New Germans, New Dutch : Literary Interventions

Arcadia - International Journal for Literary Studies, 2000

There is a striking difference between the first appearance of literature of (labor) migration in German and in Dutch culture. In Germany, first-generation labor migrant writing appeared in the early 1980s, whereas writers of migration background (mostly of the second generation) entered Dutch culture only in the mid-1990s. The emergence of migrant writing in the two countries is examined in their specific socio-political contexts and their effect on contemporary German and Dutch literature of migration.

European Scientific Journal, 2014

On 9 and 10 December 1991, the European Citizen was created during the Maastricht European Council. Since then, Europeans of the member states of the European Union (EU) have witnessed the introduction of a common currency, and the institutional, administrative, and civic Europeanization of Europe characterizes an arguably new Europe for the new millennium. In contrast to the administrative and civic Europeanization, there many and varied debates about what it means or may mean to be European and about European culture. In the context of these discussions, the comparative study of literature of migrants can be productive. Although somewhat different for the individual EU member states, the history of literature of migrants and its reception have unfolded in similar ways. In addition to the creation of a conflicted relationship between national and migrant literature, terms like the German Gastarbeiterliteratur have not only created a separate and distinct category for migrant literature, but have also served to limit its authors to a single characteristic (they are 'guest workers') and, by extension, the content of the works to a few themes such as feelings of loneliness, loss of home, a sense of isolation, etc. Significantly, what dominated the discourse about migrant literature was the concern with themes rather than with its vehicle, i.e., language. The literary productions of migrants to Germany during the past two decades invite comparison of these works to explore the extent and degree to which they are contributions to the debates about 'European identity'. As basis for comparison serve examples from diverse texts and authors with diverse language backgrounds such as Italian, French, Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish, for example. The authors are different in terms of both their (or their parents') countries of origin and in terms of their current homes and languages. The intentional reference to such variegated works serves to illuminate that despite the authors being subject to different first languages, they also have in common the translinguistic character of their texts. Importantly, the translinguistic aspects of the texts do not constitute the encounter (or even clash) between two given cultures (homeland and country of residence). Instead, each of the texts presents instances of the linguistic and creative potential when any two cultures 'meet' to inform each other and, in the process, both emerge as changed. One of the effects on the reader/recipient of the text or texts is defamiliarization with his or her native language; she or he is thus invited not only to encounter something (another culture/country) or someone (the narrator) Other but to also experience the assumed 'normal' (most readers' native language) as Other. In this sense, the different texts all 'teach' that alterity is not far away, but that it exists where one might not expect it (at home, in one's native language). The creative, aesthetic and profound play with language may not bring anyone closer to answering questions about 'European identity' (and may indeed raise new questions in addition to existing ones). However, the turn to its constitutive medium, i.e., language, clearly outlines the challenges that are implicit in recent migrant literatures across Europe and across other parts of the world. For Germany (and Europe), one of these challenges is to acknowledge current realities (as a consequence of historical phenomena) and to reimagine itself as the heterogenous space it has always been.

Focaal, 2010

Peter Jan Margry and Herman Roodenburg, eds., Reframing Dutch culture: Between otherness and authenticity. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, 291 pp., ISBN 978-0-754-64705-8 (hardcover).Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the limits of tolerance. New York: Penguin Books, 2006, 288 pp., ISBN 978-0-143-11236-5 (paperback).

2011

This dissertation addresses a complex cultural and social phenomenon: German multiculturalism in the framework of the European Union in the century of globalization and global migration. I use selected cinematographic works by Fatih Akin, currently the most celebrated German and European filmmaker, as cultural texts. This project illuminates cultural controversies, political complexities, and the discriminatory nature of German multiculturalism. Specifically, I show how and why the German society eagerly accepts and successfully integrates Italian immigrants, yet, culturally marginalizes and socially excludes the Turks. My work illuminates how complex historical and political processes of the past, guided by the principle of Euro-centricity, affect the multicultural dynamics in the German society. I also analyze Akin’s positionality as filmmaker, political figure, and a poster-child of contemporary German and European cinema. This project invites critical re-consideration of the que...

Neophilologus, 2001

This survey of the literature of Turkish migrants, mostly "gastarbeiders", in the Netherlands focusses on works by Halil Gür, Sadik Yemni and Sevtap Baycılı, and by placing these in a progression seeks to identify distinct phases of migrant socialisation. A distinction is drawn between emigrant and immigrant literature, depending on whether the author’s focus is on the point departure or the point of arrival. As the first ever scholarly publication on Turkish-Dutch literature, this article has been cited extensively, beginning with Elma Nap-Kolhoff, Turkse auteurs in Nederland (2002).

Dutch Racism, 2014

At the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century, after a decade in which harsh indictments of the supposedly failed multiculturalism of the Netherlands have become mainstream, and, in their wake, xenophobia and racism, the times when the Netherlands defined itself as a tolerant, multicultural nation seem almost forgotten. This past, however, is still very recent. A closer look at the days before the shift helps to understand the complex history of the Dutch negotiations of race and ethnicity. In the time span between 1996-the year in which several writers of migrant background published their first writings-and 2001-the year of the National Book Week on "Writing between Two Cultures"-the Dutch literary field went through a phase of extraordinary openness: it celebrated a "happy multiculturality." In these years the interest among publishers, reviewers and readers alike in what was called multicultural or ethnic literature was not only of considerable intensity, but also remarkably positive-tuned. Dutch literature seemed to embrace its multicultural richness in a similar way as Dutch society of that time boasted its (self-acclaimed) multiculturality and tolerance. This chapter takes one of the celebrated specimens of this multicultural literature, the novel Bruiloft aan zee (1996) by the Moroccan-Dutch writer Abdelkader Benali, as its central object of research. It offers a critical reading of this novel in the light of the broader "happy multiculturality" discourse and demonstrates how this novel critically confronts the idea of an all too happy, all too tolerant Dutch self-image. In the time before the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, when tolerance was still considered a Dutch virtue, this novel's representation of cultural transgression explores and challenges the racist nature of the Dutch boundaries of

2013

Focaal, 2010

Peter Jan Margry and Herman Roodenburg, eds., Reframing Dutch culture: Between otherness and authenticity. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, 291 pp., ISBN 978-0-754-64705-8 (hardcover).Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the limits of tolerance. New York: Penguin Books, 2006, 288 pp., ISBN 978-0-143-11236-5 (paperback).