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Women and
Heimat in German Literature and Visual Culture, 1871-1933
A Conference at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London
Thursday, 12 and Friday, 13 May 2016
Organizers: Caroline Bland (Sheffield) and Godela Weiss-Sussex (IMLR)
Call for Papers
In her essay ‘Frauenheimat Männerwelt: Die Heimatlosigkeit ist weiblich’, Elisabeth Bütfering noted in 1990 that gender
difference had never yet been among the paradigms for discussion of the idea of
Heimat. Since then, the critical engagement with a particularly feminine conception of, or attitude to,
Heimat has gained momentum; some of the outstanding publications in the field being
Gisela Ecker's collection of essays
Kein Land in Sicht. Heimat – weiblich? (1997), Elizabeth Boa and Rachel Palfreyman’s
Heimat – A German Dream (2000), and Peter Blickle’s Critical Theory of the German Idea of Homeland (2002). Scholars in the areas of history, memory studies and literary studies have since contributed to a growing body of knowledge on a gender-sensitive
understanding of Heimat, opening the field to fruitful inter-disciplinary inquiry (see the publications by Julian Preece, Friederike Eigler, Christa Hämmerle in 2014 alone).
This conference aims to build on existing research and concentrate the enquiry on the analysis of conceptualisations of and attitudes to
Heimat in the literature and the visual arts created by women in the German-speaking countries in the years before, during and
after the First World War. The concept of
Heimat, which had been rhetorically bolstered by the nation-building efforts of the late 19th century, was transformed during the war and its immediate aftermath, when it
was often conflated with the idea of patriotism and enveloped in chauvinist rhetoric. At the same time, however, more progressive ideas emerged that allowed room for the construction of multiple and transferable locations of
Heimat. In some cultural productions by women, Heimat appears as a notion central to women’s concerns and an area in which they had a specific contribution to make. Others, however, objected to the way in which the traditions promoted by the notion
of Heimat served to reinforce patriarchy and developed new paradigms of thinking.
We invite papers of ca. 20 minute length (in English or German) that address these issues. Questions of particular interest include, but are by no means restricted to:
Please send
200-word abstracts with a 50-word bio by 15 July 2015 to both organizers: Caroline Bland
and Godela Weiss-Sussex: [log in to unmask];
godela.weiss-suss[log in to unmask]
Jane Lewin
IMLR Trusts Administrator/Events Manager
Institute of Modern Languages Research
(formerly IGRS)
University of London School of Advanced Study
Room 239 (new!),
Senate House
Malet Street, GB- London WC1E 7HU
Telephone 0044 (0)20 7862 8966
Website http://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk