Untergang und Auferstehung in den literarischen Werken von Ingeborg Bachmann und Saʿdī Yūsuf "Die... more Untergang und Auferstehung in den literarischen Werken von Ingeborg Bachmann und Saʿdī Yūsuf "Die Lose ähneln sich, die Odysseen". 1 Dieser Vers Ingeborg Bachmanns aus ihrem Gedicht Von einem Land, einem Fluss und den Seen behauptet, die Irrfahrten und Schicksale der vielen Odysseus-Gestalten seien einander ähnlich. Wenn sich aber die Schicksale und Heimkehrreisen der Umherwandernden ähneln, dann könnten sich auch ihre literarischen Werke ähnlich sein. Ausgehend von dieser Vermutung sollen im folgenden Beitrag zwei große Lyriker des 20. Jahrhunderts gegenübergestellt werden, die sich mit der Frage des Exils und seiner Überwindung beschäftigt haben: die Österreicherin Ingeborg Bachmann und der Iraker Saʿdī Yūsuf. Zwar gehören beide unterschiedlichen Sprachräumen und Literaturtraditionen an. Zugleich sind sie aber aus diesen Räumen ausgebrochen, um neue geografische, sprachliche und gedankliche (W)orte zu erkunden, die keine fest umrissenen Grenzen mehr kennen. Darüber hinaus haben sie in ihren Texten auf ähnliche Weise Untergänge und Auferstehungen inszeniert, die meines Erachtens den Erfahrungen ihres Exils entspringen. Ihre Sichtweisen auf das Eigene und Fremde fordern uns auf, unseren eigenen Blick in einer Zeit zunehmenden und zugleich konfliktreicheren Zusammenlebens zu öffnen und zu hinterfragen. Ingeborg Bachmann 2 wurde 1926 in Klagenfurt geboren, promovierte 1950 aus kritischer Distanz über Martin Heidegger und machte sich im 1 Das Langgedicht erschien 1956 in ihrem zweiten Gedichtband Anrufung des großen Bären. Die ersten Verse, die auf das Grimmsche "Märchen von einem, der auszog, das Fürchten zu lernen" anspielen, lauten: "Von einem, der das Fürchten lernen wollte/ und fortging aus dem Land, von Fluß und Seen,/ zähl ich die Spuren und des Atems Wolken,/ denn so Gott will, wird sie der Wind verwehn!/ Zähl und halt ein-sie werden vielen gleichen.
FICTION AND HISTORY: THE REBIRTH OF THE HISTORICAL NOVEL IN ARABIC, 2022
In this article, I will discuss how Palestinian writer ʿĀṭif Abū Sayf's 2014 novel Ḥayāh muʿallaq... more In this article, I will discuss how Palestinian writer ʿĀṭif Abū Sayf's 2014 novel Ḥayāh muʿallaqah [Suspended Life] deals with the violent past and present of the author's society by opening a controversial debate about the politics of mourning, thereby challenging a norm that has been quite dominant for a long time. For my analysis of the novel, I pursue two different, but related trajectories. The central question linking the two subjects is in which way modalities of mourning and trauma (both as individual, mental traumatization and social, or culturally shaped, trauma) interact and affect each other.
This special issue aims to contribute to a deeper and critical understanding of trauma in the soc... more This special issue aims to contribute to a deeper and critical understanding of trauma in the societies, cultures, and histories of the Middle East and North Africa. The collection of essays brings together perspectives from the social sciences, humanities and literary studies, not least by exploring the narrativization of suffering, its performative and its non-verbal expression both in social reality and cultural production. In presenting explorations of literary texts, theatre, social realities and theoretical reflection, we hope to contribute to a more comprehensive, nuanced and inclusive view on trauma and memory production both as a cultural and social materiality and as a political formation. The diverse array of different approaches, topics, and disciplines expresses our concern to include and map the diversity and multiplicity of current trauma studies research related to the MENA.
De/Colonial Boundaries, Cultural Difference and Shared Indigeneity in the Poem “The ‘Red Indian’s’ Penultimate Speech” by Maḥmūd Darwīš
Quaderni di Studi Arabi
Simultaneously addressing the (Native) American and Palestinian/Israeli context, Maḥmūd Darwīš’s ... more Simultaneously addressing the (Native) American and Palestinian/Israeli context, Maḥmūd Darwīš’s poem Ḫuṭbat al-Hindī al-aḥmar – ma qabla al-aḫīra – amāma al-raǧul al-abyaḍ (The ‘Red Indian’s’ Penultimate Speech to the White Man), published in 1992 to critically commemorate the ‘discovery’ of ‘America’ by Columbus in 1492, is a deep reflection about the violence of borders and frontiers created by white European invaders. In my article, I aim to answer the question of how the poem’s manifold boundaries (between colonizer and colonized; nature and culture; equality and hierarchization; the living and the dead; identity and otherness) are addressed and re-framed. Although partly essentializing cultural difference by drawing from a romanticized image of the “noble savage” (the “Red Indian”), the poem nevertheless finds a voice to raise crucial questions regarding the self-perception of European/western modernity, anticipating the recently discovered fact that (white) human agency has p...
6. Das Leben in der Warteschlange Literarische Figurationen realer Enthumanisierung im zeitgenössischen ägyptischen Roman am Beispiel von Basma Abdelaziz‘ Die Warteschlange
O LM S Representations and Visions of Homeland in Modern Arabic Literature highlights the complex... more O LM S Representations and Visions of Homeland in Modern Arabic Literature highlights the complexity, diversity, and vitality of literary voices in expressing a broad spectrum of ideas and images centered around the Arab homeland and nation. This book therefore contributes to a deeper understanding of the historical dimensions and literary representations of home and homeland in the modern Arab world on the one hand, and the far-reaching cultural and political impact of these concepts on the other.
O LM S Representations and Visions of Homeland in Modern Arabic Literature highlights the complex... more O LM S Representations and Visions of Homeland in Modern Arabic Literature highlights the complexity, diversity, and vitality of literary voices in expressing a broad spectrum of ideas and images centered around the Arab homeland and nation. This book therefore contributes to a deeper understanding of the historical dimensions and literary representations of home and homeland in the modern Arab world on the one hand, and the far-reaching cultural and political impact of these concepts on the other.
Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 2011
One of the poets who played a leading role in the propagation of Baathist ideology in Iraq was Ab... more One of the poets who played a leading role in the propagation of Baathist ideology in Iraq was Abd al-Razzaq Abd al-Wahid. Having published more than forty collections of poetry addressing topics like heroism in war, martyrdom for the nation and poems in praise of the leader, Abd al-Wahid was one of Saddam Hussein's favorite poets. In my article, I will fi rst examine the poet's biography and his political and literary positioning before and after 2003 in relation to his poetic work of the 1980s, then analyze examples of literary criticism issued on this nationalist author. Th e central question relates to the extent to which the poet's attitude toward his role during the Baathist era and the evaluation of his poetic work by Arab literary critics have changed after the fall of the Saddam regime. A comparison of a number of critical writings on this renowned poet not only off ers valuable insights into apologetic literary criticism and Arab intellectual discourse today, but also contributes to an evaluation of Iraq's recent cultural history and its (former) protagonists.
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Papers by Stephan Milich