The discourse of Heimat, meaning homeland or roots, has been a medium of debate on German identity between region and nation for at least a century. Four phases parallel Germany's discontinuous history: Heimat literature as a response to modernization and to regional tensions before the First World War; the inter-war period when Heimat divided into racist ideology, left-wing opposition, and inner resistance to the Third Reich; a post-war dialectic between escapist 1950s Heimat films and right-wing claims to the lost lands in the East to which anti-Heimat theatre and films in the 1960s and 1970s were a response, with the urban Heimat in GDR films adding a socialist twist; regionalism and green politics in the 1980s and German identity beyond Cold War divisions. A key point of reference in current debates on German history, Heimat looks likely to continue in postmodern and multicultural mode.

The concept of Heimat with its seemingly pre- or anti-modern connotations of rootedness in a place of origin is central to a critical understanding of German history and culture. Over the course of the past fifteen years, scholars across a range of disciplines have found new ways to examine the changing notions of Heimat – its multifaceted cultural, literary, and visual history, its gendered connotations, and its national and ideological appropriations. This anthology is the first to examine cultural manifestations of Heimat by giving special consideration to issues of memory and space. The contributions to this volume challenge static notions of place often associated with Heimat. Instead, they explore the social and cultural production of places of belonging as they emerge in literary and visual narratives ranging from 1800 to 2000 and beyond. Although the anthology includes historical perspectives on Heimat, its overall objective is not to trace its cultural or literary history, but to place this complex term into new conceptual contexts. Drawing attention to manifestations of Heimat within German literary and cultural studies provides a rich ground for exploring the transformation of locality in trans/national contexts.

The discourse of Heimat, meaning homeland or roots, has been a medium of debate on German identity between region and nation for at least a century. Four phases parallel Germany's discontinuous history: Heimat literature as a response to modernization and to regional tensions before the FirstWorld War; the inter-war period when Heimat divided into racist ideology, left-wing opposition, and inner resistance to the Third Reich; a post-war dialectic between escapist 1950s Heimat films and right-wing claims to the lost lands in the East to which anti-Heimat theatre and films in the 1960sand 1970s were a response, with the urban Heimat in GDR films adding a socialist twist; regionalism and green politics in the 1980s and German identity beyond Cold War divisions. A key point of reference in current debates on German history, Heimat looks likely to continue in postmodern andmulticultural mode.

'What this study achieves, above all else, is to underscore the constant yearning of the German psyche for a potent and cohesive identity, compelling us to ponder not only the cultural accomplishments this has inspired, but also the afflictions it has, in no small part, brought upon the nation' -Forum for Modern Language StudiesGerman identity has been a controversial theme throughout the modern age, especially in the wake of unification. This study explores the theme of identity between locality and nation in literature and film from the late nineteenth-century through to the present, locating key novels and films in a wider cultural context of great significance for an understanding of German history.

The first book to examine the connection between gender and memory in Grass's oeuvre, which is especially timely in light of current concerns about male privilege.

A dynamic, event-centered exploration of the hundred-year history of German-language film. This dynamic, event-centered anthology offers a new understanding of the hundred-year history of German-language film, from the earliest days of the Kintopp to contemporary productions like The Lives of Others. Eachof the more than eighty essays takes a key date as its starting point and explores its significance for German film history, pursuing its relationship with its social, political, and aesthetic moment. While the essays offer ampletemporal and topical spread, this book emphasizes the juxtaposition of famous and unknown stories, granting attention to a wide range of cinematic events. Brief section introductions provide a larger historical and film-historicalframework that illuminates the essays within it, offering both scholars and the general reader a setting for the individual texts and figures under investigation. Cross-references to other essays in the book are included at the close of each entry, encouraging readers not only to pursue familiar trajectories in the development of German film, but also to trace particular figures and motifs across genres and historical periods. Together, the contributionsoffer a new view of the multiple, intersecting narratives that make up German-language cinema. The constellation that is thus established challenges unidirectional narratives of German film history and charts new ways of thinkingabout film historiography more broadly. Jennifer Kapczynski is Associate Professor of German at Washington University, St. Louis, and Michael Richardson is Associate Professor of German at Ithaca College.

Discourses of Heimat and of migration both negotiate questions of identity, belonging, and integration; moreover, despite the reemergence of right-wing, racist, and exclusionary uses of the term Heimat, there are in fact more recent German-language cultural texts that problematize and challenge a view of Heimat as a community that excludes the Other than there are promulgating it. This volume addresses the parallel proliferation of discourses of Heimat and of migration in contemporary German-language culture and demonstrates that the entanglement of migration and Heimat can be productive: it can help us to reframe what it means to have a home, to lose one, find one, or belong to one.

"The collapse of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918 galvanized discussion about national identity in the new Republic of Austria. As Robert Pyrah shows in this thoroughly documented study, the complex identity politics of interwar Austria were played out in the theatres of Vienna, which enjoyed a cultural prominence rarely matched in other countries. By 1934, productions across the city were being co-opted to serve the newly patriotic cause of the Dollfuss and Schuschnigg regimes, and the Burgtheater, once known as the first German stage, had been transformed into a national theatre for Austria. Using case studies of key productions and a wealth of previously unseen archival material, Pyrah sheds new light on artistic and ideological developments throughout the period, including the neglected earlier years. He documents previously unexplored overlaps in the cultural programmes of Left and Right, and unearths evidence that key institutions were subverted by the Right well before the suspension of parliamentary rule in 1933."

Since unification, German culture has experienced a boom in discourses on generation, family and place. Linda Shortt reads this as symptomatic of a wider quest for belonging that mobilises attachment to counter the effects of post-modern deterritorialisation and globalisation. Investigating twenty-first century narratives of belonging by Reinhard Jirgl, Christoph Hein, Angelika Overath, Florian Illies, Juli Zeh, Stephan Wackwitz, Uwe Timm and Peter Schneider, Shortt examines how the desire to belong is repeatedly unsettled by disturbances of lineage and tradition. In this way, she combines an analysis of supermodernity with an enquiry into German memory contests on the National Socialist era, 1968 and 1989 that continue to shape identity in the Berlin Republic. Exploring a spectrum of narratives that range from agitated disavowals of place to romances of belonging, this study illuminates the topography of belonging in contemporary Germany.

Domestic Disputes is the first monograph in German studies to offer a critical examination of the home ownership crisis in the former East Germany that resulted from unification policy, taking as its focus news media, made-for-television movies, cinematic releases, and prose fiction that depict property disputes between former East and West Germans. In the cultural productions discussed in this book, anxieties about social disenfranchisement through unification policy are dramatized in narratives in which Westerners acquire, or attempt to acquire, property in the former East Germany. Each chapter addresses a different type of narrative that has emerged to frame those anxieties, including those of neocolonial Western takeover, the engagement with difficult family histories, masculinity crises in the West, and the corporatization of home. Domestic Disputes is the first book-length study to outline the way in which homes were awarded to individuals and families as the former East Germany privatized and to offer in-depth examinations of the narratives that emerged from that social phenomenon.