Norms, Normality and Normalization

Norms, Normality and Normalization Papers from the Postgraduate Summer School in German Studies, Nottingham, July 2013 Edited by Matthias Uecker and Dirk Göttsche with Helen Budd and Gesine Haberlah University of Nottingham, October 2014 Norms, Normality and Normalization. Edited by Matthias Uecker and Dirk Göttsche. Nottingham 2014 Table of Content MATTHIAS UECKER: Introduction: Norms, Normality and Normalization ........................... 1 JÜRGEN LINK: Crisis between ʻDenormalizationʼ and the ʻNew Normalʼ: Reflections on the Theory of Normalism Today .................................................................................... 7 HELEN BUDD: Normalizing Masculinities: Representations of the Military in Literature and Films in 1950s West Germany ................................................................................ 18 FRANZISKA SCHRATT: Fatherless Identities in Wim Wenders’ Kings of the Road and Notebook on Cities and Clothes ..................................................................................... 29 ANNA STIEPEL: In/Out: Social Norms in Mechanisms of Inclusion and Exclusion in Miguel Abrantes Ostrowski’s Sacro Pop, Ein Schuljungen-Report (2004) and Michael Borlik’s Ihr mich auch (2010) ......................................................................... 41 SARAH MAAß: Normativierung, Normalisierung und Hypernormalismus: Technologien des Körpers und des Selbst in der Castingshow Germany’s Next Topmodel ................ 51 NINA SCHMIDT: ‘[E]ndlich normal gewordenʼ? Reassembling an Image of the Self in Kathrin Schmidt’s Du stirbst nicht (2009) ..................................................................... 65 TOM PADDEN: ‘Gegen die strategische Bereitstellung für einen möglichen Krieg’: the peace movement and the normalization of threat in the late Cold War ......................... 79 MATHELINDA NABUGODI: On Some Methodological Motifs in Benjamin ........................... 90 JAPHET JOHNSTONE: Inverting Norms in Nineteenth-Century German Philosophy ............. 103 MARTINA WAGNER-EGELHAAF: Norm, Form und Modell: Paradigma Autobiographie ...... 117 GESINE HABERLAH: Fiktionalisierte Fakten und essayistische Erinnerungen: Gattungs- hybridisierung in Stephan Wackwitz‘ Ein unsichtbares Land (2003) ........................... 132 ALEXANDER SCHOLZ: Die Wahrnehmung innovativer Schriften: Literarischer Stil als Normabweichung und das ästhetische Erscheinen von Texten ...................................... 146 Norms, Normality and Normalization. Edited by Matthias Uecker and Dirk Göttsche. Nottingham 2014 MATTHIAS UECKER Introduction: Norms, Normality and Normalization German Studies in the twenty-first century is a multi-disciplinary field which produces studies of language, literature, film, art, music, history, politics and philosophy, employing a diverse range of theoretical approaches and conceptual frameworks. The challenge to engage in a productive dialogue across the different areas and niches of the field and to find a path through the sometimes bewildering and contradictory landscape of German Studies is particularly urgent for young researchers in the process of designing, developing or completing their first major project. Supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), a group of German Departments in the UK have set up the project of an annual Summer School with the aim of facilitating such a dialogue and help to identify emerging trends in our field. Using a broadly defined topic, concept or question, these Summer Schools aim to provide a platform where postgraduate students cannot only present their work in progess, but also locate it in a wider context of current theoretical or methodological concerns. In the summer of 2013, the German Department at the University of Nottingham hosted the Summer School with a series of papers delivered by researchers from British, Irish, German and Belgian universities. Complementing the group of postgraduate researchers were key-note lectures from Professor Jürgen Link (Dortmund) and Professor Martina Wagner- Egelhaaf from the Graduate School “Practices of Literature” (University of Münster), our main German partner in the event. The conference was prepared and organised by Dr Franziska Meyer and Professor Dirk Göttsche, with the support of Helen Budd and Gesine Haberlah. The event was made possible by generous financial support from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Universities of Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Oxford and Edinburgh, and the Institute for Modern Languages Research (London). Additional funding from the DAAD helped with the preparation of this publication. Helen Budd and Gesine Haberlah provided editorial and administrative support. Dirk Göttsche and Matthias Uecker reviewed the submissions and selected papers for publication. Contributions to