly consist, by convention, of “grey stuff”; but Penelope Lively’s (1988, 186) fictional historian, Claudia Hampton, declines to contribute to that “uniform grey pond”: not for her “the cool level tone of dispassionate narration” (15). On the contrary, she aspires to produce a far more colourful “spectacle” – a sort of “Technicolor history” (8), as her critics accuse; and that may result in her being “loftily disdained by some aca- demics, angrily refuted by others” (59–60), but it does make her (like Walter Scott) more popular than her more conventional detractors. Penelope Lively’s own novel exemplifies some of the ways in which narratives can be enlivened. So, for example, Hampton realises the essentially chaotic nature of chronology: she (like Carlyle) is aware that inside her own head “there is no sequence, everything happens at once”; so that “a lifetime is not linear but instant,” with memories “forever shuffled and reshuffled” like a pack of cards (Lively 1988, 68). And applying that subjective insight to her subject, she rejects any idea of a “linear history” with an orderly narrative (2); she has no aspiration to be a sort of “archetypal chronicler” (3), simply describing events one after another, in their supposed order of appearance. More appropriate to history, she believes, is the model of a kaleidoscope, which can be shaken to produce many different colourful (but arbitrary) patterns. And that “kaleidoscopic” approach is actually illustrated in the construction of the novel. For we learn how past episodes of her life constantly resurface in Claudia Hampton’s memory, as it is jogged in various directions by people and everyday objects. A poinsettia brought to her hospital bedside proves to represent not the kindly act inten- ded but an “unwitting brutality” (Lively 1988, 100), since, like Proust’s madeleine, it im-

144 Beverley Southgate mediately transports its recipient back in time – reminding her of poinsettias she had seen flowering in the desert during the war when she was enjoying all too briefly the company of her lover, who was soon to die. But the point here is that the interpolation of earlier episodes within the main narrative exemplifies what Hampton refers to as a proposal for “realistic kaleidoscopic history” (80); and that technique might indicate an alternative, and more “colourful,” form than that of linear narrative. That format is, of course, one that has been used in many other novels, at least from the early twentieth century – though perhaps with less direct reference to historiography itself – and it is one that has been introduced with particular success in cinema, where “multiple narratives” have become virtually the norm. In film, flashbacks have become standard procedure, allowing narratives (and/or individual characters) to be enhanced through their location within a wider temporal framework; and it is the literary equivalent of this technique that is provided by novelists as possible exemplars for historians.7 If literature has given the lead here, it might seem paradoxical at this stage to bring science itself to bear on our subject of narratology; but neuro-science may clarify what it is that we need history to aim for (and avoid) in a world in social, political, economic, and environmental crisis – and that clearly calls out for fundamental change. Here I rely on Iain McGilchrist, who too, but from his quite different perspective, argues for a change of cultural emphasis and direction. Grossly to oversimplify, in his book The Master and His Emissary, McGilchrist outlines the respective functions of the two separate and autonomous, but constantly interacting, hemispheres of the human brain. The left hemisphere enables us to gain the sort of knowledge that has long been fashionable in western philosophy and science – focusing narrowly on specifics, breaking experience down into manageable units in the interest of rational analysis, classifying, categorising, and enabling us to take control. In line with what have become widely accepted intellectual procedures, it operates in a “detached” manner, taking an abstract and impersonal “God’s eye” view of data – fixing it (making it stable) and making sense of it by developing and applying rules, seeking and finding consistency (even where that requires filling in gaps in understanding). Assuming a world that is rational, it demateri- alises the objects of its attention, abstracting them and removing them from any context. Operating within a closed system, it is deficient when exposed to what lies outside, but it provides what has become, in McGilchrist’s (2009, 135) words, the “default approach of philosophy” – and that, we might add, includes the philosophy of history.8 But despite the left hemisphere’s obviously indispensable contribution to intellectual pursuits of a “scientific” nature (which, again, include conventional history), it does not of itself suffice; and that is where the complementary right hemisphere comes into play –

7 In line with Claudia’s ‘kaleidoscopic’ model, Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth (1992, 54) has written of how, without “linear co-ordinates,” “pattern is always emerging and dissolving.” And Jonathan Rée has advocated a “philosophical history,” which would “cut cinematically between close and distant perspectives”; for, as (again like Claudia) he notes, philosophical experience is “like a tangled heap of co-existences,” and “[t]he rhythms of philosophical experience are no respecters of the metronomical divisions decreed by the History of Philosophy” (1999, 383–84). 8 For a consideration of Iain McGilchrist’s work with particular reference to historical theory and practice, see Southgate 2011.

“All their Feet on the Ground”? 145 or should. For it is that that sees the “bigger picture” – that attends to peripheral vision, and so can see things more “holistically,” within their wider context. It can see how things inter-relate and inter-connect, finding patterns in what would otherwise appear chaotic, and performing an integrative function; but at the same time it seems able to tolerate a lack of fixity and a measure of uncertainty, and so remains open to new inputs from outside current perceptions and experience. So the right hemisphere is important for creativity, which often depends on an ability to see things from a new perspective, and to unite what had previously appeared as disparate. The essence of McGilchrist’s argument, then, is that while the left and right hemispheres of the brain each has its own distinctive role, it is the left – the more focused and rational – that has come to dominate the right, with its more expansive and imaginative role. As initially “master,” the widely-ranging right hemisphere delegated the left to inspect the world more closely and make some sense of it; but instead of just reporting back, the “emissary” assumed the governance and took (or is fast taking) overall control – with ultimately detrimental results, both personal and cultural. If we look at narrative through that neuro-scientific lens, we can see the current dominance of left-hemisphere activity: the objective of formulating a single, rational path through data, making so much sense that it is claimed to be inherent in it (enabling a coherent, and even “truthful,” story to be told) – that objective has been amply fulfilled. But what may be missing is the right-hemisphere input that enables some self- consciousness of the necessarily limited nature of that, or any, narrative – that exposes its contingency, as having, with all its selection of accompanying and supportive “facts,” been created (“invented, not found,” as Hayden White long since insisted) at the expense of an enormity of what has been excluded. We conclude, then, with a plea for greater recognition of the inevitable limitations of a narrative – of any narrative – and for recognition of the prime importance of self- consciousness concerning its construction. For as McGilchrist (2009, 5) goes on to insist, the “reality” we accept is the reality we experience: our mode of approaching the world determines the very world itself that we experience; “our disposition towards the world [...] [is] fundamental in grounding what it is that we come to have a relationship with.” That is to say, “the kind of attention we pay actually alters the world”; for by attending to one thing, and focusing on it, we necessarily omit to attend to others, which then recede and disappear from view. Our choice of historical narrative is tantamount to a choice of what is to be our own reality. As Kant and Hegel, and doubtless others, long since recognised, “the model we choose to use to understand something determines what we find” (McGilchrist 2009, 97); so what we are talking about here is not just intellectual but existential, and also political – not just “different ways of thinking about the world [...] [but] different ways of being in the world” (31). Our mode of being in the world has, in modernity, expressed the confidence of an outdated9 “scientific” outlook bent on certainty and ultimate truth: an

9 “Outdated,” if we consider e.g. the views of physicist Max Born: “I am convinced that ideas such as absolute certainty, absolute precision, final truth, and so on are phantoms which should be excluded from science [...]. The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in

146 Beverley Southgate alternative, and more “poetic” stance might accept a measure of uncertainty in a world that is experienced as “interpreted,” and where we may not by any means feel “very securely at home” (Rilke [1912] 1963, 25). As such, historical narratives would be presented with due humility, as inevitably partial (in both senses of that word), subjective, morally committed as a positive result of personal (and even emotional) involvement – rather than continuing the pretence of a scientific methodology that purports to enable them to “come down beautifully with all their feet on the ground!” And there may be some advantage there: as John Dewey (1921, 25) insisted, “what is lost from the standpoint of would-be science is regained from the standpoint of humanity.”

Conclusion

Some historical theorists, such as Keith Jenkins (2009), are currently calling for an end to “history” – for the renunciation of any form of “historical consciousness” – seeing that as a pernicious encouragement towards “more of the same,” and seeing its need as only a culture-bound and temporary malaise of which we can now mercifully rid ourselves. Others would simply jettison “narrative,” whether in history or fiction, as constituting an inevitably ideological positioning in relation, particularly, to a “realism” that is now untenable. And yet others see “historical narratives” as so degraded by their assimilation to “fiction” as to be simply pointless. Yet the popular demand for such works seems to increase in inverse proportion to the attacks mounted against them; so how do we conclude? First, it seems to me that “historical consciousness” is here to stay. We may not all suffer the “burden” of a personal or public past that importunes and intrudes into our present, encouraging full-scale Proustian remembrance at the expense of life in the here- and-now; but there can be few who do not periodically experience the “pounce of memory” described by Virginia Woolf, and whose psychic health does not depend upon its assimilation into a story we can bear. And – and this is the point – perhaps, on a public level, it is desirable that that should be the case: there are pasts that we might prefer to forget and that histories have sometimes helped us to forget; but, for the sake of the future, they may be better not forgotten. Second, regardless of its epistemological status or ideological positioning, “narrative” is here to stay: as Graham Swift’s teacher proclaimed in company with many others, we all need stories. For stories – whether mythological, theological, biological, psycholo- gical, historical, or whatever – provide such explanations as we need to give some meaning and direction to human life; and in the increasingly “demystified” world we inhabit, it is, or may be, given to “history” to answer that need. At least historians may now openly apply to fulfill that role, claiming plenty of prior experience as pragmatic underpinners of aspirations of any hue required – sectional or national, imperial or colonial, or any other. So practising historians may imitate their more avant-garde literary

possession of it, seems to me the deepest root of all that is evil in the world” (Born 1970, 142– 3).

“All their Feet on the Ground”? 147 colleagues (or competitors) and package their wares in trendy alternative ways; but the demand for straightforward narratives – for stories clearly structured, with beginning, middle, and end – seems, despite all the theoretical hand-wringing, unlikely to diminish. Third, the epistemological status of those narratives seems to me to matter little: more to the point is their ethical import. That historical narratives are essentially “fictive” in the sense of being constructed rather than simply uncovered or found, seems now incontest- able (though contestation does of course continue; and I do not mean to imply that all stories are equally credible or persuasive). Which makes it all the more important to question what they are then for. And here I can only say that there seems little point in anything that fails to affect the present and the future. So while historians may no longer wish to present teleological narratives that provide a trajectory on which we are being carried to some preordained end, thereby closing down discussion, they might conversely (and reverting to Herodotus) consider opening up such discussion by presenting their own narratives as contingent, and as being contestable by alternatives. In that way there might be revealed a range of possibilities – a number of potential routes from the past, into and through the future – over which it is possible (and indeed it is requisite) to exer- cise control. In other words, such narratives, through the transparency of their own con- struction, would indicate the possibility of choice for the future. They would encourage aspirational – even inspirational and “high-flown” – experiments for the future, rather than once more coming safely down to earth with all their feet on the same old ground.

