Heimat. Geschichte eines Missverständnisses by Susanne Scharnowski

Abstract

Reviewed by: Heimat. Geschichte eines Missverständnisses by Susanne Scharnowski Gabi Kathöfer Heimat. Geschichte eines Missverständnisses. By Susanne Scharnowski. Darmstadt: wbg Academic, 2019. Pp. 272. Cloth €40.00. ISBN 978-3534270736. Susanne Scharnowski's book responds to the renewed public and scholarly interest in the meaning of Heimat in German cultural history; it aims to contribute to current debates on identity, belonging, and integration in German multicultural society that have turned Heimat into a political Kampfwort. Her study argues that Heimat [End Page 407] discussions offer unique access to the cultural memory of German society as they describe a fundamental relationship between individuals and the world. With her examination of the term's genesis as well as key concepts in historical Heimat discussions, the author aims to show that Heimat has frequently been misunderstood, and moreover, that the German obsession with Heimat is a symptom of an ongoing identity crisis, a "Leerstelle statt Ausdruck von Gewissheit" (16). Although Scharnowski's study draws from a wide plethora of sources (e.g., literary and philosophical texts, manifests, films, pop songs, TV shows, sociopolitical studies, travel guides, public-opinion polls, texts on architecture and city planning, election posters, and advertisements), literary texts are at the center of her analysis, and the literary scholar argues that Hochliteratur provides particularly valuable insights into German society's desires and fears. The book consists of two parts, although the table of contents does not indicate a subdivision of the ten chapters: following Scharnowski's short introduction in which the author elaborates on Heimat misunderstandings in current political discussions, the first half of the book provides a chronological overview of Heimat definitions during specific historical epochs until the 1950s (Romanticism, Vormärz, turn of the century, colonialism, Nazi Germany, East and West Germany). Chapters 2 to 5 examine the changing notions of Heimat as responses to technological and scientific progress as well as sociopolitical and economic developments in German society and analyze how the concept's appropriations manifested themselves in cultural and literary texts. In the second half of her study, Scharnowski identifies key concepts in Heimat debates since the 1960s. Chapters 6 to 10 explain why Heimat appropriations in the past sixty years have centered on terms like Kitsch, Heimweh, nostalgia, nomadism, or cosmopolitanism. Moreover, part 2 also contains comparative perspectives on Heimat, as Scharnowski includes discussions of British and American texts, debates, and movies in order to emphasize an increasing interconnectedness of international Heimat definitions in a globalized world. To trace the literary and cultural history of Heimat is an ambitious research project. Scharnowski's book is a good read for anyone who would like to get an overview of Heimat definitions at different times in German cultural history, and it offers an interesting potpourri of interdisciplinary perspectives. However, the scope of her study is too broad and although the many, interdisciplinary references made throughout the book are impressive, they seem rather random at times. Furthermore, with its focus on literary texts by white, male authors that belong to the traditional canon of Hochliteratur, Scharnowski excludes many voices from German cultural memory and, thus, ignores current critical efforts to decolonize the German curriculum and to diversify German studies. The study's theoretical approach to Heimat also remains unclear; although the author aims to demonstrate the political and social potential of the Heimat concept, Scharnowski does not engage with queer, ethnic, race, disability, or feminist theories, nor does she consider intersectionality or interculturality as critical approaches to national identity politics. Thus, the political, economic, and [End Page 408] social inequalities and vulnerabilities that Heimat definitions establish and reinforce are not addressed in her book. Instead, the author's conclusion reduces Heimat to a universal, legitimate longing for tradition, place-bound belonging, stability, harmony, and nature—mostly in response to the alienating effects of technological innovation—and offers a simplistic solution to the current, complex Heimat debate in multicultural Germany: referring to Kant and the Enlightenment's universal cosmopolitism, her study calls for a cosmopolitan provincialism as the reconciliation between "Metropole und Provinz, Welt und Heimat" (235). As Scharnowski detaches Heimat from nationalism and emphasizes that "das Unheil in deutscher Geschichte wurzelt nicht in der Bindung...