Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Archives

Die Darstellung von Behinderung in der Literatur ist ein Spiegelbild gesellschaftlicher Haltungen, kultureller Diskurse und normativer Ordnungen. Literarische Werke von der Frühmoderne bis zur Gegenwart thematisieren Behinderung auf unterschiedliche Weise und reflektieren sowohl hegemoniale als auch marginalisierte Perspektiven. Die vorliegende Untersuchung mit dem Sammelband über Behinderung in der deutschsprachigen Literatur geht über die rein textliche Darstellung hinaus und beleuchtet, wie sich kulturelle Narrative rund um Behinderung über die Jahrhunderte hinweg gewandelt haben. Dabei stehen ästhetische und ideologische Aspekte im Mittelpunkt sowie auch Fragen der sozialen Verantwortung, der Partizipation und der Inklusion.

Die literarische Inszenierung von Behinderung

Literarische Figuren mit Behinderungen sind oft Projektionsflächen für gesellschaftliche Ängste, Hoffnungen und ethische Fragestellungen. In klassischen Werken wie den Erzählungen der Romantik oder den Dramen des Expressionismus dient Behinderung häufig als Symbol für eine innere oder gesellschaftliche Krise. So werden körperliche und geistige Einschränkungen in der Literatur vielfach metaphorisiert: Der blinde Seher in der Antike oder die deformierte Gestalt in der Romantik stehen beispielhaft für das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Ästhetik, Wissen und Anderssein.

Im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert zeigt sich eine zunehmende Diversifizierung der Darstellungsweisen. Während im Nationalsozialismus Behinderung mit negativen Zuschreibungen verbunden wurde, kam es in der Nachkriegszeit zu einer schrittweisen Neubewertung. Die Literatur begann, sich mit den Erfahrungen von Menschen mit Behinderungen auseinanderzusetzen und legte den Fokus verstärkt auf deren Lebensrealitäten sowie gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen. Zugleich werden in der zeitgenössischen Literatur verstärkt diverse Behinderungsnarrative sichtbar, die sich nicht nur auf Defizit- oder Mitleidskonstruktionen stützen, sondern Agency, Selbstermächtigung und soziale Gerechtigkeit betonen.

Zwischen Stigmatisierung, Selbstermächtigung und sozialer Verantwortung

Ein zentrales Anliegen dieser Untersuchung ist es, die Ambivalenz in der literarischen Darstellung von Behinderung herauszuarbeiten. Während viele Werke tradierte Klischees und Stigmata reproduzieren, gibt es ebenso zahlreiche Texte, die sich der Thematik differenziert und kritisch nähern.

Ein besonders interessanter Wandel zeigt sich in der modernen Literatur und den Disability Studies: Behinderung wird nicht länger als individuelles Schicksal oder medizinisches Problem betrachtet, sondern als sozial konstruiertes Konzept hinterfragt. Romane und Autobiografien von Betroffenen gewinnen zunehmend an Bedeutung, da sie den Fokus auf Selbstermächtigung, Agency und intersektionale Diskriminierung legen. Die Repräsentation von Behinderung rückt in diesem Kontext nicht nur die persönlichen Herausforderungen in den Mittelpunkt, sondern ebenso strukturelle Exklusionsmechanismen, die in Gesellschaft und Kultur wirksam sind.

Soziale Verantwortung spielt dabei eine essenzielle Rolle: Literarische Darstellungen können entweder Inklusionsprozesse fördern oder bestehende Ausschlüsse weiter verfestigen. Die kritische Reflexion über diese Mechanismen ist ein zentraler Bestandteil zeitgenössischer literaturwissenschaftlicher Analysen und gesellschaftspolitischer Debatten.

Gesellschaftliche Relevanz und gegenwärtige Diskurse

Die literaturwissenschaftliche Reflexion über Behinderung trägt ferner dazu bei, gesellschaftliche Vorurteile aufzubrechen, Inklusion zu fördern und soziale Verantwortung in unterschiedlichen Bereichen zu stärken. Literatur kann ein wichtiges Instrument sein, um Normen zu hinterfragen und neue Perspektiven auf Diversität, Teilhabe und Gerechtigkeit zu eröffnen. Gleichzeitig zeigt sich, dass trotz der Fortschritte in der Repräsentation von Behinderung in der Literatur noch viel Aufklärungsarbeit notwendig ist. Insbesondere in Literatur und Film bestehen weiterhin stereotype Darstellungen, die Menschen mit Behinderungen auf ihre Defizite reduzieren. Der Band über die Behinderung in der deutschsprachigen Literatur möchte daher nicht nur eine wissenschaftliche Analyse bieten, sondern auch Impulse für eine breitere gesellschaftliche Diskussion setzen.

