It is not merely a question of these topics in specific literature, though it is that, but it is also a question with political and social import, too. Given the current political and social and economic climate in the German speaking world, the question of what counts as a home for whom and questions of national or transnational identity, it seems apt to interrogate this question in literature. Since 2015 there have been various novels published in Germany which address the loss of home (Gehen, ging, gegangen by Erpenbeck), the struggle to make oneself at home in a foreign land (Ohrfeige by Abbas Khider), and ultimately how to think abstractly about the home one does have. The question of home in German speaking texts, media, and literature is not a new one. In fact, given the vast literatures on the Second World War and exile literature, the issue of homelessness, loss of home, and what home might mean seems to figure prominently. In fact, last year, at CSU-Long Beach a conference was convened focusing on the legacy of German speaking exiles in Southern California. Aptly titled "German Art in SoCal in German Art," various exile literatures were explored in their relationship to this new place, the relationship of living in Los Angeles and missing Germany or Austria, and gender. While themes of Heimat and Heimweh were not always the explicit talking points o the conference, the political and social concerns of being strangers in a new land and making oneself at home were prominent. Given the social and political situation, the publication of novels relevant to the experience of refugees arriving in large numbers, and the exile history of German speaking persons, it seems apt to explore more explicitly the question of home and longing for home further.
The difference, perhaps, that not everything on the panel is explicitly German. Or, rather, not merely German. In organizing this space the hope is that each person can help us peer into the question, look at it anew from different angles, and perhaps begin to think differently and adequately about these topics.
I hope to allow 15-20 minute paper presentations and hopefully allow for the 15 minutes of discussion, at least. Ideally, 15-17 minutes would be preferred.
We will start with Ethan Pack's paper. Ethan intends to provide some specific historical context to the question of German'y relationship to minorities from the Wilhemine era onwards. The reason for starting with Ethan's paper is that it provides some context for thinking about Germany's own understanding of home, identity, and its minority populations.
Stephanie Butler will be presenting on the situation of a German-Scottish woman born in Britain and living during the Second World War when anti-German sentiments were high. Her papers explores the question of German identity and British identity, as well as cities and home. We follow Ethan's paper with her paper since it takes places in a in a time of crisis and thinks through the question of German identity and home from a unique perspective far from German borders. It follows nicely from Ethan's by further putting into question the concept of home and what missing a home might mean. And it foregrounds questions of Germany's relationship to its own identity as a home for persons.
Samantha Grayck's paper explores a dialogical reading of home in Hannah Arendt's life and work. Specifically, the paper focuses on how to think of Arendt's relationship to the home she lost and the home she builds abstractly. Samantha's paper follows Stephanie by helping us think about the afterlife of the war and how exile and loss of home work on a thinker, a person. In some sense, Samantha's paper might function as a sort of narratival, but rich theoretical accompaniment to Stephanie's paper. It also fits nicely with Ethan's by looking at the question of Jewish identity in Germany from the position of a Jewish woman.
We will end with Katja Perat's paper which is about the Austrian writer Peter Handke, who ends up refusing this national identity and aligning himself with another at the fall of Yugoslavia. She focuses on two literary texts by Handke to explore what an ethics of unbelonging might look like, and what its limits might be. Her paper concludes the panel by offering us a provocative insight into a possible way of reading German literatures about home and longing for home from a perspective which might productively refuse some of the logics which structure the discourse around having a home in the first place.