Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 “Schwimme mit mir hinüber zu den Hütten unserer Nachbarn”: Colonial Islands in Sophie von La Roche's Erscheinungen am See Oneida (1798) and Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie (1788)
- 2 “Hier oder nirgends ist Amerika!”: America and the Idea of Autonomy in Sophie Mereau's “Elise” (1800)
- 3 A “Swiss Amazon” in the New World: Images of America in the Lebensbeschreibung of Regula Engel (1821)
- 4 Amalia Schoppe's Die Auswanderer nach Brasilien oder die Hütte am Gigitonhonha (1828)
- 5 Inscribed in the Body: Ida Pfeiffer's Reise in die neue Welt (1856)
- 6 Mathilde Franziska Anneke's Anti-Slavery Novella Uhland in Texas (1866)
- 7 “Ich bin ein Pioneer”: Sidonie Grünwald-Zerkowitz's Die Lieder der Mormonin (1887) and the Erotic Exploration of Exotic America
- 8 Seductive and Destructive: Argentina in Gabriele Reuter's Kolonistenvolk (1889)
- 9 Inventing America: German Racism and Colonial Dreams in Sophie Wörishöffer's Im Goldlande Kalifornien (1891)
- 10 Aus vergangenen Tagen: Eine Erzählung aus der Sklavenzeit (1906): Clara Berens's German American “Race Melodrama” in Its American Literary Contexts
- 11 “Der verfluchte Yankee!” Gabriele Reuter's Episode Hopkins (1889) and Der Amerikaner (1907)
- 12 Reframing the Poetics of the Aztec Empire: Gertrud Kolmar's “Die Aztekin” (1920)
- 13 Synthesis, Gender, and Race in Alice Salomon's Kultur im Werden (1924)
- 14 Land of Fantasy, Land of Fiction: Klara May's Mit Karl May durch Amerika (1931)
- 15 An Ideological Framing of Annemarie Schwarzenbach's Racialized Gaze: Writing and Shooting for the USA-Reportagen (1936–38)
- 16 “Fighting against Manitou”: German Identity and Ilse Schreiber' Canada Novels Die Schwestern aus Memel (1936) and Die Flucht in aradies (1939)
- 17 Mexico as a Model for How to Live in the Times of History: Anna Seghers's Crisanta (1951)
- 18 East Germany's Imaginary Indians: Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich's Harka Cycle (1951–63) and Its DEFA Adaptation Die Söhne der Großen Bärin (1966)
- 19 Finding Identity through Traveling the New World: Angela Krauß's Die Überfliegerin (1995) and Milliarden neuer Sterne (1999)
- 20 Discovery or Invention: Newfoundland in Gabrielle Alioth's Die Erfindung von Liebe und Tod (2003)
- 21 Tzveta Sofronieva's “Über das Glück nach der Lektüre von Schopenhauer, in Kalifornien” (2007)
- 22 “Amerika ist alles und das Gegenteil von allem. Amerika ist anders.” Milena Moser's Travel Guide to San Francisco (2008)
- Bibliography: The New World in German-Language Literature by Women
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
20 - Discovery or Invention: Newfoundland in Gabrielle Alioth's Die Erfindung von Liebe und Tod (2003)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 “Schwimme mit mir hinüber zu den Hütten unserer Nachbarn”: Colonial Islands in Sophie von La Roche's Erscheinungen am See Oneida (1798) and Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie (1788)
- 2 “Hier oder nirgends ist Amerika!”: America and the Idea of Autonomy in Sophie Mereau's “Elise” (1800)
- 3 A “Swiss Amazon” in the New World: Images of America in the Lebensbeschreibung of Regula Engel (1821)
- 4 Amalia Schoppe's Die Auswanderer nach Brasilien oder die Hütte am Gigitonhonha (1828)
- 5 Inscribed in the Body: Ida Pfeiffer's Reise in die neue Welt (1856)
- 6 Mathilde Franziska Anneke's Anti-Slavery Novella Uhland in Texas (1866)
- 7 “Ich bin ein Pioneer”: Sidonie Grünwald-Zerkowitz's Die Lieder der Mormonin (1887) and the Erotic Exploration of Exotic America
- 8 Seductive and Destructive: Argentina in Gabriele Reuter's Kolonistenvolk (1889)
- 9 Inventing America: German Racism and Colonial Dreams in Sophie Wörishöffer's Im Goldlande Kalifornien (1891)
- 10 Aus vergangenen Tagen: Eine Erzählung aus der Sklavenzeit (1906): Clara Berens's German American “Race Melodrama” in Its American Literary Contexts
- 11 “Der verfluchte Yankee!” Gabriele Reuter's Episode Hopkins (1889) and Der Amerikaner (1907)
- 12 Reframing the Poetics of the Aztec Empire: Gertrud Kolmar's “Die Aztekin” (1920)
- 13 Synthesis, Gender, and Race in Alice Salomon's Kultur im Werden (1924)
- 14 Land of Fantasy, Land of Fiction: Klara May's Mit Karl May durch Amerika (1931)
- 15 An Ideological Framing of Annemarie Schwarzenbach's Racialized Gaze: Writing and Shooting for the USA-Reportagen (1936–38)
- 16 “Fighting against Manitou”: German Identity and Ilse Schreiber' Canada Novels Die Schwestern aus Memel (1936) and Die Flucht in aradies (1939)
- 17 Mexico as a Model for How to Live in the Times of History: Anna Seghers's Crisanta (1951)
- 18 East Germany's Imaginary Indians: Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich's Harka Cycle (1951–63) and Its DEFA Adaptation Die Söhne der Großen Bärin (1966)
- 19 Finding Identity through Traveling the New World: Angela Krauß's Die Überfliegerin (1995) and Milliarden neuer Sterne (1999)
- 20 Discovery or Invention: Newfoundland in Gabrielle Alioth's Die Erfindung von Liebe und Tod (2003)
- 21 Tzveta Sofronieva's “Über das Glück nach der Lektüre von Schopenhauer, in Kalifornien” (2007)
- 22 “Amerika ist alles und das Gegenteil von allem. Amerika ist anders.” Milena Moser's Travel Guide to San Francisco (2008)
- Bibliography: The New World in German-Language Literature by Women
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
“Man kann nur entdecken, was man sich vorstellen kann” (One can only discover what one can imagine), pronounces a character in Gabrielle Alioth's Die Erfindung von Liebe und Tod (The Invention of Love and Death, 2003). Is discovery, then, manipulated by imagination? Or does one rather discover that which independently exists in space, “an immutable given,” as the geographer Patricia Price-Chalita calls it in her seminal paper “Spatial Metaphor and the Politics of Empowerment: Mapping a Place for Feminism and Postmodernism in Geography”? Price-Chalita ends her article with the insight that “spatial metaphor is overwhelmingly central for a wide range of feminist scholars attempting to forge new identity, politics, and theory.” The following pages will demonstrate how the narrator-protagonist in Alioth's novel makes use not of spatial metaphor but instead constructs literal (yet fictional) New World space in order to find a home when, because of her history, no other place of respite is possible. With its focus on the settlement of seventeenth-century Newfoundland, Die Erfindung explores the element of imaginative projection in conjunction with discovery; it challenges readers to consider the blurring boundary between reality and fiction, between discovery and invention, and—by way of multiple refractions—it portrays the unstable construction of space.
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- Sophie Discovers AmerikaGerman-Speaking Women Write the New World, pp. 253 - 260Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014