’Hier bin ich die Deutsche’: Transnationalism, Intraeuropean Migration, and Gender

Irene Kacandes (German Studies and Comparative Literature, Dartmouth) [BIO]

Email: Irene.kacandes@dartmouth.edu

 

ABSTRACT:

Is transnationalism the next academic fad or is it a lens by which to get a fuller, more accurate picture of the past on which to base our understandings for the future? This paper proposes to consider this question by rehearsing one of the moves of transnationalism and asking what has been missed by previous approaches to the issue of European integration. Specifically, I would like to consider a small, but fascinating case of intraeuropean migration--not the well-known and by now rather well-theorized phenomenon of Turks who have resettled in Germany, but rather that of Germans who have resettled in Greece. By reading closely “Das Tagebuch von Frau Gisela” of Ingrid Parth-Dombrou, written and published in Greek (1991) and “Hier bin ich 'die Deutsche'” of Ute Altani-Protzer, written and published in German (1990), I hope to explore the fraught relations that develop when a relatively privileged individual from a dominant European culture becomes a member of a minority within a minor European culture. Country of origin, class, language, religion, and of course gender, including marital status, become foregrounded through such geographical relocations. I will test what my central texts and their reception seem to be saying to us about such processes by reading them against two novels about Greek, male migration to Germany in the context of the more familiar Gastarbeiter phenomenon of the 1950s, 60s and 70s: Demétris Hadzís’s To Dipló Viblío (The Double Book; 1977) and Thanássis Chálkis’s Metanástes (Immigrants; 1973).