Focus 2002.tif 240 FOl'UJ on Germ an Studies Analytical Alternatives: AN INTERVIEW WITH PROF LESLIE A. ADELSON Prof leslie A. Adelson is the Chale of the Depactment of German Stud­ ies at Cornell University and author of dle awacd winning Sludy of femi­ nism and German iden ti ty Makin.!, Bodies, Makillg His/ory (Nebraska UP, 1993). Adelson has rece ntly ttanslated and edIted the first major English­ language publication of essays by Turkish-German ulric Za fer Senocak AtiaJ ~ (J T ropico/ Germ(JlI) (Nebraska UP. 2000). On the occasion o f a talk entitled '~Back to the Furore and Beyond 'Two Worlds'; Turkish Lines of T hought in Contempocacy German Literanlre and Memo!), Work", de­ livered at the UnivetSity Cincinnati. Susanne Buckesfcld and SusaJUle Lenne were given the oppommity (0 have the foUowing conversation on chang­ ing questions of identity aud cn tlcal terminology, o n migrant hterarure and on the present sta re o f German Studies. FOCUS; Can you give us a short summary of yOllt: academic career? Ade lson: 1 began graduate studies with the intention of woting a disser­ tation on concepts of subjectivity in the late eighteenth century. It wasn't until [ finished my course work that r decided ro wote a dissertation on something very contemporary instead because r had become very inter­ ested ill the work that Botho Strauss was doing in the 19705" So I wrote a dissertation on the early prose of Botho St"rauss, which - alt hough tlle author later became famously controversial _ wasn't very well known at the time. After that I was increasingly drawn to women's literature and feminist theory, pactly because certain notions of the feminine also circu­ late in Botho Strauss's work in important ways, and also because I felt that the scholarship emerging on StrausS failed (0 address those particular as­ peets. So, odd ly enough, I came to feminis t theory via my work on Strauss. As I deepened my work on feminist theory and German li(eralU.1"e in the post-war era, r grew dissatis6ed '-llith certain commonplaces informing that in tersection, and I started looking around for material lhat would allow me to challenge tbenL In particulac I was i..ntcrcstcd in diversityi ng 242 Focus on German Studies the notion of ' 'woman'' in post-wac German literaruce. At the same time I was interested in German-Jewish srndies since 1945 and especially since 1965, but dIe staid dichotomy of "German/ Jewish" seemed less dIan helpful for the kind of cultural anaJysis I wanted to pursue. All this led me to more multicultural concerns generally and finally to Turkish-German narratives. FOCUS: TImt partly answers ow: second question: What spurred your interest in German li teranlre by and about minorities in the historical and socio-political discourse? Adelson: \Vlmt 1 have just given you is the trajectory o f my academic development in terms abstrac ted from my personal intellectual develop­ ment. I would additionally say dlat the in fhu:: o f Turkish migrants has changed me landscape of contemporary German cuhure and literarure in some sigruficantways that haven't yet been fully grasped by analytical para­ digms for looking at contemporary li terarure. T his intrigues me. One of the difficulties I find in my work on this particular project is that many people who are interested in Turkish-German literaruce are not necessarily interested in dleoretical questions. And many scholars interested in theory do not n&essarily have any interest in «minority" literature. I am tryiIlg to bring dlese two different fields of scholarly inquiry togetheL One of the larger questions that concern me is: \Vhat are the culrural effects of Turk­ ish migration? Or, put in more general terms: How can we better under~ stand the cultural effects of international migration at the rum to the 21" century? F OCUS: Your book Making Bodies, Making His/ory (1993) focuses exclu­ sively on West Germany in the seventies and eighties. Could a similar analysis with gender and race at its cen ter have been carried out all women's writ­ ing in the East? \Vhere do you see parallels and differences? Adelson: Time's a good question. I focused on West Gexman literatllCe because that's my area of specialization. If I were a speciahsr in CDR literature. r would have a better answer to your questiolL I don't think [he same kind of analysis could have been done on East German literature, paruy because that particular book focuses not just on women's writing 10 the German sphere, but on specific questions of embodiment