Works Cited

Acton, Lord. 1887. Review of A History of the Papacy by Mandell Creighton. The English Historical Review 2, 571–81. Barnes, Julian. 1990. A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters. London: Picador. Bloch, Marc. 1954. The Historian’s Craft. Translated by P. Putnam. Manchester: Manchester UP. Born, Max. 1970. Physics in My Generation. London: Longman. Burrow, John. 2009. A History of Histories. London: Penguin. Carlyle, Thomas. 1836. Sartor Resartus. London: Ward, Lock. Carlyle, Thomas. 1904. The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. Edited by S. C. Lomas. London: Methuen. Carlyle, Thomas. [1830] 1915. “On History.” In: English and Other Critical Essays. London: J. M. Dent, 80–90. Casaubon, Méric. 1669. A Letter to Peter du Moulin. Cambridge: William Morden. Corfield, Penelope J. 2007. Time and the Shape of History. New Haven: Yale UP. Creighton, Mandell. 1886. “Prefatory Note.” The English Historical Review 1.1, 1-6. Demos, John. 2005. “Afterword: Notes from, and about, the History/Fiction Borderland.” Rethinking History 9, 329–35. Dening, Greg. 2007. “Performing Cross-Culturally.” In: Manifestos for History. Edited by Keith Jenkins, Sue Morgan, and Alun Munslow. London: Routledge, 98–107. Dewey, John. 1921. Reconstruction in Philosophy. London: University of London Press.

148 Beverley Southgate

Eagleton, Terry. 2009. Review of On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition and Fiction by Brian Boyd. London Review of Books 31.18, 20–21. Ermarth, Elizabeth Deeds. 1992. Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time. Princeton: Princeton UP. Gide, André. [1902] 1960. The Immoralist. Translated by Dorothy Bussy. Harmonds- worth: Penguin. Herodotus. 1910. History. Translated by George Rawlinson. 2 vols. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Jenkins, Keith. 2009. At the Limits of History: Essays on Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Kingsley, Charles. [1863] The Water Babies. London: Blackie. Kinloch, Nicolas. 1998. “Learning about the Holocaust: Moral or Historical Question?” Teaching History 93, 44–46. Lelyveld, Joseph. 2010. “Who is Barack Obama?” Review of The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick. New York Review of Books, May 13. Lively, Penelope. 1988. Moon Tiger. London: Penguin. Lowe, Keith. 2009. Review of The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts. The Daily Telegraph, August 8. McGilchrist, Iain. 2009. The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven: Yale UP. Mill, John Stuart. 1965. “Carlyle’s French Revolution.” In: Mill’s Essays on Literature and Society. Edited by J. B. Schneewind. London: Collier Macmillan, 184–206. Pearson, Karl. 1892. The Grammar of Science. London: Walter Scott. Rée, Jonathan. 1999. I See a Voice: A Philosophical History of Language, Deafness and the Senses. London: HarperCollins. Rilke, Rainer Maria. [1912] 1963. Duino Elegies. Translated by J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender. London: Hogarth Press. Southgate, Beverley. 2011. Review of The Master and his Emissary by Iain McGilchrist. Rethinking History 15.3 (forthcoming). Stern, Fritz, ed. 1956. “The Science of History.” In: The Varieties of History from Voltaire to the Present. New York: Meridien, 210–23. Strachey, Lytton. 1933. Portraits in Miniature and Other Essays. London: Chatto and Windus. Swift, Graham. [1983] 1992. Waterland. London: Picador. White, Hayden. 2010. The Fiction of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory. Edited by Robert Doran. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP. Woolf, Virginia. [1931] 1951. The Waves. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Worden, Blair. 2010. Review of Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor by Eamon Duffy. The New York Review of Books 57.7, 46–51.

Author’s Address:

Dr. Beverley Southgate, Flat 6, 11 Belsize Avenue, London, NW3 4BL, United Kingdom E-Mail: [email protected]

RUBRIC

SPIEL 30 (2011) H. 1, 151–158

Norbert Groeben (Heidelberg, GER)

Empirisierung (in) der Literaturwissenschaft: wissenschaftsinterne und -externe Dynamiken

Empiricism in the science of literature: internal and external scientific dynamics The contemporary empirical social sciences could only establish themselves as individual disciplines at the end of the 19th century because they adapted the scientific structure of the natural sciences. In continuation of this development the 20th century has been characterized by a pressure towards empiricism which also included the science of literature. The hermeneutic study of literature evaded however the corresponding internal scientific – intra- as well as interdisciplinary – dynamics so that meanwhile an external pressure towards empiricism is excerted by society, in particular with regard to the empirical testing of the efficacy of literature lessons. Because of the lack of competence in empirical methods, the science of literature has only an auxiliary function in this process. To be again master in one’s own house, an integration of theoretical and empirical science of literature should be conceptualized and realized.

Problemstellung: Indirekter vs. direkter gesellschaftlicher Empirisierungsdruck

Ein Faktum, das von niemandem bestritten werden dürfte, ist der Siegeszug der Naturwissenschaften in der neuzeitlichen Geistesgeschichte. Das betrifft ausgehend von der Physik (einschließlich Astronomie) vor allem die Chemie und Biologie, später auch Geologie. Schwieriger ist die Erklärung dieses Faktums. Aus meiner Sicht spricht viel dafür, dass die Naturwissenschaften der menschlichen Gesellschaft den Vorteil bieten konnten, mythologische Vorstellungen durch systematisch geprüfte Theorien zu ersetzen, die zu erfolgreichem Handeln in der (Alltags-)Realität befähigten (vgl. z.B. Albert 1991; Topitsch 1973). Bessere Handlungswirksamkeit war letztlich das überzeugend(st)e Krite- rium, das seinerseits vor allem auf die systematische empirische (experimentelle) Prü- fung der Theorien zurückgeführt wurde und wird. Vom Paradigma der Naturwissenschaf- ten her sind das – auf höchstem Abstraktionsniveau – die beiden zentralen Merkmale, die – heute – von der Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftlichkeit angesetzt und auch gefordert werden: Handlungswirksamkeit und systematische Empirie. Mit diesen kriterialen Merkmalen ist denn auch seit dem 19. Jahrhundert ein erheblicher Empirisierungsdruck auf all jene Wissenschaften verbunden, die (noch) nicht die Struktur der klassischen Naturwissenschaft aufweisen, in heutiger Terminologie die szientifische Wissenschaftsstruktur. Das hat am Ende des 19., Anfang des 20. Jahrhun- derts zu einem deutlichen Empirisierungsschub geführt, in dem sich die heute als empiri- sche Sozialwissenschaften zusammengefassten Objektdisziplinen der Psychologie, So- ziologie und Politologie sowie Pädagogik ‚empirisiert’ haben (vgl. Groeben 1997). Im

152 Norbert Groeben

Prinzip kann man sagen, dass sich diese Disziplinen erst über die Empirisierung als eigenständige Wissenschaften konstituieren konnten. Zumindest hat die Empirisierung das Gewicht und die Bedeutung dieser Objektwissenschaften innerhalb des Wissen- schafts- wie des Gesellschaftssystems nachdrücklich gestärkt. Dadurch ist der wissen- schaftsinterne und -externe Druck (zur Empirisierung) auf diejenigen Geistes- bzw. Kul- turwissenschaften, die sich primär als hermeneutische verstehen und konzeptualisieren, beträchtlich gewachsen. Insofern die Literaturwissenschaft einen paradigmatischen Kern der Geisteswissenschaften darstellt, gilt das auch für sie, und zwar in besonderem Maße. Dabei lassen sich zur Binnendifferenzierung vier Diskussionsfelder der Empirisierungs- dynamik unterscheiden: (1) als Kernbereich der wissenschaftsinternen Dynamik die disziplininternen Entwicklungen der Literaturwissenschaft; (2) als Randbereich der wissenschaftsinternen Dynamik die disziplinextern, inter- disziplinär angestoßenen Entwicklungen; (3) der wissenschaftsinterne Bereich der disziplininternen und -externen Abwehr- reaktionen; (4) der wissenschaftsexterne Bereich der gesellschaftlichen Ansprüche und Aufgabenübertragungen. In den ersten drei Bereichen manifestiert sich der vom Erfolg der Naturwissenschaften ausgelöste gesellschaftliche Empirisierungsdruck lediglich in indirekter Weise, insofern es (zunächst) den (Geistes-)Wissenschaften weitgehend selbst überlassen blieb, die Ziel- kriterien der Handlungswirksamkeit und systematischen Empirie besser zu erreichen. Dieser Zustand der indirekten (weitgehend wissenschaftsinternen) Empirisierungsdyna- mik prägt den größten Teil des 20. Jahrhunderts. Erst am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts tritt die Variante der direkten gesellschaftlichen Einflussnahme in Richtung auf eine Empiri- sierung der Geisteswissenschaften hinzu. Ich werde daher für die (sattsam bekannten) in- direkten Dynamiken nur Stichworte und Ordnungsaspekte anführen, um dann auf die neue Entwicklung des direkten gesellschaftlichen Empirisierungsdrucks etwas genauer einzugehen.

Wissenschaftsinterne Dynamiken in Bezug auf die Empirisierung der Literaturwissenschaft

Aus szientifischer Sicht stellt die klassische Selbstdarstellung der Literaturwissenschaft mit dem Rückgriff auf den sog. hermeneutischen Zirkel ein Problem dar. Denn (definitorische) Zirkularität ist in der von der Logik herkommenden szientifischen Wis- senschaftstheorie ein Mangel, der theoretische Annahmen sinnfrei und damit unwissen- schaftlich macht (vgl. Essler 1970). Für szientifische Ohren manifestiert sich in der Rede vom hermeneutischen Zirkel die Entgegensetzung, ja Ausschließungsrelation von Wahr- heit und Methode. Und das völlig unnötiger Weise. Denn die Abfolge von Rezeption ein- zelner Teile zur Integration des Gesamtbildes, erneuter Rezeption der Teile unter dem größeren Verstehenshorizont des Gesamtbildes und so fort stellt keine Zirkularität im logisch vitiösen Sinn dar, sondern eine Rückkoppelungsschleife (wie sie z.B. gerade auch

