Women Writers and National Identity: Bachmann, Duden, Özdamar

by Stephanie Bird

• ISBN13: 9780521824064
• ISBN10: 0521824060
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-09-29
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In Women Writers and National Identity, Stephanie Bird offers a detailed analysis of the twin themes of female identity and national identity in the works of three major twentieth-century German-language women writers. Bird argues for the importance of an understanding of ambiguity, tension and contradiction in the fictional narratives of Ingeborg Bachmann, Anne Duden and Emine Özdamar. She aims to demonstrate how ambiguity is itself central to the development of an understanding of identity and that literary texts are uniquely able to point to the ethical importance of ambiguity through their stylistic complexity. Bird gives close readings of the three writers and draws on feminist theory and psychoanalysis to elucidate the complex nature of individual identity. This book will be of interest to literary and women's studies scholars as well as Germanists.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	x
Introduction	1	(12)
PART I INGEBORG BACHMANN: THE TODESARTEN PROSE
1 Franza and the Righteous Servant	13	(26)
2 On sharks and shame	39	(25)
3 Malina: experience and feminism	64	(31)
PART II ANNE DUDEN: THE SUFFERING BODY
4 The short stories. Thoughts on the body and ethics	95	(29)
5 Desire and complicity in Das judasschaf	124	(33)
PART III EMINE ÖZDAMAR: PERFORMANCE AND METAPHOR
6 Tradition out of context	157	(27)
7 Metaphor's creative spark	184	(33)
Conclusion: das war es	217	(3)
Notes	220	(15)
Bibliography	235	(8)
Index	243