The thesis explores the vexed concept of Heimat in recent German culture. Heimat evokes an exclusive group, founded on the idea of the unity and homogeneity of its members. Conflicts arise around the concept because it constructs oppositions between those who belong and those who do not, insiders and outsiders, the domestic and known in opposition to the foreign and strange. Historically, the concept has been used to tell a story about the cohesion of the German nation; it has also, however, been used to assimilate, eliminate, or exile its Others. The thesis examines how the legacies of the concept and its narrative reverberate through the nation-building process of Germany today. The concept of Heimat is active in films, literature, the law and contemporary German society. The argument is that the concept of Heimat still shapes German identity in ways that use old forms and oppositions to respond to recent social changes. It is argued further that the tensions around the concept have not diminished, but are spreading into many different areas of German everyday life. Two films by Edgar Reitz provide the starting point for exploring the tensions around Heimat in contemorary German culture. Following readings of texts by Jewish-German, Austrian- German, Swiss-German, Persian-German, Rumanian-German, East and West German authors show the concept persisting in different forms with different consequences, according to the different cultural contexts. In each of these contexts, the concept of German Heimat produces both social cohesion and social tensions. As much as people are united by the concept, they are also driven apart by its differentiating and disintegrating mechanisms. Motivated by the search for communal intimacy, the concept also has the effect of controlling and manipulating what appears different and alien. As such a network of interests and strategies it is not merely closed, fixed and bounded, as desired perhaps by the dominant cultural groups, but rather open for contestation and negotiation within and across national borders.

The thesis explores the vexed concept of Heimat in recent German culture. Heimat evokes an exclusive group, founded on the idea of the unity and homogeneity of its members. Conflicts arise around the concept because it constructs oppositions between those who belong and those who do not, insiders and outsiders, the domestic and known in opposition to the foreign and strange. Historically, the concept has been used to tell a story about the cohesion of the German nation; it has also, however, been used to assimilate, eliminate, or exile its Others. The thesis examines how the legacies of the concept and its narrative reverberate through the nation-building process of Germany today. The concept of Heimat is active in films, literature, the law and contemporary German society. The argument is that the concept of Heimat still shapes German identity in ways that use old forms and oppositions to respond to recent social changes. It is argued further that the tensions around the concept have not diminished, but are spreading into many different areas of German everyday life. Two films by Edgar Reitz provide the starting point for exploring the tensions around Heimat in contemorary German culture. Following readings of texts by Jewish-German, Austrian- German, Swiss-German, Persian-German, Rumanian-German, East and West German authors show the concept persisting in different forms with different consequences, according to the different cultural contexts. In each of these contexts, the concept of German Heimat produces both social cohesion and social tensions. As much as people are united by the concept, they are also driven apart by its differentiating and disintegrating mechanisms. Motivated by the search for communal intimacy, the concept also has the effect of controlling and manipulating what appears different and alien. As such a network of interests and strategies it is not merely closed, fixed and bounded, as desired perhaps by the dominant cultural groups, but rather open for contestation and negotiation within and across national borders. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

The addition to the College of Architecture and Design Weimar, the former Bauhaus Weimar, consolidates the two existing buildings designed by Henry van de Velde into a new complex with 40,000 sf of existing building and 100, 000 sf of new structure. The new facility contains a 300 seat auditorium, library, lecture and seminar rooms, administrative offices, cafeteria, photo lab and gallery as well as extended studios and offices.Contrary to the brief of the competition which only requires an addition for the Department of Architecture, the position taken here, proposes an interweaving of the Art and Architecture Departments. The Bauhaus interweaves these two schools in the same way as the definition of art and architecture have come to include each other. The additional structure integrates therefore the idea that the building is used both by architecture and art students.Since the project is for a College of Architecture and Art, I believe the new College of Art and Architecture must confront the challenges of current thinking; the search for a new integration of concept and form it must move over the deconstructive approach by achieving a complexity not as a contradiction but as an acceptance of the duality of existence.This interelationship is represented in the famous play "Faust". Written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who spent almost 60 years (and most of them in Weimar) working on this piece, the play raises diverse and contradictory questions: 1. of knowledge, 2. of identity and 3. of morality in terms that reflect the 'doubleness' of all beings in nature. Faust becomes important when we recognize the memory of such themes in Weimar.The pieces, and hence, the structure of the play are not composed as a narrative but as an dialogue of different stories. The development of the design parallels the play in which the play becomes the concept and the concept becomes the play; several events - each centered on one major event- provide the scenes for the building. / Department of Architecture