Empirisierung in der Literaturwissenschaft 153 in den Ingenieurwissenschaften gang und gäbe ist: vgl. Teichert 2004). Hier ist es vor allem unverständlich, warum die Literaturwissenschaft sich nicht längst von dieser ungünstigen Terminologie getrennt hat, die den Austausch zwischen den beiden Kulturen sensu Snow (der szientifischen und der literarischen: 1960/67) behindert: wo es so leicht wäre, z.B. einfach von Verstehensspirale zu sprechen (Teichert 2004; Weimar 2000, wobei letzterer allerdings explizit darauf hinweist, dass sich diese sinnvollere Begriffs- wahl bisher in der Literaturwissenschaft nicht durchgesetzt hat: S. 32). Deshalb kann man in einem solchen terminologischen Beharren u.U. auch einen Indikator für die genannte Methodenaversion sehen, eventuell sogar für eine Methoden- feindlichkeit. Denn auch die Literaturwissenschaft hat durchaus ihre mit einem bestim- mten Empirie-Begriff verbundenen Methoden entwickelt. Zu nennen sind hier als histori- scher Einsatzpunkt die philologischen Verfahren der Textsicherung, -analyse und -kritik; und als bedeutsamer Fortschritt in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts die Ansätze des Formalismus und Strukturalismus als systematische Vorgehensweisen der Textanalyse. Allerdings sind nicht einmal diese disziplin-internen Methodenentwicklungen (die man als eine Form systematischer Empirie rekonstruieren kann: vgl. Fricke 2007) in der (hermeneutischen) Literaturwissenschaft unumstritten, wie ihre immer wieder aufflam- mende Abwertung als ‚Positivismus’ zeigt. Nicht weniger umstritten sind die Versuche, die von anderen (benachbarten) Diszi- plinen aus in Richtung auf eine Empirisierung der Literaturwissenschaft unternommen worden sind, und zwar vor allem in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Als rele- vante interdisziplinäre Bezugswissenschaften sind hier besonders die Geschichte, Sozio- logie, Psychologie, Linguistik sowie Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft zu nennen. Zum Teil gibt es für diese Disziplinen natürlich auch hermeneutische Varianten, so etwa die geistesgeschichtliche oder tiefenpsychologische Literaturinterpretation (vgl. z.B. die Überblicke in Brackert & Stückrath 1992; Anz 2007). Es sind vor allem die disziplinären Kombinationen, die eine relevante Empirisierungsdynamik enthalten. Das gilt z.B. für die Kombination von Geschichte und Soziologie zur Sozialgeschichte der Literatur, wobei die unterschiedlichen Gewährsleute (der Soziologie: von Parsons über Elias und Luhmann bis zu Bourdieu) auch verschiedene Empirie-Begriffe implizieren (vgl. Heydebrand, Pfau & Schönert 1992; Janidis 2007), deren Aufdröselung hier jetzt zu weit führen würde. Psychologie und Linguistik können unter dem Dach einer inter- disziplinären Kognitionswissenschaft zusammengefasst werden, deren Empirisierungs- impetus vor allem auf methodologischer Ebene wirkt: bei der Linguistik akzentuierend auf die Textmaterialität ausgerichtet (Stylometrie, computergestützte Inhaltsanalyse etc.) und bei der Psychologie auf die Bedeutungskonstituierung fokussiert (so schon Groeben 1977/81). Damit steht die systematische Empirie des Kommunikationsprozesses im Mittelpunkt, neuerdings erweitert um die Relationen zu den neueren Medien über das Print-Medium hinaus (vgl. Zurstiege 2000). So sehr sich durch diese interdisziplinären Empirie-Ansätze auch an vielen Stellen inhaltlich parallele Annahmen und Ergebnisse zur hermeneutischen Literarästhetik und Literaturinterpretation gezeigt haben, so unge- brochen bleibt doch insgesamt der Vorbehalt der traditionellen Literaturwissenschaft gegen diese Form der Empirisierung, die als Überwältigung von außen empfunden wird (vgl. Einschätzung bei Fricke 2007).

154 Norbert Groeben

Das zeigt sich nicht zuletzt an den Abwehrreaktionen gegen die Empirisierung, von denen ich lediglich zwei kurz erwähnen will. Das eine ist die Rezeptionsästhetik, die mit der These, dass ein literarischer Text erst durch die Bedeutungszuschreibung des (realen, empirischen) Lesers konstituiert wird, eigentlich auf dem Weg zu einer methodischen Empirisierung scheint. Sie schreckt dann aber sowohl vor dem Problem einer adäquaten Passung von Methode und Gegenstand als auch der drohenden Beliebigkeit der rezipien- tenrelativen Interpretation zurück. Wie man nicht zuletzt aus der Statistik weiß, gibt es zwei komplementäre Irrtumsängste: einmal die Angst, eine falsche Hypothese anzu- nehmen, und zum anderen die Angst, eine richtige Hypothese abzulehnen (vgl. Westermann 2000, 367ff.). Aus der ersten Angst heraus (und damit aufgrund der Suche nach der richtigen Interpretation) postuliert die Rezeptionsästhetik nun, dass dem Text der ‚implizite Leser’ als Kriterium der richtigen Interpretation ‚eingeschrieben’ ist (vgl. Iser 1972; 1976). Da allerdings der implizite Leser nach eigenem Ausgangspunkt (auch) erst vom realen konstituiert wird, droht hier in der Tat Zirkularität im logisch vitiösen Sinn; zumindest ist die Rezeptionsästhetik dadurch auf das Empirieproblem aus der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts zurückgeworfen (vgl. Groeben 1977/81). Das gilt nun für die Richtung des Dekonstruktionismus eindeutig nicht. Hier steht die entgegengesetzte Irrtumsangst im Vordergrund, nämlich möglichst keine potentiell richtige Interpretation(shypothese) abzulehnen. Das soll durch eine radikale Antwort auf das Problem der Passung von Gegenstand und Methode gesichert werden, nämlich die völlige Anpassung der Methode an den Gegenstand (vgl. Culler 1988; Derrida 1972; de Man 1988). Die postulierte Strukturidentität zwischen literarischem Gegenstand und Methode bedeutet, dass auch die literatur’wissenschaftliche’ Methode und deren Ergeb- nis (die Interpretation) literarisch sein müssen. Dies widerspricht der basalen wissen- schaftstheoretischen Einsicht, dass man nicht schizophren sein muss, um Schizophrenie zu untersuchen, nicht aggressiv für Forschung über Aggression, und so weiter. Letztlich wird durch dieses Axiom der Strukturidentität von Gegenstand und Methode der Bereich der Wissenschaftlichkeit verlassen, Literatur’wissenschaft’ wird zur (Sekundär-)Kunst. Indem man sich aber – triumphierend – außerhalb von Wissenschaft stellt, wird man sich dem gesellschaftlichen Empirisierungsdruck nicht entziehen können (Groeben 2007).

Wissenschaftsexterner direkter Empirisierungsdruck auf die Literaturwissenschaft

Das zeigt die zeitlich (zur wissenschaftsinternen Mode des Dekonstruktionismus) parallel ablaufende Entwicklung in der Forschung zur Handlungswirksamkeit des Literatur- unterrichts. Dabei wird aus der übergreifenden Sicht der Gesellschaft die Literatur- didaktik als Anwendungszweig der Literaturwissenschaft (im Sinne der wissenschafts- theoretischen Kategorie ‚Technologie’) wahrgenommen. Und hier haben Ressourcen- knappheit und Qualifizierungsdruck innerhalb einer globalisierten Welt (und damit einer weltweiten Konkurrenz) dazu geführt, dass man sich nicht mehr mit der praxeologischen Überprüfung von Handlungswirksamkeit begnügt. Bis zum Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts hat sich die Gesellschaft damit zufrieden gegeben, dass die (hermeneutische) Literatur-

Empirisierung in der Literaturwissenschaft 155 wissenschaft/-didaktik entsprechend den jeweiligen wissenschaftsinternen Richtungen parallele Modelle der Unterrichtsoptimierung entwickelte und diese in der Schule ohne systematische Erfolgskontrolle erprobt wurden. Die unsystematische Erfolgskontrolle bestand darin, dass die Lehrpersonen die praxeologische Autorität hatten, zu entscheiden, was in der alltäglichen Unterrichts-Realität funktioniert (‚works’) oder nicht. Diese her- meneutisch praxeologische Autorität wird unter den Bedingungen globaler Konkurrenz nicht mehr als ausreichend angesehen; vielmehr setzt sich im ausgehenden 20. Jahrhun- dert der Anspruch durch, dass die Handlungswirksamkeit (des Literaturunterrichts) durch systematische Empirie nachgewiesen wird (Groeben & Hurrelmann 2006; Stückrath & Strobel 2005) Dieser Anspruch trifft nun aber auf eine Situation, in der sich die Literaturwissen- schaft (einschließlich dem anwendungsorientierten Zweig der Literaturdidaktik) über- wiegend den bisherigen wissenschaftsinternen Empirisierungsdynamiken widersetzt oder zumindest entzogen hat. Insofern ist die Literaturwissenschaft nicht in der Lage (gewesen), den gesellschaftlichen Anspruch auf Nachweis der literaturdidaktischen Handlungswirksamkeit selbst zu erfüllen. Die entsprechende (empirisch-methodolo- gische) Expertise liegt dagegen im Bereich der empirisch-pädagogischen bzw. pädago- gisch-psychologischen Unterrichtsforschung vor. Folglich werden diese Disziplinen auch mit der Überprüfung der (literaturwissenschaftlichen) Handlungswirksamkeit des Unter- richts, und zwar auch und gerade des Literatur-Unterrichts, betraut: in den sattsam bekannten nationalen und internationalen Untersuchungswellen von IGLU (Bos et al. 2003; 2004) über PISA (Deutsches PISA-Konsortium 2001) bis zu DESI (Beck & Klieme 2007) etc. Dadurch aber hat die Literaturwissenschaft auf ihrem ureigensten Gebiet nur mehr die Funktion einer Hilfswissenschaft inne! Ich führe nur zwei Indikatoren für diesen Funktionsverlust an: Das eine ist die Konzeption von Lesekompetenz, die sich z.B. in PISA ausschließlich auf die kognitiven Komponenten konzentriert (Deutsches PISA-Konsortium 2001, 78ff.). Die emotionalen, existenziellen Aspekte der Persönlichkeitsentwicklung und sozialen Funktion von (gerade auch literarischer) Lesekompetenz bleiben explizit ausgeblendet (Groeben & Hurrelmann 2002). Und zwar deshalb, weil sie sich nicht (so einfach) testen lassen. Hier liegt in der Tat die Anpassung des Gegenstands an die Methode vor, die für den Dekon- struktionismus den Anlass zur dezidiert konträren Anpassung (der Methode an den Gegenstand) darstellt. Nur ist Kreativität nicht dadurch zu erreichen, dass man einfach das radikale Gegenteil von etwas Falschem macht, denn das Meer der Irrtumsmöglich- keiten ist in dieser Welt ein unendliches. Ohne Zweifel ist es nicht konstruktiv und nicht zielführend, wenn am Gegenstand (der Lesekompetenz) nur das interessiert, was mit den vorhandenen Methoden gut testbar ist. Eine adäquate Passung von Gegenstand und Methode müsste vielmehr an der Weiterentwicklung der Methoden arbeiten, wozu es aber sowohl literaturwissenschaftliche als auch empirisch-methodologische Kompetenz bräuchte (vgl. Groeben 2009; Köster et al. 2004). Hier könnte eine entsprechende Empirie-Kompetenz der Literaturwissenschaft(ler/innen) dazu führen, dass sie wieder die Herrschaft im eigenen Haus übernehmen könnten. Dass sie derzeit diese Herrschaft nicht innehaben, zeigt sich auch (zweiter Indikator) darin, welche Textsorten zur Überprüfung von Lesekompetenz eingesetzt werden. Obwohl es um eine umfassende Lesekompetenz gehen soll, machen im engeren Sinne literarische (fiktionale) Texte in PISA 2000 gerade

