Copyright by Pio Schurti 2005 the Dissertation Committee for Pio Schurti Certifies That This Is the Approved Version of the Following Dissertation
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UT Digital Repository Copyright by Pio Schurti 2005 The Dissertation Committee for Pio Schurti Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Reception and Function of American Culture in Switzerland after World War II Committee: Jeffrey Meikle, Supervisor William Stott Peter Hess Steven Hoelscher Julia Mickenberg Reception and Function of American Culture in Switzerland after World War II by Pio Schurti, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2005 Dedication To my wife and children Reception and Function of American Culture in Switzerland after World War II Publication No._____________ Pio Schurti, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2005 Supervisor: Jeffrey L. Meikle This dissertation examines the reception and function of US culture in Switzerland after World War II. The study surveys the developments in Swiss material culture, literature and lifestyles against the background of the ongoing debate over the post-war Americanization of Europe. As the rest of Europe, Switzerland imported many American products in the decades after the war: consumer goods, films, technology and also elements of language. American occupation accelerated the cultural transfer from the United States to Germany. Today, many Swiss think that they are just as Americanized as the Germans. This dissertation is an attempt to uncover how this perceived Americanization happened in a European country whose contact with the United States was quite different from the one its neighbors experienced. Switzerland was never occupied. Tracing the reception of American culture, the analysis of Swiss culture moves from the concrete to the more and more intangible. The first chapter recapitulates the v development of Switzerland's visual landscape in recent decades, examining the emergence of such features of material culture as architecture, urban planning, commercial zones, freeways, etc. A reading of images of America, so-called Amerikabilder, in post-war Swiss literature follows this examination of material culture. Finally, the third chapter is an attempt to grasp the Swiss Lebensgefühl or attitude towards life. Did, and if yes, how did the Swiss mentality, their values and lifestyles in a "clockwork country" change over the years? Can this change be meaningfully described in terms of "Americanization"? Throughout, the dissertation focuses on the individual. Rather than contributing to the "Americanization debate" on an abstract cultural level, this study recognizes the significance of the United States on an intellectual and psychological level of the individual. "Americanization" emerges as shorthand explanation for modernization processes that individuals embrace while commentators and critics often perceive threats to authentic Swiss or, as the case may be, European culture. vi Table of Contents Introduction 1 The concept of Americanization 7 Chapter 1 Traces of America in the visual landscape of Switzerland 20 Americanized Landmarks and identity 23 The Setting 28 Early Actors 30 Amerikanismus in Switzerland 37 Americanization of Le Corbusier 46 Siegfried Giedion 47 Max Frisch: Hochhäuser and urban planning 52 America as a model 59 A recurring debate: high-rise buildings or not? 63 Autobahn 73 Driving to Shoppyland 81 Systemgastronomie: Running restaurants the American way 86 Chapter 2 Amerikabilder in Swiss Literature 94 Striking gold elsewhere 107 American(ized) women 112 Frisch's Montauk 113 Friendliness and superficiality as recurring themes 118 American dystopia 121 Historic truth in historical fiction 125 Beyond New York 125 America Deserta 127 California Dreamings 129 Mobility 134 Amerikabild: A puzzling composite image 136 Lincoln or Fonda as Socialist educators? 139 Chapter 3 Swiss Lebensgefühl 144 Changing attitudes towards life in advertising images 150 American individualism in advertising 153 Americanization and emigration history 156 Emigrant case stories 160 Reflections of contemporary emigration in news magazines 168 Is Europe moving to America? 171 vii Conclusion 177 Bibliography 181 Vita 194 viii Introduction This project began more than ten years ago. After studying US- European cultural relations for a number of semesters, I decided to conclude my studies with a dissertation specifically on US-Swiss cultural relations. Publications about cultural relations between the United States and other countries around the globe are innumerable. The influence of America in Europe after World War II of course added to the great interest that transatlantic relationship had always generated among writers. Understandably, scholars and authors focused their attention on countries where that the United States had occupied and where it later maintained military bases, or studies were devoted to the more "important", i.e. bigger or better known countries. Thus, German-American or French-American relations were studied from every possible angle. Political relations, the influence of Hollywood on national film industries, the influence of American-style advertising in Europe, the European enthusiasm for American pop culture or the Coca-Colonization of Austria, all became elements of an intensifying "Americanization" debate. 1 1 Although most studies may focus on the relations between either Germany, France, or the United Kingdom and the United States, the US-European cultural exchange between World War II and the early 1990s has been studied in all European regions. James Tent specifically examined US "reeducation" efforts in Germany in Mission on the Rhine: "Reeducation and Denazification in American-Occupied Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1 In the early 1990s, I was somewhat astonished that comparatively little was available on US-Swiss cultural relations. Heinz K. Meier had published a volume each on US-Swiss relations in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.2 But cultural relations between the United States and Switzerland after World War II did not seem to have attracted much academic attention. Switzerland did not really take part in the Americanization-debate. On one hand, this debate was perhaps not considered as topical as, for example, in Germany because Switzerland was not occupied and not under direct American influence. On the other hand, US-Swiss cultural relations were subsumed under European-Swiss cultural relations. After all, rock 'n' roll was imported into all of Europe. Swiss youth 1982). A number of books were published on the image of America in German literature: Sigrid Bauschinger et al., Amerika in der deutschen Literatur. Neue Welt -- Nordamerika -- USA (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1975); Frank Krampikowski, ed., Amerikanisches Deutschlandbild und deutsches Amerikabild in Medien und Erziehung (Baltmannsweiler: Burgbücherei Schneider, 1990). Books on US-Franco relations seem to focus on French anti-Americanism. A bestseller in all of Western Europe when it first appeared, Jean-Jacques Servan-Scheiber's book Le Défi Américain (Paris: Denoël, 1967) is probably the best known to this day. Servan-Scheiber argued that the influence of American investments and technology amounted to an American takeover of Europe. A number of books contained articles on the different European countries as well as various cultural phenomena: Donald Peterson Kent, The Refugee Intellectual. The Americanization of the Immigrants of 1933 - 1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953); Edward A. McCreary, The Americanization of Europe: The Impact of Americans and American Business on the Uncommon Market (New York: Doubleday, 1964); C.W.E. Bigsby, ed., Superculture: American Popular Culture and Europe (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Press, 1975); Jeremy, Tunstall, The media are American. Anglo-American media in the world (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977); Allen Davis, ed., For Better or Worse: The American Influence in the World (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981); Tamar Liebes and Elihu Katz, The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of 'Dallas' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); C. Vann Woodward, The Old World's New World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 2 Heinz K. Meier, The United States and Switzerland in the Nineteenth Century(The Hague: Mouton, 1963); Heinz K. Meier, Friendship under Stress. U.S.-Swiss relations 1900-1950 (Bern: Herbert Lang & Co., 1970). 2 culture in the 1950s and 1960s absorbed American music like the rest of Europe. Switzerland might have been considered too small or too specific a place to study such a phenomenon. But Switzerland makes for a rewarding examination of Americanization. As the rest of the Europeans, the Swiss imported many American products after World War II: consumer goods and films as well as business organization and retail or marketing practices. They also integrated many elements of American life into their own: language as well as lifestyles. Today, many Swiss think that they are just as Americanized as the Germans although they were never occupied. How did this perceived Americanization develop in a European country whose contact with the United States was quite different from that of its neighbors? Still, the question may linger what the relevance of a study on US- Swiss cultural relations could be? After all, US-Swiss