Communing with Figs and Palm Trees. Nature Mysticism, Migration and Moral Maturity in Marica Bodrožić

Abstract

In her writings, the German-Croatian author Marica Bodrožić develops a new form of feminist ecocriticism from a postmigrant perspective, which portrays the mystical encounter with the natural world as essential for the understanding of the postmodern self and the survival of diverse postmigrant communities. Drawing on Theodor W. Adorno’s concept of moral maturity, Bodrožić suggests that the epistemological and aesthetic qualities of nature may help educate individuals towards critical, independent, but also empathetic thought and action. The key to this educational experience lies in contextualizing nature within political and social processes, while also acknowledging its transcendental dimension. In her novel, Mein weisser Frieden (2014), Bodrožić merges the genres of autobiography and essay to explore the relationship between memory, nature and identity via the lens of a hybrid German and post-Yugoslav intellectual heritage. By weaving together personal narrative and intertextual references from Romanticism to the contemporary period, she also challenges common assumptions about postmigrant writing and national belonging. Bodrožić suggests that a re-enchantment of the world is necessary to create the community of morally mature citizens that is needed to meet the challenges of alienation, displacement, and systemic violence in the postmodern world.