156 Norbert Groeben einmal 13% aus (Artelt & Schlagmüller 2004, 177). Für mich, der ich mich seit 40 Jahren für eine Zusammenführung von Literatur- und empirischer Sozialwissenschaft eingesetzt habe, ist es lebenshistorisch besonders eindrucksvoll, wie sich die Situation geändert hat: Von 1970 bis 1990 habe ich darum gekämpft, dass die Literaturwissenschaft akzeptieren möge, dass zu ihrem Gegenstand auch gleichberechtigt Informationstexte oder hybride Texte in Bezug auf die Kategorien Fiction/Non-Fiction gehören. Seit 2000 kämpfe ich darum, dass die Unterrichtsforschung akzeptieren möge, dass zum Gegenstand der Lese- kompetenz auch gleichberechtigt literarisch-fiktionale Texte (bzw. entsprechende Hybridformen mit Non-Fiction) gehören. (Der sehr beschränkte Erfolg dieser Kämpfe hält sich übrigens durchaus die Waage.) Diese beiden Indikatoren zeichnen aber das Menetekel an die Wand, dass die Literaturwissenschaft für die empirisch vorgehenden Sozial- oder Kulturwissenschaften nur mehr zu einer Hilfswissenschaft wird, es sei denn, sie findet eine konstruktive, integrative Antwort auf den wissenschaftsexternen Empiri- sierungsdruck unter Rückgriff auf die ja vorliegenden wissenschaftsinternen Empiri- sierungsdynamiken und -angebote (vgl. Groeben & Hurrelmann 2006). Ich möchte die mittlerweile vorliegende Situation (abschließend) noch auf einer personalen Ebene beleuchten. Ohne Zweifel ist es so, dass (auch) Nachwuchswissen- schaftler/innen in den empirischen Sozialwissenschaften unter einem außerordentlichen Qualifizierungsdruck stehen. Sie müssen (neben Lehr- und Selbstverwaltungspflichten) möglichst viel in möglichst renommierten, peer reviewten (internationalen) Zeitschriften publizieren, müssen auf Tagungen und Kongressen (aktiv) sichtbar sein, frühzeitig Drittmittel-Projekte einwerben und so weiter und so fort. Als Wissenschaftler der älteren Generation, dem die meisten nicht Faulheit vorwerfen würden, fragt man sich dabei, wann diese Nachwuchswissenschaftler/innen eigentlich zum Nachdenken kommen, um eigene theoretische Positionen zu entwickeln. Und doch: Wenn man wie ich in beiden Disziplinbereichen an Habilitations- und Berufungsverfahren teilnimmt, kann man nur immer wieder (und mit fortschreitender Zeit in verstärktem Maße) feststellen, dass die Berufungschancen in den empirischen Sozialwissenschaften deutlich besser sind als in der Literaturwissenschaft; dass die Gefahr, nach einem sehr wohl höchst engagierten und produktiven, qualifizierten Beitrag zur eigenen Disziplin, jenseits des 40. Lebensjahres doch nicht in der Wissenschaft Fuß fassen zu können, in der Literaturwissenschaft dra- matisch höher ist. Als Wanderer zwischen den Welten schmerzt es einen einfach, mit an- sehen zu müssen, wie in jedem (literaturwissenschaftlichen) Berufungsverfahren von vornherein klar ist, dass höchst kompetente Leute, die längst die nötige Qualifikation nachgewiesen haben, zuhauf erfolglos nach Hause gehen müssen. Oder anders herum ausgedrückt: Es ist für mich erschreckend, wie ungerührt von dem Schicksal des ihm anvertrauten wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs das Fach (Literaturwissenschaft) an dem sichtbaren Bedarf der Gesellschaft vorbei ausbildet. Eine konstruktive Antwort in der Empirisierungsfrage würde sowohl die Position des Faches in der Gesellschaft (wieder) stärken als auch die Ungerechtigkeit gegenüber dem wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs (ab-)schwächen! Und wie kann nun diese konstruktive Antwort aussehen? Auf höchstem Abstraktions- niveau denke ich mittlerweile, dass die Literaturwissenschaft eventuell die empirischen Sozialwissenschaften in der Parallelität zur Naturwissenschaft überholen könnte: in der Ausarbeitung und Etablierung einer Theoretischen und Empirischen Literaturwissen-

Empirisierung in der Literaturwissenschaft 157 schaft (analog zur Theoretischen und Experimentellen Physik). Die Theorie-Integration wird in den Sozialwissenschaften zwar immer angemahnt, aber es fehlen die Kraft und die Tradition, um diese Synthese wirklich ernsthaft und mit Beharrungsvermögen zu betreiben (vgl. Groeben 2003). Die Literaturwissenschaft dagegen könnte die (hermeneu- tischen) Traditionen der Literaturtheorie, Literarästhetik, Literaturgeschichte etc. zur Ausarbeitung einer übergreifenden Theoretischen Literaturwissenschaft nutzen, desglei- chen die Traditionen von philologischer Textkritik, strukturalistischer Textanalyse, Com- puterlinguistik, sozialhistorischer und kognitionswissenschaftlicher Empirie etc. zur Aus- arbeitung einer übergreifenden Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft (vgl. Fricke 2007). Wenn beides innerhalb der heute Literaturwissenschaft genannten Disziplin geschieht, sollte auch die Synthese zu einer komplexen, aber integrierten Wissenschaftsstruktur möglich sein, die zugleich die Stellung dieser Disziplin in der Gesellschaft stärken und komplizierte Funktionspostulate, die den beschriebenen Gewichtsverlust/Bedeutungs- schwund begleiten und anzeigen, überflüssig machen würde.

Literatur:

Albert, H. 1991.Traktat über kritische Vernunft. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr. Anz, Th. (Hrsg.) 2007. Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft. Bd. 2. Methoden und Theorien. Stuttgart: Metzler. Artelt, C. & Schlagmüller, M. 2004. Lesekompetenz bei literarischen Texten. In: U. Schiefele et al. (Hrsg.), Struktur, Entwicklung und Förderung von Lesekompetenz, 169 – 196. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Beck, B. & Klieme, E. (Hrsg.) 2007. Sprachliche Kompetenzen. Konzepte und Mes- sungen. DESI-Studie (Deutsch Englisch Schülerleistungen International). Weinheim/Basel: Beltz. Bos, W. et al. 2003. Erste Ergebnisse aus IGLU: Schülerleistungen am Ende der vierten Jahrgangsstufe im internationalen Vergleich. Münster etc.: Waxmann. Bos, W. et al. 2004. IGLU. Einige Länder der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im nationalen und internationalen Vergleich. Münster etc.: Waxmann. Brackert, H. & Stückrath, J. (Hrsg.) 1992. Literaturwissenschaft. Ein Grundkurs. Reinbek: Rowohlt. Culler, J. 1988. Dekonstruktion. Reinbek: Rowohlt. De Man, P. 1988. Allegorien des Lesens. Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp. Derrida, J. 1972. Die Schrift und die Differenz. Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp. Deutsches PISA-Konsortium (2001). PISA 2000. Basiskompetenzen von Schülerinnen und Schülern im internationalen Vergleich. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Essler, W.K. 1970. Wissenschaftstheorie I. Definition und Reduktion. Freiburg: Alber. Fricke, H. 2007. Erkenntnis- und wissenschaftstheoretische Grundlagen. In: Th. Anz (Hrsg.), Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft. Bd. 2. Methoden und Theorien, 41 – 54. Stuttgart: Metzler. Groeben, N. 1977/81. Rezeptionsforschung als empirische Literaturwissenschaft. Kromberg: Athenäum; 2. Aufl. Tübingen: Narr.

158 Norbert Groeben

Groeben, N. 1997. Einleitung: Sozialwissenschaftliche Psychologie-Konzeption zwi- schen Natur- und Geisteswissenschaft. In: N Groeben (Hrsg.), Zur Programmatik einer sozialwissenschaftlichen Psychologie. Bd. I Metatheoretische Perspektiven, 1. Halbbd. (S. 1 -26). Münster: Aschendorff. Groeben, N. 2003. Fazit: Problemaufriss einer Theoretischen Psychologie. In: N Groeben (Hrsg.), Zur Programmatik einer sozialwissenschaftlichen Psychologie. Bd. II Objekttheoretische Perspektiven, 2. Halbbd, 317 - 421. Münster: Aschendorff. Groeben, N. 2007. In what direction is literary theory evolving? Response: Literary theory: object theory or metatheory? JLT (Journal of Literary Theory) 1 (2), 443 – 446. Groeben, N. 2009. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des Testens von kultureller Bildung. In: A. Bertschi-Kaufmann & C. Rosebrock (Hrsg.), Literalität. Bildungsaufgabe und Forschungsfeld, 107 – 124. Weinheim/München: Juventa. Groeben, N. & Hurrelmann, B. (Hrsg.) 2002. Lesekompetenz. Bedingungen, Dimensio- nen, Funktionen. Weinheim/München: Juventa. Groeben, N. & Hurrelmann, B. (Hrsg.) 2006. Empirische Unterrichtsforschung in der Literatur- und Lesedidaktik. Ein Weiterbildungsprogramm. Weinheim/München: Juventa. Heydebrand, R. von, Pfau, D. & Schönert, J. (Hrsg.) 1992. Zur theoretischen Grund- legung einer Sozialgeschichte der Literatur. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Iser, W. 1972. Der implizite Leser. München: Fink. Iser, W. 1976. Der Akt des Lesens. München: Fink. Janidis, F. 2007. Kontextorientierte Theorien und Methoden. Gesellschaftstheoretische Ansätze. In: Th. Anz (Hrsg.), Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft. Bd. 2. Metho- den und Theorien, 338 – 348. Stuttgart: Metzler. Köster, J., Lütgert, W. & Creutzburg, J. (Hrsg.) 2004. Aufgabenkultur und Lesekom- petenz. Frankfurt/M: Lang. Snow, C.P. 1960/67. The two cultures. Cambridge: University Press; dt.: Die zwei Kul- turen. Literarische und naturwissenschaftliche Intelligenz. Stuttgart: Klett. Stückrath, J. & Strobel, R. (Hrsg.) 2005. Deutschunterricht empirisch. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren. Teichert, D. 2004. Art. Zirkel, hermeneutischer. In: J. Ritter et al. (Hrsg.) Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Bd. 12: W –Z (Sp. 1339 – 1343) Basel: Schwabe. Topitsch, E. 1973. Gottwerdung und Revolution. Pullach: Verlag Dokumentation. Weimar, K. 2000. Art. Hermeneutischer Zirkel. In: H. Fricke (Hrsg.), Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, Bd. 2, 31 – 32. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Westermann, R. 2000. Wissenschaftstheorie und Experimentalmethodik. Göttingen: Hogrefe. Zurstiege, G. (Hrsg.) 2000. Festschrift für die Wirklichkeit. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Anschrift des Autors:

Prof. Dr. Norbert Groeben Peterstaler Str. 103 69118 Heidelberg

SPIEL 30 (2011) H. 1, 159–171

Thomas Wilke (Halle, GER)

Mashup-Kultur und Musikvideos. Aktuelle Entwicklungen audiovisueller Auflösung und Verdichtung in Mashup-Videos

The following essay discusses the concept of the "mashup" as a means to describe a new and spe- cific period of music video production in the twenty-first century as a global phenomenon. It fo- cuses on recent transformations of music videos under the influence of digitalisation. With the disposability of music and videos on the Internet, a reality that is omnipresent and ubiquitous, a change in music and video production is inevitable. A factor in the impetus for change is also the relative barrier-free access to the Internet and the user-friendly software for lay users. Following the mashup-artist DJ Earworm, mashup simply refers to an artist's singing or rapping the vocal line of one song over the instrumental line of another, assembled on a computer. Contemporary music and music videos are separated into singular musical fragments und reconstructed into a new music video – this is the principle of mashup-videos. After discussing the general structural concept and giving some explanations about mixing, I will provide an analysis of a mashup-video that was part of a weekly mashup-show on German TV. I intend to illustrate the changes in the aesthetics and narrative structure of music videos generated by the new technique of the mashup. The most re- markable transformation of the music video genre is the dissolution of established elements such as the unity of lyrics, pictures, and sounds, a narrative unity that is ultimately challenged and dis- lodged.