the conference focused on problems of norms, normality and normalization. The Call for Papers for the Summer School set out the framework which was chosen to provide thematic connections between the contributions and enable productive exchange: The Arts reflect concepts of normality in a variety of forms. For example, artists and writers reference, reinforce, reinvent, and/or challenge identity constructs, as well as literary and aesthetic traditions. Concepts of norms, normality and normalisation open up debates in various sub-disciplines in German Studies, such as philosophy, politics, history, gender studies, literature, and film. Norms, Normality and Normalization. Edited by Matthias Uecker and Dirk Göttsche. Nottingham 2014 M. UECKER: INTRODUCTION 2 Norms are often viewed critically: concepts of normality are used to exclude, stigmatise and oppress individuals on the basis of gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and religion. What are the methods through which normality is conveyed and/or institutionalised? How, when and where does normalisation take place in a globalised world? At the same time, norms are also an indispensable part of society in that they are grounded in values without which a community cannot exist. Norms can also be the basis of a collective identity. What are the philosophical and social backgrounds and implications of norms as values? How do norms and values interact? Furthermore, considering normality also brings to mind its opposites: the extraordinary, the outsider, the crisis. The non-normative, however, can sometimes become normative, such as in pop culture as well as in feminism and post-colonialism. How does the process of normalisation occur? Which historical examples of change in conceptualisations of normality can shed light on the process of normalisation more broadly? Concepts of normality, norms and crisis are not always well-defined. Their use in everyday language can make a more contolled definition difficult and their relationship is open to different interpretations. A quick search of Google Books demonstrates that, in German usage, crisis and norm have been significant concepts throughout the twentieth century, but ‘Normalität’ only seems to have acquired some significance very recently: Krise, Norm, Normalität, normal (1800-2008)1 Such data can of course only ever provide a blunt picture which contains no reliable information about the specific usage and context of these terms, the causes of change or the connections between the different terms, but they can provide the starting point for new questions. Perhaps even more importantly, the table reproduced above is an example of an 1 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=normal%2CNormalit%C3%A4t%2CNorm%2CKrise&year_s tart=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=20&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cnormal%3B%2Cc0%3 B.t1%3B%2CNormalit%C3%A4t%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CNorm%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CKrise%3B% 2Cc0 (last accessed 1 August 2014). Norms, Normality and Normalization. Edited by Matthias Uecker and Dirk Göttsche. Nottingham 2014 M. UECKER: INTRODUCTION 3 ongoing development in the production and representation of knowledge which is itself closely connected to the issues which are at stake in this collection. As Jürgen LINK has shown, the modern notion of normality is the result of a formation of knowledge which relies primarily on statistical data, preferably represented in exactly the type of graph which is used by Google’s Ngram viewer.2 In his contribution to this volume, he summarises some of the fundamental assumptions of his approach, providing a concise introduction to his concept of ‘normalism’ which must be distinguished from both normativity and everydayness. Normalism, as a specifically modern discourse, is produced by aggregating and analysing data. It identifies averages and exceptional performances rather than fixing durable norms. Crucially for Link’s argument, the discourse of normalism produces narratives and predictions, usually in the form of curves which model the development of standards as outputs in terms of continuous growth. While much of Link’s earlier work was primarily concerned with the discursive production of normality in modern societies, more recently he has focused on crises,3 and his contribution to this volume uses the presentation of the recent global financial crisis to demonstrate the discursive means which are employed to turn disruptive events into ‘normal’ features of the normalistic curve-landscape. If we apply such an approach to the graph from Ngrams, we can tentatively assume, that whatever the relationship may be between norms and normality – a question to which the graph itself cannot provide any answers – the

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