and ac- Interview with Leslie Adelson 243 countability with regard to both West German studies arad Western-style women's studies at the time. T he whole discourse on accounrnbility in \Vest German culture vis-a-vis the Nazi past was significanuy di fferen t from the discourse in ule East, for obvious reasons. T he official doctrine of the GOR was shared by many intellectuals in the GDR, who (ook as their point of deparnlrc a very different undemanding of the relationship between "the other Gerrnany" in b road his(orical terms and the T hird Reich. How exacdy women's writing in the GDR played out in relation­ ship to d)Qse particular questions, r couldn't say off the top of my head without rereading the relevant texts with an eye to such a compari son. FO CUS: You conclude your book with the assertion that "[t]he ongoing process of German 'unification' will undoubtedly sh ift the ground of figuring identity in a German colltext many times over as we rum toward a new marking o f time." Did ulese shi fts indeed take place and , if so, how would you charactecize some of these in terms of the production o f German cultural identity? Adelson: 1 think they have taken place and r think they are taking place as we speak. It is a very fluid field. Certainly, in the wake of unification, there has been a new generation of WOlers. Since 1990 we have seen many public and private debates about Gernmn identity. Partly also because of a shift in the federal government we have seen a new attitude toward Germany's p lace in the world, toward Gernl."1ny as a Imtion. At the same time T would have to say that 1 don't think there are any pat answerS about German identity or identities since 1990. T here are many arguments, questions, and concerns, both nationally and internation­ ally, but this field is in no way decided. I was about to say: 'if 1 were to write that book today," but it occms to me that l' wouldn't write timt book today. T he notion of identity no longer strikes me as particularly useful in analytical terms. I think that it served a certain purpose about ten years ago, but I think that people use lhe word "identity" too often today without rcally iIlterrogating what that term is meant to do analytically. Especially in the field of migrant culture and " minori ty" li teratucc, schol­ ars invoke the word "identity" more frequently than 1 consider helpful. Too often it is taken as both uncritical starting point and unquestioned ending point for the analysis. In other words, the mistake is to assume: 'I am writing about Turkish litecarure. T his must uleccfoce mean that Turkish 244 Focus on German Studies identity is the main question that propels this litecarure. And then r wiU conclude by saying this is what this book shows us about Turkish identity.' The work that I am doing now is geared very much towards finding alternatives to an analytical emphasis on identity. On the other hand, even though I don't think «identity" is a particu­ larly useful analytical term, it doesn't mean that other people aren't talking about it in ways that are politically important. The discussions about iden­ tity go on, as I am sure you know. One thing dut has been consistent in d iscussions of German lunonal identity is that dle dichotomy between East and Wesl continues to inform journalistic and sdlOlarly discourse. And yet this discourse is also subject to change over time. Other factors are rendering that particular dichotomy less signi ficant. This has to do in part with the trend towards globalization, as unified Germany is part of a global economy that is itself in a state of constan t transformation. That changes the way we talk about German-German relations and dle con­ tinuing influence of immigration - again, only in part. FOCUS: [n Making Bodiu, Moking HislOry, you claim dlat earlier discus­ sions o f individual conscience are no longer adequate for the time period between 1968 and 1989. With renewed literary attempts in the 19905 to come to terms with dle Holocaust, how would you describe dle function of the body in more rccent works by authors such as Bernhard Schlink (The &adtr. 1997) Or WG. Sebald (The E!nigrants, 2000)? Adelson: Many people now argue - I have just read a piece by Katharina Gerstenberger, where she makes this poine - dut there is less interest o n the part of younger writers in coming to terms with die Holocaust and ule Third Rcicil. So the assump tion that the interest in Vergattgtllheilsixutillig'IfIg is constant would have to be questioned. Of course, this arena has always been characterized by many different attitudes. But more so since unifica­ tion, there has been a move away from more familiar orientations toward Ule guild and trawna of the past. On the o ther hand and on dle national level, you also have the obsession with the national mo nument to d)e murdered Jews and the Holocaust in Berlin. Certainly in terms of official governmental discourses, the sense o f responsibility vis-a.