Popmusik und Video gehören in der Wahrnehmung von Popmusik seit Mitte der 70er Jahre eng zusammen, noch viel stärker durch das im August 1981 gestartete Joint Ven- ture MTV und der einsetzenden Folgeentwicklung. Das heißt, dass einerseits Musikvi- deos als werbendes Argument für die Musik eingeführt wurden – man denke an das so genannte Promo-Video – und andererseits ermöglichte nun eine audiovisuelle Plattform neue künstlerische Ausdrucksformen. Diese Ausdrucksformen loteten auf ganz unter- schiedlichen Ebenen narrative und ästhetische Grenzen aus, bedienten sich konventionel- ler Erzählformen oder verzichteten ganz auf diese.1 Mit der Musik als tonangebende Komponente im Musikclip entstand ein triadischer Zusammenhang zwischen Montage, Narration und Musik, wobei hier die Musik maßgeblich Montage und Narration beein- flusste. Gleichwohl ließen sich diese Musikclips als eine geschlossene Einheit wahrneh- men, denn sie hatten über ihre innere Struktur, Bild-Musik-Kompositionen etc. hinaus einen klaren Beginn und ein Ende. Auch der Zugang zu überwiegend analogen und insti- tutionalisierten Produktionsprozessen war nur unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen ge- währleistet und die Verfügbarkeit des analogen Musikvideos außerhalb der Fernsehpro- grammstrukturen für den Rezipienten stark eingeschränkt. Das änderte sich im Zuge des

1 Vgl. hierzu Keazor/Wübbena 2007, Spielmann 2005 sowie grundlegend Bódy 1986, Bódy/Weibel 1987.

160 Thomas Wilke umfangreichen Prozesses der Digitalisierung. Musikvideos sind nun nicht mehr nur in Programmstrukturen eingebunden, sondern stellen bspw. über entsprechende Plattformen wie YouTube ein eigenständiges und für den Rezipienten zeitun- abhängiges, verfügba- res Produkt dar.2 Parallel dazu entwickelte sich ein breites Angebot an Videoschnittpro- grammen für den (semi-)professionellen Gebrauch, das den Musikvideo-Rezipienten in die Lage versetzte, selbst ‚Videofilme’ zu produzieren. Der aktuellen BITKOM-Studie vom November 2010 Jugend 2.0 zufolge trauen es sich mittlerweile 28 Prozent der Ju- gendlichen zwischen 10 und 18 Jahren selbst zu, am Computer Filme zu schneiden.3 Mit dieser wachsenden Bearbeitungskompetenz digitaler Inhalte, intelligenter Software und durch die Verfügbarkeit von Videos sowie mit relativ einfach nachvollziehbaren Inter- faces entsteht neben dem Potential auch eine Motivation, Videos selbst zu schneiden und zu montieren, neu zu kontextualisieren und ferner wieder verfügbar zu machen.4 Was das für den Prozess der medialen Sozialisation und der Medienaneignung heißen mag, kann hier nur punktuell deutlich gemacht werden. Ebenso, ob sich durch eine solche Form des Umgangs mit Medien und deren Aneignung kreative Potentiale erst ergeben, bereits gerahmt sind oder letztlich nur Bestehendes neu gemischt reproduzieren. Das bedeutet jedoch in der Konsequenz, dass ein konventionelles Musikvideoverständnis – Industrie oder Musiker produzieren ein Video für/zu ihrer Musik – nicht mehr in der Form Bestand hat und sich hegemoniale Produktions- und Distributionsprozesse grundlegend verändert haben. Dies wird für die folgenden Ausführungen insoweit vorausgesetzt, als dass mit den so genannten Mashup-Videos eine neue Form existiert, die den genannten Funktionen und Ästhetiken scheinbar entgegenläuft. Bei diesen Videos werden, vereinfacht gesagt, meh- rere bereits existierende Videos miteinander verwoben, verbunden, vermixt, das heißt, bestehende Videos und Videobilder werden ihrem ursprünglichen Zusammenhang ent- nommen und vor dem Hintergrund des musikalischen Mixes neu montiert, kompiliert oder gar collagiert. Aktuell beobachtbare Ergebnisse bewegen sich zwischen amateurhaf- ten bis professionellen Status. Die vorgestellte These geht davon aus, dass es sich hierbei um einen parallel ablaufenden Prozess der Auflösung der Verdichtung audiovisueller Strukturen handelt. Hervorhebenswert ist, dass in den Mashup-Videos die Bildabläufe nicht chronologisch nacheinander oder kohärent gemixt oder geremixt werden, sondern dass dies innerhalb einer Sequenz passiert, die dann als geschlossener Mix auftritt und mehrere Bildebenen aufweist. Bereits McLuhan beobachtete in Understanding Media

2 Dieser Prozess begann zwar bereits im analogen VHS-Zeitalter, doch war dies im Vergleich zur Dynamik der digitalen Entwicklung eine Marginalie. 3 In der Binnendifferenzierung der Studie liegt der Anteil der 16-18-Jährigen bei 49 Prozent, die Filme schneiden. 21 Prozent können nach Eigenaussage Musik komponieren. Vgl. BITKOM 2011, 17. 4 In Abhängigkeit von Auflösungsrate, Betriebssystem und Nutzen ist der Markt, angefangen bei Windows Movie Maker über Video Dub und iMovie, mittlerweile ziemlich unübersichtlich für die Bild- und Tonbearbeitung, zugleich aber auch professionell geworden – Stichwort Logic Pro, Celemony Melodyne, Native Instruments Traktor Kontrol S4, Adobe Premiere und Final- Cut, um nur die bekanntesten zu nennen. Selbst mit dem QuicktimePlayer lassen sich Filmse- quenzen arrangieren. Über die reine Software hinaus gibt es auch zahlreiche Handlungsanlei- tungen in Buchform für den Laien á la ‚Video schneiden leicht gemacht’.

Mashup-Kultur und Musikvideos 161 was es mit einer Verbindung von Medien – die er dann als Bastard klassifiziert – auf sich hat: „Der Bastard oder die Verbindung zweier Medien ist ein Moment der Wahrheit und Erkenntnis, aus dem eine neue Form entsteht. Denn die Parallele zwischen zwei Medien läßt uns an der Grenze zwischen Formen verweilen, die uns plötzlich aus der narzißti- schen Narkose herausreißen.“5 Das beobachtete er vornehmlich an größeren medialen Übergängen, Vereinnahmungen und in der Chronologie stattfindenden Brüchen, es lässt sich jedoch auch auf die Zusammenführung von parallel zueinander bestehenden Medi- enangeboten im Sinne von Medieninhalten anwenden. Inwieweit dann bestehende Mon- tageprinzipien aufgebrochen, als kompilierend fortgeführt oder gar auf einer übergeord- neten Ebene angewendet werden, wird im Folgenden aufgezeigt. Dafür ist es sinnvoll, einen kurzen Exkurs in das Mixen von Musik zu unternehmen, das hier stärker im Vor- dergrund steht als der Musikvideo-Bildschnitt.

In the Mix

Ein musikalischer Mix ist an sich nichts Neues. Die Vorgehensweise von DJs, seit Mitte der 70er Jahre autonome Musikelemente technisch so miteinander zu verbinden, dass in der Reproduktion ein einheitlicher Mix entsteht, gehört mittlerweile zu popkulturell ver- handelten Allgemeinplätzen.6 Das heißt, der Rezipient weiß in der Regel durch Erfahrung und Zuschreibung nicht nur, was DJs (beim Auflegen) tun, sondern auch, was dabei herauskommt. In diesem Handeln haben sich im Laufe der Zeit ästhetische und ästheti- sierende DJ-Techniken entwickelt, die über die bloße rhythmische Montage im Sinne eines kunstvollen Verbindens hinausgehen. Performative Praktiken des Mixens, Cuttens, Scratchens und weitere direkte Eingriffe in die Soundgestaltung gehören in das Grundre- pertoire eines DJs und werden vom Publikum vorausgesetzt und entsprechend rezipiert. Hinzu kommt ein eigener künstlerischer Anspruch, indem das musikalische Material produktiver Ausgangspunkt nicht nur in der Aneignung von Musik für den DJ ist, son- dern ebenso bei der Arbeit mit Musik zu neuen Ergebnissen mit Werkcharakter führt. Mitte der 80er Jahre begannen DJs Musik zu remixen, indem sie aus der je eigenen oder musikindustriellen Sicht erfolgreiche Titel durch Neuarrangement, anderem Tempo oder Instrumentierung eine veränderte – unter Umständen clubtauglichere – Note gaben. Sie verfügten (und verfügen) – grundgelegt durch die praktische Tätigkeit des Auflegens – über das semantische, symbolische und strukturelle Wissen, aus musikalischen Gege- benheiten scheinbar neue Musik herzustellen. Sie arbeiten so in einem selbstverständli- chen Sinne eklektizistisch, indem sich das „natürliche Gegenüber von Werk und Rezipi- ent“ (H.J. Wulff) verschiebt und damit bereits funktionalisiert ist.7 Eine konkrete, arri-

5 McLuhan 1970, 63. 6 Zur Vorgeschichte des DJs im Radio vgl. ausführlich Hagen 2005, ebenso Poschardt 2001, Wilke 2009, 2010. 7 Das Resultat ist etwas scheinbar Neues, das jedoch aufgrund des notwendigen Wiedererken- nungswertes nur bedingt als neu wahrgenommen werden kann. Der Wert des Neuen spielt hier nur eine sekundäre Rolle, das Ergebnis kommt entweder in einer Live-Situation zustande oder

162 Thomas Wilke vierte und mittlerweile viel genutzte Möglichkeit dieser Verschiebung ist die des Montie- rens einer Instrumentalversion und eines Acapella-Gesangs – die Basis eines Mashups. Zu einem Instrumental wird ein Gesang oder Rap herausgesucht, der sich in die Struktur des Instrumentals einfügt und vice versa – durch das Angleichen der Geschwindigkeit, durch Unterbrechung des Flusses und Ähnliches. In seinem Buch Audio Mashup Construction Kit beschreibt Jordan „DJ Earworm“ Roseman dezidiert, wie ein Mashup zu bauen sei und bezieht in seiner Position implizit die oben aufgeführten Faktoren und Begründungszusammenhänge für den Erfolg des Mashups ein: „Arguably one of the first new popular music genres of the twenty-first century, mashups are a global phenomenon enjoyed by people of all ages, cultures, and musical preferences. At its most basic, a mashup is simply the vocals of one song singing or rapping over the instrumental of another song, assembled on a computer. Each component is edited to make sure the parts flow together seamlessly.“8 Das findet sich dann in verschiedenen musikalischen Mashup-Formen und - Funktionen: politisierend, unterhaltend, informierend, ironisierend, persiflierend, kon- trastierend, kompilierend und nicht immer zwangsläufig strikt voneinander getrennt. Federführend sind hier die Genres Hip Hop, Rap und R&B.9 Diese performativen Tech- niken der auditiven Musikmontage finden sich auch in der Middle-of-the-road-Popmusik und in der elektronischen Tanzmusik. Es wird also die Musik eines Künstlers/einer Band mit dem Text/Gesang eines anderen Künstlers/Band miteinander verbunden. Beide müs- sen nichts miteinander zu tun haben, werden vielleicht gar verschiedenen musikalischen Genres zugeordnet. Der im Idealfall harmonische Gesamteindruck des Mixes hebt diese Trennungen auf und lässt es als ein organisches Ganzes erscheinen.10 In der Praxis der Clubkultur ist das durchaus verbreitet, entzieht sich jedoch für den Hörer des auditiven und audiovisuellen Nachvollzugs. Fertige Mashups als mp3 oder Video finden sich mitt- lerweile zuhauf im Internet auf diversen privaten Webseiten, Plattformen wie YouTube und MyVideo oder auch speziellen Seiten wie mashupcharts.com. Letztere Nennung verweist bereits auf eine soziokulturelle Dynamik, indem durch internationalisierende Nutzeraktivierungen Präferenzen, Orientierungen sowie Bewertungen zu Rangfolgen und Einordnungen führen.11 Ein für Deutschland prominentes Beispiel ist ein DJ, der sich