Ein weiteres zentrales Thema ist die Verbindung zwischen Literatur und politischen Bewegungen für Inklusion und Barrierefreiheit. Während einige literarische Werke aktiv zur Bewusstseinsbildung beitragen, perpetuieren andere diskriminierende Narrative. Die Verantwortung von Autor:innen, Kritiker:innen und Leser:innen wird in diesem Kontext zunehmend betont, da Literatur nicht isoliert von gesellschaftlichen Machtstrukturen existiert.

Fazit

Die Auseinandersetzung mit Behinderung in der Literatur ist also mehr als eine rein akademische Übung – sie ist ein Beitrag zur kritischen Reflexion gesellschaftlicher Normen, Werte und Machtstrukturen. Die literarische Repräsentation von Behinderung beeinflusst maßgeblich gesellschaftliche Diskurse über Inklusion, soziale Verantwortung und Gerechtigkeit.

Die Relevanz dieses Themas reicht weit über den literaturwissenschaftlichen Bereich hinaus und berührt interdisziplinäre Felder wie die Disability Studies, die Kulturwissenschaften und die Sozialwissenschaften. Der fortlaufende Dialog zwischen Literatur und Gesellschaft kann dazu beitragen, tradierte Vorstellungen von Normalität und Abweichung zu hinterfragen und inklusive Narrative zu stärken.

Behinderung ist kein Randthema, sondern ein zentraler Bestandteil menschlicher Erfahrung – und die Literatur kann helfen, diese Erfahrung in ihrer Vielschichtigkeit sichtbar zu machen und kritisch zu reflektieren. Es liegt in der Verantwortung aller Beteiligten, die bestehenden Narrative kontinuierlich zu hinterfragen und weiterzuentwickeln.

Das Buch „Behinderung in der deutschsprachigen Literatur”, herausgegeben von Habib Tekin und Leyla Coşan können Sie hier bestellen.

Series Editors: Professor Maria Isabel Romero Ruiz and Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley share their vision for the Gender and the History of Institutions series

This new book series welcomes studies of the history of institutions globally through the lens of gender. It emanates from conversations we have had with colleagues and scholars in the fields of gender history, the history of institutions, the history of religion, the history of poverty and the history of childhood and youth.

Much of the recent interest in institutions such as asylums, hospitals, prisons, religious organisations and other often carceral institutions have focused on the treatment of ‘historical’ abuse. Our aim is to not only provide a platform for a discussion of these institutions and those affected by them, but also to make visible lesser known institutions and archives. By illuminating the lived experience of those directly affected by their time in these institutions, and those who worked there and in the local communities surrounding them, we aim to broaden the conversation surrounding confinement, incarceration, poverty, religious involvement in health and welfare, and differences across the globe.

The series will also cover new analyses and interpretation of sources that have already been discussed by historians of crime, poverty, violence, gender, sexuality, childhood and youth since the 1970s. Engaging in an interdisciplinary manner, we can shed more light on how the institutions operated, how they were supported, the underlying need for them and the perspective of both those placed in the institutions and those who worked there. This will allow a more complete understanding of the operation of different individual institutions throughout different historical periods and locations while also foregrounding hitherto neglected or unavailable sources. We particularly welcome new approaches to the topic and encourage scholars of all career stages to engage with us.

We believe understanding and exploring the experiences of individuals in institutions for regulation, control, rehabilitation, reform or punishment can encourage a greater sense of citizenship and solidarity at the present time as well as promoting a culture of empathy in our contemporary societies for those who are survivors and affected by institutions both in the past and in the present.

While we are looking broadly at gender, we are focused in particular on institutions where women and gender minorities have been the victims of abuse, discrimination and violence in the past and in the present. The idea is to envisage common experiences by those who lived part of their lives in these places of incarceration and find new ways to interpret social behaviour and cultural norms in diverse geographical locations where gender has been determinant in the way individuals have been treated throughout history.

All books in the series – both monographs and edited collections – will be published in English, but we intend to give diversity and plurality to the choice of institutions with a variety of settings that can enhance a comparative discussion of the role of gender in these organisations, not only in English-speaking countries but also in other parts of the world. We encourage scholars to look globally but are also very happy to receive submissions based on national, local or regional research. We are open to scholars of all career stages, and we aim to reach a broad audience beyond academia.

Learn more here.

For further information, please contact Dr Laurel Plapp, Senior Acquisitions Editor, at Peter Lang at l.plapp@peterlang.com.

