Women Writing Heimat in Imperial and Weimar Germany (Introduction)

TY - JOUR

T1 - Women Writing Heimat in Imperial and Weimar Germany (Introduction)

AU - Bland, Caroline

AU - Smale, Catherine Helen

AU - Weiss-Sussex, Godela

PY - 2019/1/16

Y1 - 2019/1/16

N2 - This special number investigates conceptualisations of and attitudes to Heimat in writing by women in the German‐speaking countries in the first era of German unification before, during, and after the First World War. The concept of Heimat, understood here as historically contingent, resulting from and intertwined with various processes of modernisation, is often expressed through ahistorical discourses which emphasise authenticity, tradition, and origin. Having gained fresh impetus and importance from the nation‐building efforts of the late nineteenth century, the concept was transformed during the war and its immediate aftermath, when it was often conflated with the idea of patriotism and enveloped in chauvinist rhetoric. During the period 1871–1933, however, more progressive ideas had also emerged that allowed room for the construction of multiple and transferable locations of Heimat. Women were acutely aware of their roles as muses and addressees of this rhetoric and responded to it in their own cultural productions. Sometimes the response was to reinforce the notion that Heimat was central to women's concerns and an area in which they had a specific contribution to make. In other cases, however, women objected to the way in which the traditions promoted by the notion of Heimat served to reinforce patriarchy, and their response was to develop new paradigms of thinking. In the quarter‐century since Elisabeth Bütfering pointed out that gender was largely missing from discussions of Heimat,1there has been increased engagement with feminine conceptions of the topic.2 However, none has offered sustained focus on the crucial period around the First World War, as contributors to this special number do, in articles which focus exclusively on women's varied writing about Heimat, and which incorporate recent insights from history, memory studies, and literary studies.There are three central concerns that were used to interrogate, or have arisen from, the cultural productions considered here. First, we examine the Heimat discourse itself, and how women framed it in terms of time and space, as a feature of (unconscious) longing and belonging which may be familial, regional, or national. Second, given the recognition that Heimat could reinforce patriarchy, we address the need to explore women's resistance to, self‐liberation from, or indeed clear rejection of the Heimat concept. Third, we consider the context: in an era when the Heimat discourse was ubiquitous, women's representation of Heimat inevitably raised issues of authenticity and branding, as well as those of political manipulation and re‐imagining.

AB - This special number investigates conceptualisations of and attitudes to Heimat in writing by women in the German‐speaking countries in the first era of German unification before, during, and after the First World War. The concept of Heimat, understood here as historically contingent, resulting from and intertwined with various processes of modernisation, is often expressed through ahistorical discourses which emphasise authenticity, tradition, and origin. Having gained fresh impetus and importance from the nation‐building efforts of the late nineteenth century, the concept was transformed during the war and its immediate aftermath, when it was often conflated with the idea of patriotism and enveloped in chauvinist rhetoric. During the period 1871–1933, however, more progressive ideas had also emerged that allowed room for the construction of multiple and transferable locations of Heimat. Women were acutely aware of their roles as muses and addressees of this rhetoric and responded to it in their own cultural productions. Sometimes the response was to reinforce the notion that Heimat was central to women's concerns and an area in which they had a specific contribution to make. In other cases, however, women objected to the way in which the traditions promoted by the notion of Heimat served to reinforce patriarchy, and their response was to develop new paradigms of thinking. In the quarter‐century since Elisabeth Bütfering pointed out that gender was largely missing from discussions of Heimat,1there has been increased engagement with feminine conceptions of the topic.2 However, none has offered sustained focus on the crucial period around the First World War, as contributors to this special number do, in articles which focus exclusively on women's varied writing about Heimat, and which incorporate recent insights from history, memory studies, and literary studies.There are three central concerns that were used to interrogate, or have arisen from, the cultural productions considered here. First, we examine the Heimat discourse itself, and how women framed it in terms of time and space, as a feature of (unconscious) longing and belonging which may be familial, regional, or national. Second, given the recognition that Heimat could reinforce patriarchy, we address the need to explore women's resistance to, self‐liberation from, or indeed clear rejection of the Heimat concept. Third, we consider the context: in an era when the Heimat discourse was ubiquitous, women's representation of Heimat inevitably raised issues of authenticity and branding, as well as those of political manipulation and re‐imagining.

KW - German literature

KW - Women's Writing

KW - Heimat

KW - Space in Literature

KW - Weimar Republic

KW - Imperial Germany

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85060371254&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/glal.12201

DO - 10.1111/glal.12201

M3 - Comment/debate

SN - 0016-8777

VL - 72

SP - 1

EP - 13

JO - German Life and Letters

JF - German Life and Letters

IS - 1

ER -