wird – als Tonträger – wiederum selbst zum Gegenstand der Reproduktion, der Manipulation und der Transformation im Prozess des Auflegens. 8 Roseman 2006, 1 9 Seit Einführung der Maxi-Single 1975 finden sich zunehmend Spezial-Versionen, Remixe und Acapella-Versionen (oder auch A-Capella-Versionen) auf den Schallplatten, um die Einsatz- möglichkeiten über das bloße Abspielen des Titels hinaus zu erweitern. 10 Anschauliches Beispiel aus dem Jahr 2010: „Die Platz 1 Chartplatzierungen von Katy Perry und Kesha. Die Titel „California Gurls“ und „Tik Tok“ stammen beide von den Produzenten Dr. Luke und Benny Blanco und ähneln sich enorm: „Wenn man genau hinhört, merkt man, dass es sich eigentlich um den gleichen Song handelt, nur mit anderem Text und anderem In- terpreten“, so der DJ Mashup Germany“. http://www.mashup-communications.de- /tag/mashup-germany/ 22.02.2010 11 Im Unklaren lässt die Seite den Besucher, wer der Betreiber ist, woher die notwendige Unter- stützung kommt, welche Interessen damit verbunden sind. Gleichwohl weist die Seite ein Ver-

Mashup-Kultur und Musikvideos 163

Mashup Germany nennt, auf seiner und anderen Websites eine Sammlung an entspre- chenden Mixes postet und dieses Material auch in Clubs auflegt. Prominent zu nennen ist er deshalb, weil die Warner Music Group auf ihn aufmerksam geworden ist und Ende Januar 2011 sein Video-Channel mit knapp 10 Millionen Aufrufen aufgrund ungeklärter Rechtefragen auf YouTube gelöscht worden ist.12 Der Mashup-Musikmix greift auf bestehende Musikvideos zurück und montiert diese zum Teil aufwändig (neu). Für die musikalische Montage ist das gut nachvollziehbar, denn sie zielt auf den Hörsinn und blendet etwaige kognitive Dissonanzen durch Tonart- verschiebungen durch die Qualität des Mixes aus. Das Verwenden von Videobildern wirft nun neue Fragen auf, denn die für den auditiven Bereich unterstellte Wahrnehmung als Einheit muss hier nicht zwangsläufig gelten. Ist doch diese Unterstellung bereits im auditiven Bereich problematisch, denn im Zusammenhang mit entsprechendem Wissen /Nicht-Wissen kann der zu hörende Mix als Einheit oder als Vielheit wahrgenommen werden. Hinzu kommt die Annahme, dass bei entsprechender Kompetenz beide Wahr- nehmungsformen parallel ablaufen können. Nun erweitert die Verknüpfung von auditi- ven und visuellem Material zum audiovisuellen Mix das Problem der Wahrnehmung. Vorläufig stellt es sich ad interim so dar, dass die unterstellte auditive Wahrnehmung als Einheit durch den visuellen Nachvollzug wieder aufgebrochen wird. Ohne hier eine Typologie des Musikvideos diskutieren zu wollen, lassen sich verknappt für das Mu- sikvideo zwei Ebenen der Sinnkonstruktion konstatieren, die funktional die Musik stüt- zen, erweitern oder illustrieren. Einerseits sind dies narrative Sinnkonstruktionen im Musikvideo, die als Strategien der Vertextung konventionelle Muster reproduzieren.13 Andererseits finden sich zahlreiche nicht-narrative Muster der Ganzheitsbildung wie bei- spielsweise Multisituationalität, thematische Montage, illustrative Historisierung oder Kontrastierung, Performances im Musizieren, im Gesang und Tanz und Ähnliches. Auf den letzten Punkt verweist insbesondere Hans J. Wulff, der in der „Performation der Musik“, also dem „Vollzug der Musik als dominierende Makrostruktur des Textes“ im Video-Clip als „Kern der semantischen Konstruktion“ eine enorme Bedeutung bei- misst.14 Bei einem musikbasierten Videomix ist nicht davon auszugehen, dass die rhythmus- orientierte Montage der Musik auf die für den Moment des Mixes notwendig passenden Bilder zurückgreifen kann. In einem solchen Fall werden die für das konventionelle Mu- sikvideo in Anspruch genommenen Prinzipien der Narration, der Bilddramaturgie, der ästhetischen Einheit etc. negiert, aufgehoben und einzelne Bildelemente funktionalisiert. Das bedeutet, dass ein Mashup-Video zwar analog zum konventionellen Musikvideo sinnstiftende Strukturen entwirft, diese jedoch in Bezug auf ihre Textualität unterschied- liche Strukturierungsebenen aufweisen. Diese wären dann gegeneinander abzugrenzen

zeichnis von 818 ‚Mashup-Artists’ auf, die auf dieser Seite bereits Mashup-Audios bzw. Mashup-Videos eingestellt haben. Stand 20.02.2011 12 Vgl. hierzu www.mashup-germany.com. Dort findet sich auch eine Übersicht über die interna- tionale Mashup-Szene und deren Verknüpfungen. Auf http://www.mashup-communica- tions.de/tag/mashup-germany/ findet sich ein Bericht über die aktuellen Entwicklungen. 13 Vgl. hierzu Wulff, 1989. 14 Herv. i. O., Ebd., 2 (Online-Fassung).

164 Thomas Wilke und kategorial weiter auszudifferenzieren, indem das Verhältnis von narrativen und nicht-narrativen Mustern der Ganzheitsbildung zu untersuchen ist. Diese etwas fragmen- tarisch aufgeführten Gegebenheiten und als unvollständig zu betrachtenden Analyseper- spektiven lassen sich am folgenden Beispiel detaillierter ausführen.

Eine Fallstudie

Das wöchentliche Samstagabendprogramm der Deluxe Television GmbH, einem Münchner Musik-TV-Sender, besteht aus einem vierstündigen Musik-Videomix unter dem Label Disco Deluxe.15 Einer dieser Mixe – herausgelöst aus dem Programm – wird an dieser Stelle in Bezug auf die aufgeworfenen Problemfelder der Montage und der Wahrnehmung ausführlicher herangezogen. Das Beispiel ist 6:20 Minuten lang und ent- hält folgende audiovisuell miteinander verwobene Interpreten und Titel: Stevie Wonder Part time Lover (Motown, 1985), Rihanna Feat. Jay-Z Umbrella (Def Jam Rec. 2007), Michael Jackson & Paul MC Cartney Say, Say, Say (EMI, 1983), Mary J Blidge No more drama (MCA, 2001), Nelly Fortado Say it right (Geffen, 2006), Diana Ross Upside Down (Motown 1980), Rick James Superfreak und Temptations My girl (Gordy, 1964). Bereits durch die Nennung der Titel und Interpreten wird offensichtlich, dass es sich hierbei im Einzelnen um acht Titel handelt, die aus ganz unterschiedlichen Produktions- zeiträumen und -kontexten stammen. Trotzdem sie in der musikalischen Genrezuweisung und ihrer popmusikalischen Songstruktur über eine große Schnittmenge verfügen, unter- scheiden sich die jeweiligen Einzeltitel hinsichtlich des Inhalts, der Charakteristik, der Ästhetik und schließlich – als äußeres Merkmal – der jeweiligen Geschwindigkeiten. Insbesondere die Geschwindigkeit ist hier hervorhebenswert, denn die Angleichung der Titel untereinander im Gesang oder in der Musik hebt auf eine technische Entwicklung ab. Das technische Umsetzen ist möglich, weil es einen so genannten Pitch respektive Pitch-Slider gibt, der die Geschwindigkeit des Songs insgesamt anhebt oder senkt, ohne dass dabei die Tonhöhe des Gesangs verändert wird. Dadurch sind nun völlig neuartige Mixe denk- und machbar, denn zuvor war die unnatürliche Tonabhebung der weiblichen Gesangsstimme bei divergierenden Geschwindigkeiten eher Mix vermeidend.16 In einer Art strukturierendem Zugriff ergeben sich erst einmal ohne Berücksichtigung der visuel- len Komponente folgende musikalische und gesangliche Anteile:

15 Vgl. hierzu Music TV & Online Lounge für Erwachsene . Eben- so der eigene Youtube-Kanal von deluxetelevision, der als Claim aufführt: „Europas sensatio- neller Video-Mashup - Private Dancers Lieblingsclub, only on Saturdays. DISCO DELUXE ist die einzige Video-Mix-Show der Welt. Ein unwiderstehlich tanzbarer Mashup der größten Floorfilla. Michael Jackson meets Herbie Hancock, Abba meets Madonna. Vier Stunden Bas- tard-Pop-Party @ DELUXE!“ < http://www.youtube.com/user/deluxetelevision> Offensicht- lich wird die strategische Vernetzung der Kommunikate und Medienangebote zwischen TV, TV-Website und eigenem Channel auf YouTube. 16 Vgl. hierzu Wagner 2008. Zur Tonhöhenkorrektur und -quantisierung vgl. Görne 2006, 353.

Mashup-Kultur und Musikvideos 165

Zeit Gesang Musik 00:00 - Stevie Wonder: 00:20 Rihanna: Umbrella Part Time Lover 01:26 Stevie Wonder: Part Time Lover 02:01 - Paul McCartney & 02:17 Rihanna: Umbrella Michael Jackson: Say, 02:34 Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson: Say, Say, Say Say, Say

02:49 Rihanna: Umbrella 03:15 Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson: Say, Say, Say 03:33 Gesangsartefakte, rhythmisch angeordnet (Schreie etc.) 03:48 Mary J. Blidge: No More Drama 04:05 Nelly Furtado: Say It Right 04:17 Rick James: Superfreak 04:20 Diana Ross: Upside Down 04:54 - 05:02 Rick James: Superfreak 05:16 Temptation: My Girl 05:34 Gesangsartefakte, rhythmisch angeordnet (Schreie etc.) 06:17 Fade Out Tabelle 1: Überblick Musik-Gesangsanteile eines Disco-Deluxe-Mixes (Th. Wilke)