Three years after launching the DEI Working Group, we are pleased to have a story to tell about our commitment to a diverse and inclusive publishing program.

Why DEI?

For me, the introduction of a DEI initiative at Peter Lang was an extension of what I had been striving to do as an Acquisitions Editor since I joined the company in 2010. But it also reflected a long-term commitment that was part of my academic career before Peter Lang.

While a PhD student and then Lecturer at the University of California, San Diego, my main aim was to help students think critically about the world around them, including dismantling a worldview guided by the white, patriarchal mainstream. In the “Dimensions of Culture” program, I had the opportunity to educate students about the history of slavery and oppression in America, introduce them to the work of great writers like Gloria Anzaldúa and Leslie Marmon Silko, and break down barriers to talking about gender and sexual identity. I often think back on the texts and themes we taught and how they may have shaped that generation, and what positive effects that may have had on progress, even if that fight takes a while.

These threads influenced the later development of my own courses while a Lecturer at UCSD, where I was tasked with teaching German and comparative literature and film. I created for the first time at UCSD a course on “Multicultural Germany,” giving students access to literature and film created by People of Color and immigrants to Germany. Introducing students to Fatih Akin, Yoko Tawada, May Ayim, Angelina Maccarone and more, we explored themes like transnational and transgender identity, experiences of oppression and resistance, and possibilities of solidarity across ethnic groups in Germany. The aim of the course was to change students’ perspective on what it means to be German and, by extension, what that might mean for their own lives in America.

DEI in Practice

When I joined Peter Lang, I was keen to continue to give voice to the oppressed and dismantle the canon through my work as an Acquisitions Editor. This role gives us a unique opportunity to shape the direction of publications in the fields in which we acquire and, for me, my overriding goal was to transform the program into one that was diverse and inclusive.

Over the past 14 years, I have been launching new series intended to privilege the work of creators from persistently marginalized groups and to shine a light on topics like health and disability, feminist and anti-racist movements, social justice and equality. The series editors and editorial boards I recruited were also intended to reflect equity and inclusion, helping to give scholars from underrepresented groups the chance to have their work reviewed in a fair and unbiased way. Read more about these series in our latest Diversity, Equity and Inclusion catalogue.

I also strive to integrate diverse perspectives throughout the books I publish, regardless of the series. This has become a particular hallmark of books in the series Genre Fiction and Film Companions, where every companion includes texts reflecting international, inclusive, and diverse voices.

DEI Working Group at Peter Lang

Starting the DEI Working Group was, for me, a logical extension of these efforts to diversify our publishing program, integrating these principles into all levels of the company. We launched the group in 2021 to explore both internal and external efforts that we can undertake as a company to encourage a diverse and equitable approach to our work. The central aims of the group are to think about how we are presenting ourselves to our contacts, how we can support contacts of all identities and abilities, and how we can enable more inclusive and diverse publications. The following describes our activities thus far.

Supporting Emerging Scholars

One of the first initiatives of the DEI Working Group was to launch the Emerging Scholars Competition, a reimagining of our long-running Young Scholars Competition. The aim of this new competition was to support early career academics working in fields that have been historically underrepresented, offering them the opportunity to win a prestigious contract for publication through a rigorous review process.

Our competitions in Black Studies (2021), in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies (2022) and in Indigenous Studies (2023) have resulted in 15 emerging scholars benefiting from contracts for publication. The winner(s) of this year’s competition, in Environmental Humanities, receive a Gold Open Access contract, furthering our efforts to make scholarship accessible to as broad an audience as possible. Planning for our 2025 competition, in Queer Studies, is already underway.

Read more about the Emerging Scholars Competition here.

Changing our Language

The DEI Working Group developed a statement of our commitment to DEI, acknowledging our privileged role as a publisher and recognizing the importance of offering a platform for voices and topics that have gone unheard and unseen. We also recognize the need to continually analyze our own practices and policies and reflect on how these may be affecting our partners both externally and internally. We state our commitment to always strive to do better.

With those aims in mind, we revisited documentation that is sent out to authors, examining the kinds of questions we ask on our proposal and peer review forms to ensure that we are supporting an equitable approach to evaluating the work of scholars in the fields in which we publish.

We have also written an internal DEI Handbook with information for our team about best practice for equitable peer review, building of diverse editorial boards, use of gender-inclusive language, respect for pronoun usage, and more.

These efforts are ongoing by our dedicated team, with the aim of making DEI part of our practice across the entire company.