-vis that past is constant. And Germany is unique among modern nations in dlar regard . L . In terms of how those recent literary texts that remain concerned Wlth the legacy of the HolOC1uSt treat the question of embodiment .... Interview with Leslie Adelson 245 Again , I like to wock very dosely with texts. Because I have not looked at those texts with these particular questions in mind, I do not luve a detailed answer at my fingertips for tlus. but I would say that in genera1 the status of the body changes over Ome. When 1 wrote Makint, Bot/ju, Makin~ J-l1J· tory. I focused on the question of embodiment, not because I was ~nter­ estcd in celebrating tile body as a site of identity or even as a stte of resistance, but because I was looking at the body as an im.'lgmed SIte in literary texts, where discourse and history mCCt' in complex ways. Of cow:se, bodies in litecary texts are just iougined, they are not real, no t actual bod­ ies. So even talking about bodies in literary lext s is a highly mediated pro­ cedure. Of the twO authors you mentioned, Sebald is especial1y interesting, because even though there are bodies in his work, we get a much mo re heightened li terary consciousness of the mediatcdness of histo[lcal em­ bodiment. In other words, you will not read Sebald's texts to get a sense o f this person embodying a particular historical development or a par­ ticular historical problem. BUI we have this incredible layering and a sense of looking at bodies and their historical trajectories from around many corners. Schlink is quite different because with Schlink, the bodies you sec arc the bodies you get. This indicates that different woters take very dif­ ferent approaches to simila.r questions. For me, Schlink is much less inter­ esting a writer than Sebald because Schlink's writing style is much more conventional. FOCU S: You lament the fact that at the time of the publication of your book in 1993 no novel by an Afro-German woman existed. How do you comment on a book such as Dahei!l1 Nlilelll'tgJ. Ein delll.schts Leben by Tka Hugel-Marshall, which was published in 1998? Adelson: I have recently taught Dahei!l1"!lit11l't,E,J in my undergraduate class on minority writings in Germany. Dohei", Il.1Iterwe,gs, which by dle way has just been published in English translation under the title J IIvisibie lJ7ollJan, 1S a very important book in many ways. As far as r know, it is tlle first book­ length A&o-German autobiography of the post-war German period to be published in Germany by a wriler who is German, or conceives of herself at least in part as German. Around the same time Hans MassaqllOl's Destined 10 Wilnus (1999) appeared in the United Srafes. It appeared the same yea r in German translation under the title "Neger, Neger, 246 Ftu'tll on GermnJ Studies SchorlUltinjt,glr': Although Massaquo i's auto biography is wn ttell from a much more distanced perspective, one would have to mention this ac­ count along with Ika Hiigel.Marshall 's DoINim IInltf'Il 'eJl J say «distanced" here in the sense that Massaquoi has not lived in German y to a very long time and he is nO[ seeking to intervene in contemporary German life o r letters. whereas HiigeJ.t .. .farshall is. Her woting is, I would say, more sttaiglu­ forwardlyaulObiographicaJ than literary in style. The important aspect o f this book is the content o f the Story that she has to tell. What one sees when reading this book is the eno rmous difficulty lhat she eIllen enced in ftnding a voice fOr her Slory, and that is extraordinarily significant. To my knowledge there still is no novel pee se by an Afro-Germa n writer, al­ tho ugh [here may be one in the drawers somewhere tha t is ma king its way to a publishet. Evenrually Lhere will be one, J am Sure. FO CUS: In your recent article <"Touching Tales o f Turks. Germans. and Jews: Culrural Altcrity. H istorical Narrative, and Literary Riddles for the 1990s" you state that "[tj he no tio n that Turks writing in Germany could articulate somedling that is not yet otherwise already known [ ... 