Bei dieser Übersicht wird auf den ersten Blick die bereits problematisierte Mehrfachco- dierung von Wahrnehmung auffällig. Für die Argumentation hilfreich ist die Vermutung, dass einzelne Passagen aufgrund von Dauer, Persistenz durch Wiederholung, Popularität etc. entsprechend identifiziert werden können, ohne dass damit immer auch eine konkrete Zuordnung zum jeweiligen Künstler gemeint ist. Dieses heterogene Ensemble an Ge- sangspassagen wird durch das reihende, kompilierende und kontrastierende Montieren schließlich zu einem neuen textuellen Konstrukt, dessen invariante Sinnstruktur sich hauptsächlich durch die unterlegte Musik konstituiert. Das verstärkt die formulierte Vermutung der Wahrnehmung eines geschlossenen Ganzen.17 Beispielsweise durch den Tanz als Reaktion im Rezeptionsprozess – wie es der Claim von Deluxe Music propagiert – wird diese Invariantenbildung verstärkt, indem sich die Heterogenität des Mashups in der Homogenität der Bewegung auflöst. Darauf wird in diesem Kontext jedoch lediglich verwiesen. Ebenso fällt bei dieser Übersicht auf, dass es insgesamt nur wenige Instrumentalpas- sagen gibt, die eine klassische liedhafte Struktur stützen. Die ersten zwei Minuten sind durch relativ wenige Abweichungen von Stevie Wonders Part time Lover charakterisiert, auch wenn sich hier Umstellungen bzw. Loops auffinden lassen. Der zweite Teil ist un- gleich länger und hier keinesfalls mehr so homogen wie der erste, denn die jeweils auf- tretenden Gesangspassagen bringen zudem charakterisierende Elemente auf der Musik- ebene mit ein. Auch wenn die Instrumentalebene scheinbar klar konturiert ist, zeichnet

17 Vgl. hierzu H.J. Wulff 1989, 435: „Alle Elemente eines Clips werden auch dann als Elemente einer einzigen textuellen Struktur aufgefaßt, wenn sie von großer Heterogenität sind und ihre Integrierbarkeit in die textuelle Struktur in Frage steht.“

166 Thomas Wilke sich durch eine vorgenommene Reduktion auf einzelne Songpassagen eine enorme Ver- dichtung in der Wahrnehmung des Mixes als Einheit ab. Hinzu kommt, dass diese zum Teil geloopt werden, das heißt, dass die jeweilige Passage, das Sample anschlusslos wie- derholt wird. Wird nun die visuelle Ebene des Beispiels in die Diskussion einbezogen, so verstärkt sich der Eindruck der Auflösung und zeitgleichen Verdichtung des Mashups. In Form eines Ausschnitts – analog zum Vorgehen in der ersten Tabelle – wird dies exemplarisch analysiert. Von 4:20 Minuten bis 4:54 Minuten ist der Refrain von Diana Ross’ Upside Down zu hören, ohne dass sie dabei – als einzige Künstlerin im vorgestellten Beispiel – selbst ein einziges Mal im Bild erscheint. Musikalisch wechselt das variierte Thema des Say Say Say zu einer Bridge, in der das Upside Down weiter zu hören ist. Im Anschluss an Diana Ross kommen vier Takte Instrumental, mit dem Mundharmonika-Leitthema von Say Say Say und einem zweitaktigen Upside Down als Reprise, dem dann unmittel- bar Rick James mit der gesanglichen Endpassage von Superfreak folgt. Zu sehen sind in diesen 41 Sekunden Fragmente aus vier Videoclips, die bereits im Vorfeld des Mashups gezeigt wurden und sich innerhalb dieser Sequenz in den gleichen Bildern wiederholen.

Zeit Videofragment Einstellungen Bild 04:21 Rihanna sieben Rihanna 04:24 Michael Jackson & Paul eine Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney McCartney 04:28 Mary J. Blidge vier Im Wechsel Tänzer mit Mary J. Blidge 04:32 Rick James eine Rick James 04:35 Rihanna vier Rihanna 04:37 Michael Jackson & Paul zwei Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney McCartney 04:39 Rick James zwei Blonde Frau, Rick James 04:42 Rihanna drei Rihanna 04:43 Michael Jackson & Paul zwei Cowboys im Raum, Schild McCartney 04:44 Mary J. Blidge fünf Tänzer, Szene vor dem Club 04:49 Michael Jackson & Paul vier Szenen aus dem Video ohne Mi- McCartney chael Jackson & Paul McCartney 04:58 Rihanna drei Rihanna 04:59 Mary J. Blidge drei Mary J. Blidge 05:02 Rick James Tabelle 2: Ausschnitt zum Zeit-Fragment-Einstellungsverhältnis (Th. Wilke)

Aus dieser analytischen Betrachtungsweise heraus bestätigt sich einmal mehr, dass die Schnittfrequenz mit insgesamt 41 Schnitten in 41 Sekunden sehr hoch ist, doch ist das nicht der Punkt. Vielmehr ist bemerkenswert, dass die Charakteristik jedes einzelnen Videoclips trotz der Verdichtung bestehen bleibt. Damit verbunden ist eine hohe Wie- derkennungsrate; der Top-down-Prozess im Einzelnen liegt immer knapp über einer

Mashup-Kultur und Musikvideos 167 kognitiven Verarbeitungsrate der Bilder. Das liegt unter anderem daran, dass die Bilder bereits im Vorfeld funktional eingesetzt und wiederholt wurden und in dieser Wiederho- lung ein narrativer Kontext nur noch eine untergeordnete Rolle spielt. Mit dieser Funkti- onalisierung geht eine ästhetisierende Reduktion einher. Die Geschichte, die bspw. Say Say Say erzählt, wird in diesem Mix nicht einmal kolportiert oder als Referenz verwen- det, gleichwohl wird dem Rezipienten bei den entsprechenden Bildern in der Zuordnung sofort klar, dass es sich um die zu Michael Jackson & Paul McCartneys Song dazugehö- rigen Bilder handelt. Ebenso bei Rihanna, Mary J. Blidge und Rick James. Wie kommt das? Erstens konzentrieren die selektierten Fragmente hauptsächlich die jeweiligen Sän- ger bzw. Sängerinnen, das heißt, Rihanna, Mary J. Blidge und Rick James sind in den Einstellungen jeweils von nah bis groß zu sehen, Michael Jackson und Paul McCartney zumeist zusammen. Erst nachdem dies geschehen ist, wird im Einzelnen von den Künst- lern abstrahiert und es sind im Anschluss auch andere Szenen des jeweiligen Videos zu sehen. Zweitens verfügt jeder Clip über seine ästhetische Eigenheit innerhalb der zeitge- mäßen Konventionen bezüglich der Produktion: Say Say Say ist bspw. als Film auf Film gedreht. Rihanna bleibt auf der Bildoberfläche in ihrer Körperlichkeit performativ gegen- ständlich, wenn es darum geht, in unterschiedlichen Räumen allein mit einem Regen- schirm zu tanzen. Ein narrativer Zusammenhang wird dabei nicht hergestellt, signifikant ist ihre Präsenz im Sinne von Körperlichkeit, Beweglichkeit und Bewegung. Sie selbst, also Stimme und Körper sind das inszenierte und ästhetisierte Narrativ. Ähnlich ist es in diesem Beispiel bei Rick James und auch Mary J. Blidge. Rick Ja- mes tanzt und singt im Kreis der Band und mittanzender Frauen vor der Kamera für die Kamera. Erst durch die Montage im Shot-Reverse-Shot-Prinzip entsteht ein Flirt mit einer tanzenden Frau. Mary J. Blidge singt und tanzt in der Formation als ausgewiesene Anführerin der Gruppe. Die Mashup-Montage greift die Bewegung des Ausgangsmateri- als auf, verbindet dieses und verstärkt dadurch die Bewegung. Von Vorteil sind demnach Musikvideos, die das musikalische Geschehen visuell doppeln, indem sie die Musik und den Musiker selbst thematisieren, beispielsweise bei einem Konzert, oder einfach einer tänzerischen Darstellung des Gesungenen. Diese Bilder stehen dann nicht in der Funktion einer erzählerischen Erweiterung im Sinne eines Interpretationsangebots, sondern bezie- hen ihren Gehalt durch die performative Umsetzung der Musik. Damit sind sie funktional leicht aus ihrem Kontext zu lösen. Das ließe sich als selbstreferenzielle Dopplung von Darstellung und Dargestelltenfassen. In den Videoclips, in denen die Musiker zu ihrer eigenen Musik tanzen, um zu zeigen, dass man dazu tanzen kann und nichts erzählen, lösen sich narrative Muster der Ganzheitsbildung auf. Das geschieht zugunsten einer übergeordneten ästhetischen Einheit des Bildes, des Körpers und der Musik, bei der nicht-narrative Muster deutlich überwiegen, da sie auf die Performance der Musik, des Tanzes, der Geste abzielen. Diese lassen sich dann problemlos und zusammenhangslos miteinander verbinden. Das vereinfacht schließlich den manipulativen Zugriff und das kompilierende Neuarrangement eines Mashups im Sinne einer Metamontage: die Mashup-Montage montiert bereits Montiertes. Die Montage mehrerer Videos zu einem Neuen führt in der Konsequenz zur partiellen

168 Thomas Wilke

Auflösung bestehender Orientierungsstrukturen.18 Gleichzeitig produziert diese hochgra- dig assoziative Montage neue rhythmische Muster, von denen auszugehen ist, dass sie wiederum dem Wahrnehmungsprozess von Ganzheit dienlich sind. Jedoch geschieht das gerade durch die potentielle Offenheit und Wahl der Bilder auf einer höheren Ebene. Denn die signifikative Qualität des Ursprungvideos geht nicht vollständig verloren, son- dern gewinnt durch die reduktive Konzentration auf Einzelsequenzen und visuelle Her- vorhebungen neue Bedeutung und wird so polysemisch.19 Diese partielle Auflösung und gleichzeitige Verdichtung produzieren insgesamt einen audiovisuellen Rausch, da sich die zu verarbeitenden Reize kognitiv nur sehr mühsam kategorisieren und verarbeiten lassen. Einen Rausch deshalb, weil die wahrnehmbare Geschlossenheit des Mashups zugleich eine Offenheit beinhaltet, die auf der Bildebene nicht zwangsläufig auf Kausalität, Kohärenz und narrative Zielführung angewiesen ist, sondern in dieser Loslösung für den Rezipienten Kontingenz und damit Überraschung produziert. Das wird noch verstärkt, indem die verwendeten Bilder aus der Montageper- spektive in der Funktion des auditiven Mixes stehen und eben nicht in der Logik einer kohärenten, narrativ begründeten Bildsprache. Elemente einer intraszenischen Montage existieren gleichwohl nach wie vor, alles löst sich nicht auf. Das ließe sich damit begrün- den, dass es kleinste visuelle Einheiten gibt, die sich nicht auflösen lassen, ohne dass die Wiedererkennbarkeit und Zuordnung durch eine semantisch-strukturalistische Zersetzung gefährdet wären. Von textinhärenten Sinnstrukturen des ursprünglichen Videos auf der Ebene eines textuellen Zusammenhangs des Mashups lässt sich damit nicht mehr wirk- lich sprechen. Eine Analyse des durch die Musik montierten Songtextes würde genau dies zutage fördern. In diesem Beispiel wird es ein nahezu absurder Dialog, der nur iro- nisch gelesen werden kann, wenn Diana Ross singt: „Upside down you’re turning me / You’re givin love instinctively / Around and round you’re turning me / I see to thee re- spectfully” und Rick James scheinbar antwortet: “She’s a Superfreak, superfreak”, um dann die Temptations singen zu lassen: “I guess you'll say / What can make me feel this way? / My girl”.