Lifting up Voices

We are meanwhile pleased to feature on our DEI webpage the voices of our authors, including an annual catalogue with educational resources for DEI practice, books that cover diverse and inclusive subjects and approaches, and series that invite new proposals in these fields.

We welcome authors who wish to take part in our Peter Lang et al. blog by writing about their research, their experiences and their own take on DEI. Recent blog posts have set the stage for these discussions, and we invite all our authors to participate.

We hope you will join us on this journey, whether by entering our Emerging Scholars Competition, becoming a peer reviewer, or coming to us with a new book proposal. We always welcome new book proposals and series on DEI topics and scholars from diverse backgrounds. Please reach out to us at editorial@peterlang.com or via our webform. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sean Howard and Lee-Anne Broadhead

October 2024

As settlers living and working on the unceded territory of Una’maki (Cape Breton), part of the vast homeland of the Mi’kmaw people, we have had the privilege of witnessing and participating in a bold experiment in cross-cultural dialogue known as ‘Two-Eyed Seeing’. First articulated, two decades ago, by Mi’kmaw elders Murdena and Albert Marshall, the two ‘eyes’ in question are those of Western and Indigenous Science, a sometimes jarring juxtaposition of two radically distinct sets of approaches – reductionist/instrumentalist v. wholistic, quantitative v. qualitative – to nature and knowledge.

So distinct, indeed, are these approaches that western reductionism has traditionally arrogated to itself the status of ‘science proper,’ consigning to its periphery alternative modes and methods of inquiry, whether within or beyond the mainstream laboratory and academy: classifying, for example, Indigenous modes and methods as traditional knowledge rather than modern science, a set of ‘pre-scientific’ (even pseudo-scientific) beliefs and practices at best capable of producing results and data that ‘science itself’ can properly (reductively) study and explain.

The core moral and intellectual motivation of ‘Two-Eyed Seeing’ is to counter this bitter legacy of colonial condescension, to break the false Eurocentric equation of reductionism with science. The problem with Eurocentrism, of course, lies not with the ‘Euro’ but the ‘centrism,’ the denigration and sometimes extermination of ways of knowing other than those associated with and materially assisting imperial Europe’s rise to global power. Indeed, Eurocentrism has often acted to marginalize alternative ways of knowing in Europe itself, and so successful has this process been that another false equation has largely taken hold, that of ‘western science’ with and as the relentless advance of mechanistic reductionism.

In the conviction that dispelling this notion holds the key to a new depth of both inter- and intra-cultural dialogue about science and society, our forthcoming book from Peter Lang – Cultivating Perception, Countering Faust: The Radical Resonance of Goethean and Indigenous Science – seeks to compare Indigenous science not to reductionism but rather to ‘Goethean Science,’ shorthand for the wholistic, qualitative, phenomenological approach pioneered by one of the most influential and misunderstood figures of European Enlightenment, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).

In his methodological dedication to what he called “delicate empiricism” – his corresponding rejection, as an unscientific “pathology”, of the “grim torture chamber of [indelicate] empiricism, mechanism, and dogmatism” from which “the phenomena must be freed once and for all” – Goethe vested his hopes for authentic, relational human knowledge of nature on the cultivation of a poetic perceptiveness of the lifeways of the world, convinced as he was from experience that “every new object, clearly seen, opens up a new organ of perception in us.” In this reverential fidelity to clear-eyed seeing of creation, Goethe’s science, and that of his distinguished inheritors, bears a striking resemblance in key features – as well as cultural distinctiveness in others – to the ethos and methods of Indigenous Science as practiced across vast swathes of time and space.

Drawing on the landmark contributions of Indigenous scientists and thinkers such as Gregory Cajete (Tewa), Leroy Little Bear (Haudenosaunee), Sákéj Henderson (Chicksaw), Oscar Kawagley (Yupiaq), and contemporary research by Mi’kmaq ecologists at the Una’maki Institute of Natural Resources – into, for example, the extraordinary, now-endangered lifeways of the Kataq, the ‘Eel People’ of the Bras d’Or Lakes – we approach Indigenous Science as a “subtle seeking” (to quote Cajete) “establishing an ongoing and dynamic relationship based on traditions of holistic participation,” an immersion in the structure and agency, rhythms and reasons of phenomena understood as the innumerable, ever-evolving forms of being assumed by the ‘Great Spirit’ or ‘sacred energy’ at work and play in Creation. Because, as Cajete says, the “Americas are an ensouled and enchanted geography” Indigenous Science, as a practice of attunement of people to place, logically develops and rigorously deploys a “spiritual ecology,” again understanding ‘spirit’ as ‘energy’ and phenomena as, in our words, units of spiritual in-formation.

