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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/6208 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Strzelczyk, Florentine |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | Other |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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