Fazit

In Mashup-Videos konzentriert sich die Verwendung nicht-narrativer Muster, die auf die Performance der Musik, des Gesangs, des Tanzes abheben und viel stärker darüber sinn- stiftende Strukturen konstituieren als über narrative Muster. Die Bilder illustrieren einen musikalisch-artifiziellen Mix und verdichten die Wahrnehmung eines audiovisuellen Montagezusammenhangs als Ganzes. Die Montage einzelner Bild- und Videosequenzen folgt im Wesentlichen der Logik des musikalischen Mixes und weniger einer in sich

18 Eine völlige Auflösung der bestehenden Orientierungsstrukturen bestünde dann, wenn der Mashup-Mix wieder zum Ausgangsmaterial eines neuen Musikvideos wird. Dann könnte man auch von einer Ganzheit zweiter Ordnung sprechen. Diese Form der semantischen Wiederauf- ladung lässt sich bereits finden, beispielsweise unter http://www.djmorgoth.blogspot.com/. 19 Schwieriger ist es, wenn es gar keine Vorkenntnisse gibt, das heißt der Rezipient das Ur- sprungsvideo nicht kennt. Dann fehlen strukturelle Muster der Zuordnung.

Mashup-Kultur und Musikvideos 169 kohärenten narrativen Dramaturgie oder Inszenierung. Damit wird die Ganzheit des Mashups als ein geschlossenes Kommunikat keinesfalls infrage gestellt, vielmehr ent- steht auf der Basis der verwendeten Sequenzen und der Montage ein Neues. Verwendet werden vornehmlich Bilder, die den entsprechenden Künstler zeigen, sich also eindeutig zuordnen lassen und leicht zu dekontextalisieren sind, da sie bspw. Tanzszenen eben des Künstlers oder des Publikums zeigen. Im Augenblick des auditiven Auftretens im Mix genügt eine Großaufnahme oder ein Detail zur Orientierung für den Rezipienten. Das Erkennen und das Zuordnen einzelner Künstler treten im Bild viel stärker in den Vordergrund als zugrunde liegende narrative ursprüngliche Zusammenhänge. Bilder des Übergangs, die weder zum einen noch zum anderen Video gehören, zählen dabei ebenso dazu, treten jedoch in den hier aufgeführten Beispielen nicht auf. Durch eine visuelle Vorwegnahme wird der Rezipient visuell auf das Fragment des Folgesongs vorbereitet, durch eine Wiederholung das bereits Gehörte noch einmal visuell erinnert. Die Bilder, die beim Mix verwendet werden, untermalen, stützen, verstärken das aktuell zu Hörende und bereiten den nächsten Mix vor, ohne dass zwangsläufig auf der visuellen Ebene ein stringent nachvollziehbares Geschehen zu verfolgen ist. Thematische, intramediale und intermediale Bezüge, wie sie Henry Keazor und Torsten Wübbena für das Musikvideo herausgearbeitet haben, lassen sich hier nur noch bedingt und fragmentarisch herstellen. Sehr viel stärker sind die Fragen nach infra- und intertextuellen Verknüpfungen zu ge- wichten. Gleichwohl lässt sich auch für Mashups die kritische Einschätzung Peter Wei- bels zitieren: „Musikvideos geben gar nicht vor, Musik und Bild zu sein, sondern verwei- sen ständig lustvoll darauf, daß sie Bilder von Bildern sind, die wir alle aus der Ge- schichte der Medien kennen, [...] und daß sie Echos von Tönen sind, die wir fast alle schon gestern gehört haben.“20 Eine letzte allgemeine Bemerkung zum titelgebenden Verfahren – Künstler A vs. Künstler B –, das eine Zuspitzung der musikalischen Auseinandersetzung darstellt. Diese manifestiert sich im versus (vs.) und wird stets als verbindendes Element zwischen zwei Künstlern/Bands angeführt – also Stevie Wonder vs. Rihanna. Das allerdings als reine Verbindung zu betrachten, wäre verfehlt, da dies ein Verweis auf die Tradition des fried- lichen Wettstreites zwischen DJs und zwischen Rappern ist. In diesen Battles ging und geht es stets um die besseren Fertigkeiten des Auflegens, Scratchens und Reimens und diente vor Publikum der Qualitätsprüfung und Differenzherstellung. Das Ziel war dem- zufolge nicht Homogenisierung sondern Vielfalt durch Ausdifferenzierung und Weiter- entwicklung. Für Mashups bedeutet das, dass sich aufgrund der Musikvielfalt, der techni- schen Voraussetzungen und der soziokulturellen Parameter ein Potential ergibt, das im audiovisuellen Ergebnis immer nur die Realisation jeweils einer Möglichkeit verbuchen kann. Und das wird – wie die aktuelle Entwicklung zeigt – durchaus produktiv verstan- den.

20 Weibel 1987: 274.

170 Thomas Wilke

Literatur:

Beller, Hans, Jörg Lensing 2010. Audiovisual Montage. In: Daniels, Dieter, Sandra Naumann (Hrsg.) 2010. See this Sound. Audiovisuology Compendium. An inter- disciplinary Survey of Audiovisual Culture. Wien: Ludwig Boltzmann Gesell- schaft, 361–376. Binas-Preisendörfer, Susanne 2010. Klänge im Zeitalter ihrer medialen Verfügbarkeit. Popmusik auf globalen Märkten und in lokalen Kontexten. transcript, Bielefeld. BITKOM 2011 (Hg.). Jugend 2.0. Eine repräsentative Untersuchung zum Internetverhalten der 10- bis 18-Jährigen. 22.02.2011 Bódy, Gábor, Veruschka Bódy (Hrsg.) 1986. Video in Kunst und Alltag. Vom kommer- ziellen zum kulturellen Videoclip. Köln: DuMont. Bódy, Veruschka, Peter Weibel (Hrsg.) 1987. Clip, Klapp, Bum. Von der visuellen Mu- sik zum Musikvideo. Köln: DuMont. Brockhaus, Immanuel, Berhard Weber (Hrsg.) 2010. Inside the Cut. Digitale Schnitt- techniken und Populäre Musik. Entwicklung – Wahrnehmung – Ästhetik. Biele- feld: transcript. Daniels, Dieter, Sandra Naumann (Hrsg.) 2010. See this Sound. Audiovisuology Com- pendium. An interdisciplinary Survey of Audiovisual Culture. Wien: Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft. Deluxe Television: 30.09.2010 DJ Earworm. < http://djearworm.com/> 20.02.2011 Görne, Thomas 2006. Tontechnik. Leipzig: Carl Hanser Verlag. Hagen, Wolfgang 2005. Das Radio. Zur Geschichte und Theorie des Hörfunks – Deutschland/USA. München: Fink. Keazor, Henry, Thorsten Wübbena 2007. Video thrills the radio star. Musikvideos: Ge- schichte, Themen, Analysen. 2. Auflage. Bielefeld: transcript. Keazor, Henry, Thorsten Wübbena 2010. Music Video. In: Daniels, Dieter, Sandra Nau- mann (Hrsg.) 2010: See this Sound. Audiovisuology Compendium. An interdisci- plinary Survey of Audiovisual Culture. Wien: Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft, 223–234. Mashup Communications PR Miriam Rupp Nora Feist. < http://www.mashup- communications.de/tag/mashup-germany/> 20.02.2011 Mashup Germany. 20.02.2011 McLuhan, Marschall 1970. Understanding Media. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer. Music Mashup Charts 20.02.2011 Niemzcyk, Ralf, Torsten Schmidt 2000. From Skratch, Das DJ Handbuch. Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Poschardt, Ulf 2001. DJ Culture. Disc Jockeys und Popkultur. 2. Auflage. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. Rappe, Michael 2010. Under Construction. Kontextbezogene Analyse afroamerikani- scher Popmusik. Köln: Dohr.

Mashup-Kultur und Musikvideos 171

Roseman, Jordan 2006. Audio Mashup. Construction Kit. Wiley. Spielmann, Yvonne 2005. Video. Das reflexive Medium. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Spielmann, Yvonne 2010. Video, an Audiovisual Medium. In: Daniels, Dieter, Sandra Naumann (Hrsg.) 2010: See this Sound. Audiovisuology Compendium. An inter- disciplinary Survey of Audiovisual Culture. Wien: Ludwig Boltzmann Gesell- schaft, 315–325. YouTube: www.youtube.com [30.09.2010] Wagner, Daniel 2008. Pioneer CDJ-1000 MKIII – gefühlsecht oder was? In: Bonedo. Das Musikerportal. [30.09.2010] Weibel, Peter 1987. Was ist ein Videoclip? In: Bódy, Veruschka, Peter Weibel (Hrsg.) 1987: Clip, Klapp, Bum. Von der visuellen Musik zum Musikvideo. Köln: Du- Mont, 274–275. Wilke, Thomas 2009. Das Plattenregal als Informationsmuster. Zu veränderten Ge- brauchsweisen und Präsentationsformen von populärer Musik im Web 2.0. In: Pscheida, Daniela, Trültzsch, Sascha 2009 (Hg.): Das Web 2.0 als Agent des kul- turellen Wandels. Web 2.0 as agent of cultural change. Sonderheft SPIEL (Siege- ner Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft) Band 26 (2007) Heft 2. Frankfurt, 339–358. Wulf, Hans J. 1989. Die Ordnungen der Bilderflut: Konstellationen medialer Kommuni- kation als strukturbildendes Prinzip in Performance-Videos. In: Rundfunk und Fernsehen. 37,4, 1989, 435–446. Online-Fassung: http://www.derwulff.de/2–21. 20.02.2011

Anschrift des Autors:

Dr. Thomas Wilke Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg Dept. Medien- und Kommunikationswissenchaften 06099 Halle E-Mail: [email protected]

Peter Lang · Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Seit 40Jahren IhrPartnerfürdieWissenschaft Homepage http://www.peterlang.de Preisänderungen vorbehalten *inklusive derinDeutschlandgültigenMehrwertsteuer 0041(0) 32/3761727 Telefax Moosstr. 1, CH-2542Pieterlen Auslieferung: Verlag PeterLangAG ·BruxellesNewYorkFrankfurt amMain·BerlinBern ·Oxford ·Wien Schriftsteller, derzudenbrasilianischenWurzeln zurückgefundenhat. bis zudessenSohnFrido,demstudiertenTheologen,Psychologen,Musikerund Heinrich undThomasdessenKünstlerkinderErika,Klaus,GoloMichael lerdynastie Mann·Von JuliaMann,derbrasilianischenMutterüberderen Söhne Aus demInhalt:DieExilsituationenund-erfahrungenderberühmtenSchriftstel- Deutschlands inderNachkriegszeit. biszurEntzauberungdieserLänderund Adaptationsversuche indenExilländern Spannungsbogen reicht dannüberihre Exilgründe,ihren politischenKampf,ihre In Extremsituationen desExilswerden diegenanntenMannsvorgestellt.Der Romantrilogie wiederaufgenommenhat. Lieblingsenkel vonThomas,derdiebrasilianischenWurzeln seinerFamilieineiner Historiker, Michael,denBratschistenundGermanisten,biszuFridoMann,dem die Kabarettistin, Klaus,denAutordes„Mephisto“,Golo,schriftstellernden deren berühmteSchriftstellersöhneHeinrichundThomas,dessenKinderErika, milie, angefangenbeiJuliaMann,derstarkenBrasilianerinhinterdemClan,über Buch gehtesumdieExilerfahrungderberühmtestendeutschenSchriftstellerfa- RechtKlausMannhatte:Indiesem nicht übereinzelnevonuns–schreiben“. Wie „Was füreinesonderbare Familiesindwir!Manwird späterBücherüberuns– ISBN 978-3-631-60675-9·br. €19,80* Bruxelles,NewYork,Frankfurt amMain,Berlin,Bern, 2011. 158S. Oxford, Wien, Schriftstellerfamilie Exilerfahrungen einerberühmtendeutschen Oh Mann,ohManns Dieter Strauss