Central, then, to both Goethean and Indigenous Science is the cultivation of what Goethe calls an “exact sensorial imagination”, and Kawagley an “ecopsychology” of inquiry, commensurate with the poetic, qualitative challenge of practising a truly natural science of reality. Remarkably, this electrifying resonance has drawn little attention in the literature of either tradition, and it is one aim of our detailed comparative analysis to enable these ‘two eyes’ to see each other more clearly, hopefully opening new currents of dialogue and cooperation. This work – the heart of the book – relates to the first part of our title, ‘cultivating perception’. But what does that have to do with the second part, ‘countering Faust’?

To prepare our survey of Goethean and Indigenous Science, we consider Goethe’s unparalleled depiction in his sprawling mock-epic Faust drama of the rise and fall of a figure disastrously dedicated to the conquest and engineered harnessing of the elemental forces of natural reality through violently-reductionist science and technology, the methodical dismemberment of reality, from the atom up, long perverting and now existentially threatening reality itself. Tellingly, as we consider in detail, Faust’s flight from reality begins with his attempt to conjure the ‘Earth Spirit’ as his supposed equal, consort in his attempt to rule over the Earth and break her spirit! Incapable of grasping this paradox, or of accepting his rejection, Faust turns on the world – the definition, perhaps, of selling one’s soul? – and sets the vast Mechanism of the very modern, absurd drama in motion.

Our main focus in these sections is on what has aptly been dubbed, including by some of those involved, as the ‘Faustian Bargain’ at the core of the Manhattan Project producing the ultimate perversity and threat of nuclear weapons. But in his brutal rejection of co-existence with all those who reject or obstruct his increasingly frantic hyper-development of the planet – up to and including taming the ocean tide – Goethe’s Faust, in addition to personifying the antithesis of the Goethean scientist – embodies many aspects of the era of explosive Eurocentrism: ecologically insupportable industrialism, enabling and requiring the ‘extractivist’ plunder of the Earth; the mechanization of mass-murder (a.k.a. war) featuring bioweapons and foreshadowing the Bomb; constant surveillance of the increasingly powerless many by the overpowerful few; etc.

Not even Goethe could quite anticipate the degree of uncanny surveillance and pre-programmed, algorithmic dehumanization characterizing the digital Technosphere, though Mephistopheles does constitute his artificial intelligence, a co-pilot of the doomed plane. Neither, we suspect, could he have anticipated the failure of his astounding, unclassifiable play to dislodge Faust from the ironically deified ‘culture hero’ of modernity.

Had such an overthrow occurred, we suspect that Goethe would be taken far more seriously as a scientist today, and that western culture would value Indigenous Science far more highly. Conversely, though, our hope in writing our book was to invite a Goethean-Indigenous dialogue capable of forging a new, counter-Faustian alliance: common cause based on common ground, the endangered Earth herself.

Land der Frauen? Die „Übersetzung“ von Gewalt, Geschlecht und Sprache in Literatur

Dacia Maraini und Dagmar Reichardt im Autorinnengespräch auf der Frankfurter Buchmesse. Wir laden Sie ein am 18.10.2024, 14:30 bis 15:30 Uhr, am Peter Lang Group-Stand G48 in Halle 4.0.

Dacia Maraini ist die öffentlich nachhaltig engagierteste sowie bekannteste Schriftstellerin der zeitgenössischen italienischen Literatur. Zur Frankfurter Buchmesse findet am 18.10.2024 ein Gespräch zwischen ihr und der Wissenschaftlerin Dagmar Reichardt statt. Dabei dreht sich alles um zentrale Fragen der Übersetzung und Geschlechterthematik. Der Titel „Land der Frauen“ greift dabei den Namen der feministischen NGO Terre des Femmes auf und setzt ihn mit einem offenen Begriff von „Übersetzung“ in Beziehung. Die Diskussion basiert auf dem bald erscheinenden Werk Le tante traduzioni dell’opera di Dacia Maraini (dt.: „Die vielen Übersetzungen des Werks von Dacia Maraini“, 2024).

Im Zentrum des Gesprächs stehen zentrale Menschlichkeits- und Frauenthemen

Im Zentrum des Gesprächs stehen Themen wie Sexualität, die historische und aktuelle Gewalt gegen Frauen sowie der gegenwärtige Status der Geschlechterbeziehungen. Marainis umfassendes Werk befasst sich mit zentralen Menschlichkeits- und Frauenthemen. Diese werden in globalen Kontexten betrachtet. Dabei spielen ihre transkulturellen Erfahrungen und die Einflüsse ihrer Familie eine entscheidende Rolle. Ebenso beschäftigt sie sich mit sozialen Problemen wie Krieg, Gewalt, Kinderrechte und Femizid.

