This thesis explores the representation of Heimat in Stephan Thome’s novel Grenzgang (2009). The concept of Heimat is a subjective and therefore challenging idea, as a result there is no generally accepted definition of Heimat. Thus notions that contribute to the conception of Heimat – nostalgia, womanhood, the triad of province-city-world as well as nationhood and tradition – are analysed in the present work. Far beyond the cliché of an idyllic Heimat as a place to escape from real life, Grenzgang demonstrates a more modern version of the concept. The inhabitants of the Hessian town Bergenstadt, especially the protagonists Thomas and Kerstin, have to deal with the harsh reality of their lives. Since the Hessian countryside is caught up in the processes of globalization, its inhabitants have new opportunities, but they have to come to terms with new threats as well. The result is increasing insecurity, which in turn is partly buffered by the existing tradition of the “Grenzgang,” i.e. walking along the limits of the town in order to re-establish its borders. That tradition is the connecting element in this novel, causing the inhabitants of Bergenstadt to experience a feeling of security and identity in the traditional community. Furthermore, they build up a relationship with their rural environment and their history. The novel Grenzgang demonstrates that Heimat can be acquired actively through social relations even if this Heimat is threatened by insecurity. The thesis stresses the progressive character of the individual acquisition of traditions while its special focus is on the subjectivity of the concept of Heimat: Each character has to find his or her own form of Heimat and by extension his or her identity. Grenzgang shows that this can be successfully experienced in the present day. Furthermore the novel's realistic treatment of the countryside differs from the positively-transfigured, negative or ironic representations of previous Heimat novels.

This thesis explores the representation of Heimat in Stephan Thome’s novel Grenzgang (2009). The concept of Heimat is a subjective and therefore challenging idea, as a result there is no generally accepted definition of Heimat. Thus notions that contribute to the conception of Heimat – nostalgia, womanhood, the triad of province-city-world as well as nationhood and tradition – are analysed in the present work. Far beyond the cliché of an idyllic Heimat as a place to escape from real life, Grenzgang demonstrates a more modern version of the concept. The inhabitants of the Hessian town Bergenstadt, especially the protagonists Thomas and Kerstin, have to deal with the harsh reality of their lives. Since the Hessian countryside is caught up in the processes of globalization, its inhabitants have new opportunities, but they have to come to terms with new threats as well. The result is increasing insecurity, which in turn is partly buffered by the existing tradition of the “Grenzgang,” i.e. walking along the limits of the town in order to re-establish its borders. That tradition is the connecting element in this novel, causing the inhabitants of Bergenstadt to experience a feeling of security and identity in the traditional community. Furthermore, they build up a relationship with their rural environment and their history. The novel Grenzgang demonstrates that Heimat can be acquired actively through social relations even if this Heimat is threatened by insecurity. The thesis stresses the progressive character of the individual acquisition of traditions while its special focus is on the subjectivity of the concept of Heimat: Each character has to find his or her own form of Heimat and by extension his or her identity. Grenzgang shows that this can be successfully experienced in the present day. Furthermore the novel's realistic treatment of the countryside differs from the positively-transfigured, negative or ironic representations of previous Heimat novels.

Orientador: Eduardo Roberto Junqueira Guimarães / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T22:43:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Souza_JocyareCristinaPereirade_M.pdf: 1654018 bytes, checksum: 5769644079899d516f86a539dc1ae17a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: Este trabalho apresenta, dentro de uma perspectiva da Semântica do Acontecimento, os efeitos de sentido que a nomeação, tomada como um fenômeno urbano, vem produzindo em São Thomé das Letras. Propõe, assim, uma análise do processo constitutivo que marca o espaço de enunciação das designações dos estabelecimentos comerciais de São Thomé das Letras, levando em consideração os procedimentos que predicam e determinam seu espaço semântico-enunciativo e que acabam por marcar um lugar social do dizer, estabilizando determinados sentidos no discurso comercial/publicitário. Neste trabalho analisamos os nomes de estabelecimentos comerciais de São Thomé das Letras, enfocando o acontecimento enunciativo em sua historicidade. Há, dentro dessa perspectiva, uma relação da língua com um falante que se apresenta como sujeito político e social da enunciação / Abstract: This work presents, inside of Semântica do Acontecimento theory, the effects of sense that the nomination, taking as an urban phenomenon, produces in São Thomé das Letras city. It considers an analysis of the constituent process that marks the enunciation space of the designations on commercial establishments in São Thomé das Letras city, considering the procedures that attribute and determine its semantic-enunciative space and mark a social space of saying, when they stabilize definitive sensible in the commercial/advertising discourse. This survey has the aim of investigation the names of comercial stores of São Thomé das Letras,. the is inside this perspective a relation of the language with a speaker that presents himself as social and political subject of the enunciation / Mestrado / Linguistica / Mestre em Linguística

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