1 is SIlU rela tively foreign in German Studies" (Nt., Gml1al1 Criliqllt 80 [2000): 11 8). Ln what way do you see yourself fQ[ging a new path in German StudIes? Adelson: It is difficul t to formulate an answer to that question in o ne sentence. I lIldlcated before that 1 am interested in developing an alterna­ tive critical termino logy for thinking about migrant's literanlre, especially the li terature o f Turkish migra tion, that wou ld not [ely on te rms such as "identicy" or "home." For political (eason s, certainly, chose issues have been foregrounded in wha t scho larship there is in tills arena 0 f " mino rity" Iitenrure. But r would see my own work as develop ing a mode1 o f analy­ sis that is nOt p rimarily concerned with the q uestion o f "belonging." espe­ ciaUy If "belonging" is understood through the lens o f natio nal identity. What 1 am really trying (0 get at is a way o f thinking about the cultural legacy of migration or Lhe cuI rural inte[Vention that migratio n engenders in ways that forus on the literary text My assumptio n is that the literary te ll: t, If it is good, teUs us son\eLhing that we do no t already know before we -read it. And tlus would be my criticism of some of the existing scho l­ arship 10 dus field: that the focus on «belonging" and "identi ty" tends to make scholars who approach this material assume at the outset that these texts and writers speak &om a position o f exclusion and dlUS express a interview with Leslie Adelson 247 fairly predictable criticism o f German cul ture as el:c1usiona~. I t is no t that tl tis is entirely wrong, but after yo u have saId thal for a wlu le, It gets old and does nOt give us tools to analyze specific literary tel: lS that may be quite different among themselves. My sense IS that this f~us on q,uest1ons o f exclusion and belonging vis-a-vtS trugrants' re.lauonslup to nu mStteaOl German cuh:ure has kept uS from perceiVIng the more l11tcrestrng aspects o f some o f the Iiterarure coming out o f the sphere of nllgratio n. I see myself as trying to contribute someth i.ng new by looking ~t wl~~ I think is ceaJly interesting in these texts and devclop ingan allernatwe cotlcal rcper­ toire for evcn beginning to thin k about them. FOCUS: I-low is Claudia Brodsky Lacour's notio n o f a " line o f thought," to whidl you express your indebtedness in your "Toudting Tales" artlcle, related to your own method o f argumentauon? Adelson: T his teem _ as I h ave adapred it from Brodsky Lacour's bril­ liant srudy o f Descartes as a speci6cally modern p hIlosop her - helps me achieve twO goals. First, it helps me conccptuailze the ways 1Il w111c11 story lines dIal seem to be about very rufferen t lu storic21 period s, cultural refer~ ences. or personal experiences mterSeCL Fo~ enmple, ~ the anic~e you mcnllOned, I look at the interlocking rumiltlveS of Turkish Ilugntlon to Gcrmany and )/1'lPnt,tl1htilsbtlliiUi.!"l1g to Germany vis-a-vts the N321 pasL Second 1 use the term «lines o f tho ughlS" to aroculate the emergence o f somet1~ng new in contempo rary German htera rure, I am trying ro p ro­ vide a critical vocabulary to account for something lhat did not exist be­ fore and that cannOt be captured Ul terms o f familiar cecolS of reference or representation, but o nly through mo re elusive processes o f abstrac ti~n. Brodsky Lacour's argumen ts about Descartes's relauonsillp to mocl~lll ty helped me understand more clearly what L needed to say about the differ­ ence between seeing T urks as a social referent and seelllg " thUlgs Tu rkish" as a set o f abstcact his(Qrical p rocesses info rtrung contempocary German litecatu re. FO CUS: As you may know, the Tageszeitu ng in Berlin (f AZ) used to publish a weekly bilingual supple,nent, entitled Pmtmbt, which was pro­ duced by bOlh Turkish-Germans and Germans. \Vould you <:onSlder thiS p roje<:t as one of those «lOuches" you refer to In your article? Is tltis a trend that p romises success 111 go1l1g beyond the " twO worlds" model that 248 FIKUJ 0" Germ:w Studies you ccitique in your manifesto "Against Between" (in Unpatkint, Ellroj>t, 2(01)? Addson: This is also a very good question. J trunk J wam to be very caurious in applymg the teem " touching tales," because my work on that tt-rm really focuses on nacratological phenomena in literary texts. For lhat reason, r would be reluClant to broaden it to jOllrnalism or documentaries. The potential danger m applying it to something like PerSlIJlbt would be that we wind up re-inscribing the assumption that you have