Ein besonderes Augenmerk wird auf die Frage gelegt, wie sich die Übersetzungskunst im digitalen Zeitalter weiterentwickelt. Hierbei werden moderne Technologien wie Künstliche Intelligenz und CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation) sowie Learning-Programme wie ChatGPT thematisiert. Ebenso wird die digitale Welt hinsichtlich ihrer patriarchalen Strukturen hinterfragt und die Auswirkung der digitalen Geschlechterkluft (digital gender gap) analysiert.

Weitere Themen sind die fortschreitende Hybridisierung der Geschlechtsdefinitionen, etwa in Patchworkfamilien oder bei homosexuellen Elternschaften. Auch die Frage, wie weibliche Interessen sprachlich und narrativ hervorgehoben werden können, wird diskutiert. Macht- und Unterordnungsfragen im gesellschaftlichen Kontext spielen dabei eine wesentliche Rolle. Es wird untersucht, wie Körperbilder (von Body Shaming zu Body Positivity) und Selbstfindungsprozesse hin zu homoerotischen und transsexuellen oder queeren Identitäten mit Marainis Werk sowie mit der europäischen und italienischen Literatur und Kultur in Wechselwirkung stehen.

Erhalten Sie hier mehr Informationen zum Event: https://connect.buchmesse.de/newfront/sessions/4526

Dacia Maraini – Ein Leben im Zeichen von Kunst und Engagement

Dacia Maraini wurde 1936 in Fiesole, Florenz, geboren. Ihre Mutter, Topazia Alliata,war Künstlerin und stammte aus einer sizilianischen Adelsfamilie. Ihr Vater, Fosco Maraini, war als Ethnologe und Anthropologe bekannt. Maraini verbrachte ihre Kindheit in Japan und Sizilien, bevor sie in Rom ihre erfolgreiche Karriere als Autorin begann. Mit über 120 veröffentlichten Werken – darunter 22 Romane und ebenso viele Theaterstücke – zählt sie zu den bedeutendsten Schriftstellerinnen der italienischen Literatur. Insbesondere ihr Engagement für Frauenrechte und ihre Gründung des ersten italienischen Frauentheaters, das Teatro della Maddalena in Rom, machen sie zu einer wichtigen Stimme in der zeitgenössischen italienischen Kultur.

Dagmar Reichardt – Übersetzerin und Wissenschaftlerin

Dagmar Reichardt, Professorin für Transkulturelle Studien an der Lettischen Kulturakademie in Riga, hat zahlreiche italienische Autor*innen ins Deutsche übersetzt, darunter Werke von Cesare Cases, Pier Paolo Pasolini und Dacia Maraini. Sie ist zudem Mitglied des Exil PEN und wurde für ihre wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten mehrfach ausgezeichnet. Reichardt gründete 2016 die Buchreihe Transcultural Studies – Interdisciplinary Literature and Humanities for Sustainable Societies (TSIL) und erhielt für ihre Übersetzungen und wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten mehrere Preise, darunter den Übersetzerpreis des italienischen Außenministeriums.

Land der Frauen? Die „Übersetzung“ von Gewalt, Geschlecht und Sprache in Literatur

Dacia Maraini und Dagmar Reichardt im Autorinnengespräch auf der Frankfurter Buchmesse. Wir laden Sie ein am 18.10.2024, 14:30 bis 15:30 Uhr, am Peter Lang Group-Stand G48 in Halle 4.0.

Im Zentrum des Gesprächs stehen zentrale Menschlichkeits- und Frauenthemen

Erhalten Sie hier mehr Informationen zum Event: https://connect.buchmesse.de/newfront/sessions/4526

Dacia Maraini – Ein Leben im Zeichen von Kunst und Engagement

Dagmar Reichardt – Übersetzerin und Wissenschaftlerin

What is it like when one realizes that they belong to two generations at once? Not chronologically, but in terms of identity and content? Throughout my life I have had a sense of fluid geographical or even national identity, personal identity, professional identity and the like, but only in the past few years did I realize that my generational identity lay at the bottom of much of it.

