Heimat, Space, Narrative

Heimat, Space, Narrative
Author: Friederike Ursula Eigler
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 1571139036

Explores how contemporary novels dealing with flight and expulsion after the Second World War unsettle traditional notions of Heimat without abandoning place-based notions of belonging. At the end of the Second World War, millions of Germans and Poles fled or were expelled from the border regions of what had been their countries. This monograph examines how, in Cold War and post-Cold War Europe since the 1970s, writers have responded to memories or postmemories of this traumatic displacement. Friederike Eigler engages with important currents in scholarship -- on "Heimat," the much-debated German concept of "homeland"; on the spatial turnin literary studies; and on German-Polish relations -- arguing for a transnational approach to the legacies of flight and expulsion and for a spatial approach to Heimat. She explores notions of belonging in selected postwar and contemporary German novels, with a comparative look at a Polish novel, Olga Tokarczuk's House of Day, House of Night (1998). Eigler finds dynamic manifestations of place in Tokarczuk's novel, in Horst Bienek's 1972-82 Gleiwitz tetralogy about the historical border region of Upper Silesia, and in contemporary novels by Reinhard Jirgl, Christoph Hein, Kathrin Schmidt, Tanja Dückers, Olaf Müller, and Sabrina Janesch. In a decisive departure from earlierapproaches, Eigler explores how these novels foster an awareness of the regions' multiethnic and multinational histories, unsettling traditional notions of Heimat without altogether abandoning place-based notions of belonging. Friederike Eigler is Professor of German at Georgetown University.

Refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe in British Overseas Territories

Refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe in British Overseas Territories
Author: Swen Steinberg
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2020-04-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004399534

This special issue focusses on refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe in British colonies, dominions and overseas territories. It deals with aspects like internment, identity and cultural representation in not well-known destinations of forced migration like India, New Zealand, Canada or Kenya.

Blueness of a Clear Sky

Blueness of a Clear Sky
Author: Hildegard A. Weiler
Publisher:
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2013-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9780615766409

Blueness of a Clear Sky is the compelling story of one child's war time refugee experience. Hildegard Weiler was born in 1937 in Zombor, Hungary. Her family belonged to a large population of ethnic Germans - the Donauschwaben or Danube Swabians - who had lived in eastern Europe for generations. In the waning months of World War II, Hildie, with her mother and sister, fled their home in Hungary to escape the advancing Russian army. Hildie's story takes place over a two-year period from August 1944 through September 1946, when she and her family came to the United States. This memoir is powerfully written in first person, present tense. The author's intent was, in her words, "to allow the reader to experience the condition of war through the eyes of a child." In each chapter, stories of wartime refugee experiences are told from the point of view of 7-year-old Hildie. The approach is extremely effective in that Hildie's voice conveys with vividness the sense of confusion, terror, and chaos that define much of her childhood refugee experience. But this memoir is more than a story of survival - it is a story of healing. During the late 1980's, Ms. Weiler worked with a psychiatrist to heal from the post traumatic stress she carried with her as a result of her childhood war experiences. The author has included brief scenes from her sessions with Dr. Gregg. This technique provides the reader glimpses into the difficult process of healing, and offers insight into tremendous courage required to embark upon the journey of recovery from post traumatic stress disorder. Hildegard Weiler has given us a powerful and touching account of childhood refugee trauma which will enrich both our understanding and compassion. Before her death in 2009, Ms. Weiler noted that her aim in telling her story was to "shine a light on the resilience of the human spirit." She has unquestionably succeeded.

Nordic War Stories

Nordic War Stories
Author: Marianne Stecher-Hansen
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2021-02-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789209625

Situated on Europe’s northern periphery, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden found themselves caught between warring powers during World War II. Ultimately, these nations survived the conflict as sovereign states whose wartime experiences have profoundly shaped their historiography, literature, cinema and memory cultures. Nordic War Stories explores the commonalities and divergences among the five Nordic countries, examining national historiographies alongside representations of the war years in canonical literary works, travel writing, and film media. Together, they comprise a valuable companion that challenges the myth of Scandinavian homogeneity while demonstrating the powerful influence that the war continues to exert on national identities.

Representations of War, Migration, and Refugeehood

Representations of War, Migration, and Refugeehood
Author: Daniel H. Rellstab
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2014-09-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1134656831

War, migration, and refugeehood are inextricably linked and the complex nature of all three phenomena offers profound opportunities for representation and misrepresentation. This volume brings together international contributors and practitioners from a wide range of fields, practices, and backgrounds to explore and problematize textual and visual inscriptions of war and migration in the arts, the media, and in academic, public, and political discourses. The essays in this collection address the academic and political interest in representations of the migrant and the refugee, and examine the constructed nature of categories and concepts such as ‘war,’ ‘refuge(e),’ ‘victim,’ ‘border,’ ‘home,’ ‘non-place,’ and ‘dis/location.’ Contributing authors engage with some of the most pressing questions surrounding war, migration, and refugeehood as well as with the ways in which war and its multifarious effects and repercussions in society are being framed, propagated, glorified, or contested. This volume initiates an interdisciplinary debate which re-evaluates the relationship between war, migration, and refugeehood and their representations.

The Ethics of Survival in Contemporary Literature and Culture

The Ethics of Survival in Contemporary Literature and Culture
Author: Rudolf Freiburg
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2021-12-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3030834220

The Ethics of Survival in Contemporary Literature and Culture delves into the complex problems involved in all attempts to survive. The essays analyze survival in contemporary prose narratives, short stories, poems, dramas, and theoretical texts, but also in films and other modes of cultural practices. Addressing diverse topics such as memory and forgetting in Holocaust narratives, stories of refugees and asylum seekers, and representations of war, the ethical implications involved in survival in texts and media are brought into a transnational critical discussion. The volume will be of potential interest to a wide range of critics working on ethical issues, the body, and the politics of art and literature.

Memoirs of a Refugee Girl

Memoirs of a Refugee Girl
Author: Bruna A. Riccobon
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2015-11-13
Genre:
ISBN: 9781517352516

Story of a girl during WWII in a part of Italy that later fell under communist regime. Her years spent in refugee camps and immigration to America. Her struggles to adjust to a new culture and growth into adulthood.

Global Identities in Transit

Global Identities in Transit
Author: Lahoussine Hamdoune
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2022-03-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 179362433X

Global Identities in Transit: The Ethics and Politics of Representation in World Literatures and Cultures explores the myriad aspects of identity formation and identity representation in an increasingly globalized world. Covering a variety of cultural and historical experiences in addition to several texts of world literatures, the contributors discuss the configurations of transnationality and transculturality in our postcolonial and globalized world. Acknowledging that nationality, ethnicity, gender, and class are continually shaped by historical processes, the contributors hone in on the ways that the increase in mobility via migration, diaspora, and exile render identities always in transit In the face of structural inequalities and social injustices predominant in this context, the chapters reflect on the moral obligations of representation. This collection will be of interest to scholars of cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and world literature.