Turkish cul­ nlfe on the one hand and German culture on the other. And what I am trymg to do with the lerm "touching tales" in literary analysis is fa articu­ late a ver:y differem Wldersranding of cultur.ll contact, one due is much messier than the stereotype o f national identities o r cultural divides. How­ ever, I would also say lhat a joumalistic innovation SUdl as PtrklJlbe signals something new. BUI this does nOt necessarily mean that people have a new language [hat adequarely describes that newness. People tend to reSOrt ro fumiliar categories just beause they do nOt know how else to think about something they haven't encountered before. One of the things that I argue in my work on the cultural effeclS of Turkish migration is that Turks and Gennans in Gennany today share more culture than is commonly presumed. The common assumption is Ihat Turks and Gennans are literally worlds apart and that they will always stay worlds apart. I don't believe that this is true. BUll will have to wrile a lot 10 make that argument persuasively, because many people see these '"worlds apart" as an absolute given. FOCUS: Here in the United States, particular current relevance has becn attributed to your translations of Zafer Senocak's essays on po litics and cuinue, which appeared as Alias of a Tropkn/ Gmll0'!J (2000), in the COn­ text of September I l"'and its afternuth. H ow do you respond to that? Adelson: ft is interesting tlut you should mention thai because IaSI August - before the September 11 '" events - I was interviewed for an MLA radio program dlat IS distributed through Nationa l Public Radio. ThiS particular segment will be devo ted to minority writing in Europe. 11l(~ discussio n with me compriscd only a third of the fina l program. The other sections will address Arabs in France and Africans in Italy. Tlus pro­ gram will nOt be wed until the SUOUJler of 2002. If I had been inter­ viewed after September 11"', I probably would luve stressed other things. CerWnly I would have talked about the quesbon of Turks in Germany Interview with Leslie Adelson 2-t9 CerWnly I would have talked about the question of "lurks in Germany partly with an eye to the events of September t I.... . I think the ttanslations of Zafer Senocak do take on a heightened sense of urgency in the wake of Seplember 11 '" in some ways but nOt in odlers. G-reater urgcocy derives from the fact thai those essays are In part about the place of immigrants from a country that has a nch Muslim lustocy. What roles do or should thcse unnllgrants have 10 play in a new Germany and in a new Europe? One thing that is especi2Uy important about Scnocak's essays is that he really docs foreground shared aspects of Turkish and Gernun cultu.rc without downplaying real or po tentlal con­ flict. On the other hand, the Turklsh case IS complicated by the faCI that Turkey is a secular country and - In Its own self-perceptloo - decidedly Weste:rn and European. At dIe same time there IS a m.ajo n ry Muslm\ popu­ lation m Turkey. Bul the rclationslup within Turkey between MusWn life and state governance is very conflicted and Cl:ttCOlely complicated. rille Turkish population in Germany may be largely Muslim, but lhcre are also many secular Turks In Gernuny. This diversifY In the TurkISh community has 10 be aCcoWlted for. I t would be wrong 10 say dlat IJl the wake of September II '" Ule Senocak essays lake on greater significance because they all address a Muslim culrure. Thmgs ace nOI that simple. There are significant Muslim influences at issue U1 some of Ule essays, bul there are also adler mfluences that ace very slglllficant. especially given the modern Turkish lustory of secularization. FOCUS: Within the laSE few years much bas been said about changes in the field of German Sn ldies itl Amenca. How do you, as chair of tile Departlllent of German Studies at Cowell University, respond to such developments? Ad elson: This is a question that I would be inc1med to ask lob candidates. 