Generational identity is formed by numerous factors but is not something that is in our hands. We inherit it from our parents and grandparents, and it is passed down to us during our upbringing in direct or subtle ways. It’s a feeling of being part of something bigger than oneself, in which we have a lot of company, and not necessarily the kind we would choose of our own volition. Why? Because belonging to a generation doesn’t always have to do with one’s personal, professional, or gendered identity which often have greater influences on one’s life, personality, and experiences than any other factors. But I’m getting ahead of myself and sound too much like the academic that I am in my professional life. So let me explain what I mean in more personal terms.

I belong to two generations, one on my mother’s side and one on my father’s. Because there was a quarter century difference of age between my parents, something rather significant when they met at 25 and 50, one could say that we are talking about true chronological generations. My mother’s statement to young adults looking for their mate – “At least you can be sure that your spouse was already born” – didn’t necessarily hold true for my father until he was over 25! But that’s not the kind of generation I am referring to, rather more of an experiential and cultural generation.

My mother was an American-born daughter to parents who had been Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and came to the United States in the early years of the 20^th century. On her side that made me a “next generation”, meaning a second generation American, a grandchild of immigrants. Carrying some of their culture with me, I was already firmly rooted in America in general and my birth city of New York in particular. In view of the 2.2 million Eastern European Jews who immigrated to America between 1881 and 1914 (the years of the “Great Wave of Immigration”), many of whom settled in the general New York City area, I also had a lot of company in that generation.

My father’s experiences, both geographical and personal, were very different than those of my mother. Born in a small town in Poland at the turn of the 20^th century, like many Eastern European Jews, he migrated to Germany with his family during the First World War and ended up staying there. Settling in Frankfurt, he married a girl from his hometown and had two children, but the rise of Nazism put an end to their peaceful lives. My father was incarcerated in Buchenwald and later in Auschwitz, his small children became unaccompanied refugee children in Belgium, France, and finally reached the United States in the middle of the war. His wife, who had returned to her parents in Poland during the war, was murdered along with them. After his liberation, my father ended up founding a postwar Kibbutz, brought its members to Palestine, travelled to the United States to find his children, and ended up staying there for over two decades, during which he met my mother, married, and I was born.

On my father’s side, therefore, I was a member of the “Second Generation”, children of Holocaust survivors, making me a member of two generations at once, the “Next Generation” and the “Second Generation, each with their own characteristics and issues. I wasn’t alone. Quite a number of Holocaust survivors married American-born spouses, which made me part of a much larger cohort, including some with whom I went to school. As children we never spoke about our background, but we definitely had a lot in common, things that we didn’t have to express in order to feel and understand.

Had it ended there, I would have been one of many Second Generation American-born children of Holocaust survivors who were also grandchildren of early 20^th century Jewish immigrants to America, living in the United States. But here comes the twist. When I was 15 my family decided to move to Israel, enabling me to experience the “immigrant experience” myself, and not just hear about it from my grandparents or father.

What generational group did I really belong to? From the time I was 15 I was not just a member of the “Next Generation” and\or the “Second Generation”. I was a second- generation American who was also a child of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel. Additionally, we were Orthodox Jews, which put me into yet another category. For the pièce de résistance, I then became a Holocaust historian, merging my professional identity with part of my generational one.

Sounds complicated? In some ways it was a lot easier than it sounds as the parts fit together pretty well, especially after my American-born mother decided to make anything having to do with Holocaust commemoration a central part of her being. Sounds lonely? Actually not. Quite a number of Orthodox Jewish families where one parent was American-born and the other a Holocaust survivor, moved to Israel during the years that we immigrated. In my neighborhood alone, I knew at least ten teenagers and young adults who fit into the same generational categories as I did. And believe it or not, I wasn’t the only Holocaust historian who fit into those two generations. Even in Israel. I had company.

“The Next Generation” is the story of what I did with all those identities and generations. How I weaved them into the person I became personally and professionally. How I grappled with the legacies of the two generations, along with the personal legacies of my family, and how I came to terms with deciding what parts of that legacy I wished to emulate, replicate, and pass down to future generations. At the same time, each part of the story is not just my personal story, but rather the story of a generation, colored in part by issues of specific personalities, tendencies, desires, and experiences. Writing the book was a labor of love that took many years, causing me to think and rethink those identities and their significance.

Many of us often speak about personal resolutions that we wish to adopt, and as we get older, quite a number of us put together “bucket lists” of what we want to achieve and experience in the time that is left to us. Writing “The Next Generation” gave me the opportunity of understanding the dynamics of my past and my identities in order to enable to me formulate the resolutions I wished to make and the “bucket list” that I still wanted to experience. It was a difficult process that is still an ongoing one as I write these words, but its ongoing nature is also exhilarating, proving that at every age we still have the capacity to develop, grow, and change.

