University of Pittsburgh
Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures
Work in Progress Series
Balkan Ghosts, Migrant Stories.
Eastern European Identities Reconfigured.
by
Boryana Dobreva, Ph.D. candidate
When: Friday, February 23, 2007 from 1:00-2:30pm
Where: 1401C Cathedral of Learning
Migrant writing in Germany has emerged within the past four decades as one of the most interesting and important achievements of contemporary German-language literature and culture. The works of authors of non-German origin have not only enriched the German literary landscape with a wide range of themes and points of reference, aesthetic and formal patterns, but also renewed interest in discussions about the self/other and West/East nexuses in relation to identity formation within the larger context of both German and European cultures. This talk investigates the role of Eastern European migrant writing in the process of the German-world’s cultural transformation and re-imagination in an age of globalization. I examine how Balkan-born migrant authors negotiate the experience of migration from East to West under the auspices of a long history of Orientalism and Balkanism. At the heart of this analysis is a short story by Dimitre Dinev, an Austrian author of Bulgarian origin, and the ways in which he articulates a particular Balkan kind of identity (re)formation as a response to competing representations of the Balkans and the West, or in more general terms, of the Orient and the Occident. The short story Spas schläft by Dinev on which the presentation strongly draws will be available as pdf-file and hardcopy in the German Department by
Monday, February 19, 2007.