1 have a few different tll1flgs to say about tillS. One is that the depa.ctment dlall now chair has, for some time, been recognized as being at tile fore­ front of what for a while now Ius been a very rigorous move towards more ime«hsciplinary srudy of Gecnull hter.lture. T his is a move that I have found intellectually very exOtlltg and rcwardlllgand I uunk, III mSl1tu­ tional terms, il also has future potential. However, Ulete are many differ­ ent approaches 10 uuerdiscipluury srudles of Geenun lltecature. There ace 250 rOcus on German Studies that srudents take isolated courses in di fferent d isciplines. all o f which relate to the srudy of things German. So you can take courses in political science or history o r economics. That approach is especially use ful for someone who might eventually be going intO Foreign Service or interna­ tional business or international law. Another approach, which is more akin to what we do at Cornell, is to have a department dJat is primarily luera­ ture-centered, but with many different interdisciplinary ties that shape om: interactions widl other departments and additionally info rm the type o f research we conduct or the courses that we ourselves o ffer. Each faculty member at Cornell does interdisciplinary work that enriches the practice of texrual interpretation, agajn with primary interests in reading literature, film, and in some cases philosophy. A much more radical approach to interdisciplinarity is represenced by the German Department at the Uni­ versity of Michigan at AIm Arbor. They acrually bring other disciplines into the German Department. That is a more radical s tep and a very interesting projecL lts future successes renum to be seen. Will their gradu­ ates be able to get jobs in more traditional German literature depart­ ments? Such graduates may be especially appealing to other departments thmughout the country as instirutions look to hire new people who can build stronger bridges between German departments and o ther uni ts of a given university or college. The need to make stronger connections with oth~ units is some­ thing that many German deparunents are struggling wid1, because Ger­ man enro llments generally arc not growing. 1 think Ohio is a little bit d if­ ferent in that regard because of such a large population o f descendants o f German immigrants. You have a built-in pool of smdents with a per­ sonal interest in that language. 111at does not real ly apply to o ther parts o f the COWltty that much. Overall many German departments arc struggling with dropplOg enrollments. At Cornell we actually have not had [hat pro b­ lem. We have held steady o r better; our enrollments have acrualty grown by 6% over last yeac. Whenever enrollments go down, institutional ques­ tions arise. Sho u1d these departments be nl.'limained? I f they are to be ITl2.intained, shou1d they be reduced in size? Partly for administrative rea­ sons and partly for intellectual reasons. every German department, whether it wants to be a trad itional German li terature department or no t, needs to think of ways to build bridges to other sectors of the university. German deparonems will not survive if they serve only a very limited pool o f G erman majo[$. Interview widl Leslie Adelson 251 Of course, there has been a huge German influence on tile very structure of university li fe in the United States and on intellectual develop­ ments far beyond Ge[maJl literature - JUSt tllink o f Freud and Marx, to name twO especially well known examples. Developing English-language courses on German tOpICS and clllnkers of broad interest and in Auence is one \VoIy German departments can draw on strengths that they have. Film courses also harbor great opporrunities - perhaps more sa than \ireranlre today. ·rhis would mean expanding some German departments beyond what they have traditionally done. Tlus docs not mean, IIOC should it mean, that all German depactments should do the same dung. O ne has to recognize tllat different deparuuents have different strenglhs. And these diffecent strengths appeal to different kinds of srudents. Every depart­ ment should build on the sttengths that it has, but it should also build new strengths with an eye to new kinds of institutional needs that a German deparunenr might help to serve. I laving said that, 1 also think that in the future we are going [Q see even more focused attention on litera rure In some ways. There have al­ ways been some criticisms levied against cultural stud ies, not all of wluch have been warranted. llle charge that cultural studies ignore literature is true of lhe weakest representatives of cultural srudies. The kmd of cul­ tural studies that generated genuine intellecrual excitement and institutional renewal from dIe lale -198Os through the 19905 will be complemellled and /or challenged by new critical paradigms that have yet to emerge. My sense is that there will be a renewed, although pedups unconventional focus on lilcrall.l[e. FOCUS: We thank you for dlis interview. Cindflllali, j anuary 18, 2002.