The book “The Next Generation” can be bought here

“You changed my life” – this is the gist of the fan mail Patricia Nell Warren received for her 1974 novel The Front Runner. It is the story of Billy, the 22-year-old front runner, who falls in love with his coach and participates in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. Billy wins the 10,000-meter race; one week later, at the 5,000-meter race, as Billy pulls away in his finishing sprint to win the gold medal and set a new world record, tragedy strikes… but read for yourself! A meaningful emotional relationship between two men that culminates in a “gay wedding” ceremony, an Olympian that has no issues with his sexuality and who is supported by fellow athletes, a welcoming campus atmosphere, the question of queer surrogacy – all this in 1974, just one year after the American Psychiatric Association finally struck homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

June is Pride month, and next month Paris, France hosts the thirty-third Olympic Games. A record number of queer athletes is expected to compete, more than in Tokyo in 2021 and in Rio in 2016. Warren can be credited with paving the way for them. In 2006, when the Outgames (nicknamed the Gay Olympics) were held in Montreal, the site of Billy’s greatest triumph and tragedy, Warren was honored with running the last lap of the men’s 5,000-meter race, a tribute to her trailblazing role in combating homophobia in athletics. In 2012, The Front Runner was recognized as instrumental in inspiring the launch of the Gay Games, and Warren was awarded a special “Personal Best” and gold medal by the International Federation of Gay Games.

However, there are still barriers to coming out. In the United States, in football, baseball, and basketball, very few openly gay athletes play (and often athletes come out upon retirement). British diver Tom Daley, one of the proudest athletes of our time, gave an emotional statement about his sexual orientation after he won gold with his partner Matty Lee: “I hope that any young LGBT person out there can see that no matter how alone you feel right now, you are not alone and that you can achieve anything. There is a whole lot of your chosen family out here ready to support you.” He was indirectly addressing LGBTQ youth in countries like Hungary, China, and Japan, where queer people continue to face discrimination. He concluded: “I am incredibly proud to say that I am a gay man and also an Olympic champion. I feel very empowered by that”. (1)

Half a century before Tom, Warren gave us such an incredibly proud gay Olympic champion.

Later this year, my book Patricia Nell Warren: A Front Runner’s Life and Works is coming out from Peter Lang. As the first book on Patricia, it begins with a long biographical chapter, followed by accessible discussions of all her works, including the voluminous reader responses. While The Front Runner is of course her blockbuster, she published a lot more. Two sequels, Harlan’s Race (named after the coach and set in the 1980s, the decade of AIDS and the Moral Majority) and Billy’s Boy (a science fiction adventure set in the 1990s), have appeared, while a third one, Virgin Kisses, was finished by Patricia weeks before her passing but remains unpublished. Some of her other novels focus on gay pride in the Catholic church (The Fancy Dancer), homophobic politics (The Beauty Queen), and a queer bullfighter in fascist Spain (The Wild Man).

Patricia Nell Warren (Photo: John Selig)

The Lavender Locker Room: 3000 Years of Great Athletes Whose Sexual Orientation Was Different collects pieces originally written for Jim Buzinski and Cyd Ziegler’s online magazine Outsports.com and chronicles proud pioneers in athletics. The volume is exhaustively researched, and many living sports figures granted interviews to Warren: Achilles and Patroclus; Joan of Arc; Roman gladiators; George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (now acted by Nicholas Galitzine of Red, White, and Royal Blue fame in Mary & George, where he plays the real-life lover of King James I of England); tennis player Bill Tilden; aviatrix Amelia Earhart; boxer Wilhelm von Homburg; open-water marathon swimmer Diana Nyad (now subject of the 2023 biopic NYAD with Anette Benning and Jodie Foster); tennis star Martina Navratilova; and David Kopay, the first professional athlete to come out.

While Patricia participated in Gay and Lesbian Pride marches (she was the grand marshal at parades in Boise, Los Angeles, Helena, New Orleans, Palm Springs, Reno, San Diego, St. Louis, Albuquerque, and other cities), memorials for gay and lesbian veterans, sports broadcasts (such as the Beijing Summer Games of 2008, which she covered for gay and lesbian networks), Democratic fundraisers, literary and cinematic events, college conferences, bookstore readings, and more, maybe what she was most proud of is her own press, Wildcat, which published all her books (and still does). Now there is a book about Patricia, another addition to Peter Lang’s exciting queer series. We could call it a win-win situation.

(1) https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tom-daley-olympic-gold-tokyo-gay-lgbtq-community-message_uk_60fe9bfce4b0a807eeb41118