Project

Discipline

British Culture; Space; British Council; Travel Writing; National Identity; Discourses of Europe; Cultural Studies; English Literature; Eastern Europe; Mediterranean

Lead
Das Verhältnis Grossbritanniens zu Europa und der Europäischen Union ist von tiefer Skepsis geprägt, die das politische Handeln in zentraler Weise bestimmt und auch immer wieder Probleme aufwirft. Der Hintergrund dieser Europaskepsis ist nicht nur ökonomisch, sondern vor allem historisch und kulturell geprägt, wie sich in britischer Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts gut verfolgen lässt.
Lay summary
Britische Einstellungen zu Europa und der Wandel der Europabilder lassen sich durch eine kulturwissenschaftliche Analyse von Literatur gut ermitteln. Reiseliteratur, Reiseratgeber und sowohl populäre als auch künstlerisch anspruchsvolle Fiktion erlauben einen komplexen Einblick in Mentalitäten und kulturelle Symboliken, die für politisches Handeln oft genauso wichtig sind wie ‚harte‘ Zahlen und Wirtschafts- oder Sicherheitsinteressen. Für die in diesem Projekt angestrebte umfassende Analyse ist es sinnvoll, den Untersuchungsrahmen bis in die Zeit vor dem zweiten Weltkrieg auszudehnen, um auch Entwicklungsprozesse, Brüche und Kontinuitäten in den Blick zu bekommen. Das Projekt verfolgt einen geokritischen Ansatz und fokussiert exemplarisch auf drei diskursive Felder: Literatur zum Ärmelkanal als Zone des kulturellen Austauschs zwischen England und Frankreich, das Ost-West-Verhältnis sowohl im Sinne von Bildern Osteuropas als auch mit dem Fokus auf Migration und Kulturkontakt, und schliesslich britische Diskurse des ‚Südens‘ und das Verhältnis zum Mittelmeerraum. Ein weiteres assoziiertes Teilprojekt beschäftigt sich mit Darstellungen Deutschlands in der britischen Literatur. Zentrale Phasen sind die Entwicklung hin zum 2. Weltkrieg, der kalte Krieg und die Zeit nach dem Mauerfall. Das Projekt betrachtet Literatur im kulturhistorischen und –wissenschaftlichen Kontext und leistet damit einen Beitrag zur Erforschung von Mentalitäten und kulturellen Symboliken, die unsere Lebenswelt entscheidend prägen. Dadurch soll das Verständnis für Probleme in der politischen Auseinandersetzung und für Möglichkeiten des Dialogs verbessert werden.

Direct link to Lay Summary

Last update: 14.02.2014

Active participation

Self-organised

Communication	Title	Media	Place	Year

Number	Title	Start	Funding scheme

This project analyses twentieth-century British literary and cultural discourses of Europe. In the present crisis of the Euro, which endangers European stability, we seek to contribute to a better understanding of how contemporary notions of Europe have been shaped. Since Britain finds itself, and has placed itself, on the margins of Europe in prominent discourses of othering, it will be highly instructive to study British projections of Europe over time and in various types of writing as well as in institutional discourses. The project was developed within the framework of the Centre of Competence Cultural Topographies at the University of Basel (www.kultop.unibas.ch). The Centre’s research focuses on ‘boundaries of Europe’, both geographical, and imagined or discursive. While important work at the Centre is concerned with the Eastern boundaries of Europe, the present project looks towards the Western margins, asking about the various ‘Europes’ that have been constructed in Britain, both in terms of participation as well as in processes of othering. The focus will be on cultural and particularly on literary discourses, which are multi-layered and at times self-reflexive, thus offering a representative basis for an analysis of complex cultural identities. Taking our cue from recent spatial theory, we aim to take a topological approach, investigating networks of people, texts and institutions (such as the British Council) which combine to shape the protean entity that is Europe. Even though we are concerned with, and about, the contemporary situation, we suggest that it can only be understood adequately by taking a longer view, beginning after the great chasm of World War I and taking into account the interwar period and the build-up to World War II, the War itself as well as the Cold War period, and post-reunification Europe. This time frame of roughly ninety years, or three generations, corresponds to Jan and Aleida Assmann’s notion of the contemporary, shaped by “communicative memory”, a “synchronic memory-space” (J. Assmann 2006: 8) defined by a specific relation between personal communication and representation through media as well as cultural artefacts (such as letters, photographs etc.). This time frame also makes sense from the point of view of British historiography concerned with Europe, which shifted its focus from a study of national histories to the study of alliances and international relations after World War I (Evans 2009), and in terms of technological developments in the media.Our project is divided into three PhD research projects. In selecting these, we focussed on literary and cultural discourses which transcend the boundaries of the nation state rather than on bilateral relations between Britain and other European nations. Placing the emphasis on topologies and networks will enable us to conduct an integrated analysis of texts (including fiction, travel writing and journalism), public discourses and biographies as well as institutional history and policies. Our cultural analysis will thus acknowledge a spatial dimension to the discourses of Europe without being tied to the ostensibly foundational realities of geographical ‘first space’ (Soja 1989). Three ‘cultural topographies’ have been selected which appear to be particularly resonant with regard to European discourses: the English Channel as a contact zone and space of exchange between Britain/England and France ("Stranded Dialogue. Identity, Memory and the English Channel"), the chiastic construction of East and West in Britain’s image of Europe (“Europe East and West: Literary Negotiations of a Blurry Borderline”), and the South of Europe as defined by the Mediterranean Sea (“South: Between the Pillars of Hercules and the Hellespont”). Links between these projects are manifold - they are historical, conceptual and topographical as well as topological, both in terms of geo-political constellations which structure the perception of Europe, and in terms of personal networks of relations, featuring such figures as Lawrence Durrell, poet, author of fiction and travel writer, who worked for the British Council and the Foreign Office in various capacities during World War II and the Cold War period and wrote extensively about Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. One reason for the fact that British writers, or ‘men of letters’, often play a significant role in cultural and political institutions can be found in British club culture and the ‘Old Boys’ Network’ fostered by the public school and university systems (Wiener 1981). This produces a set of cultural and political players with a shared outlook and with personal connections to decision makers. Also, literary writing, including work often labelled as ‘middlebrow’, is an intrinsic part of the fabric of British life, and Britain has for a long time looked to its authors as significant voices within the public sphere, both for the dissemination of cultural values and the ‘projection of Britain’ abroad, and for accounts of the foreign at home. This holds true for the comparatively well-researched activities of travelling, working and writing in and about the British Empire, but also for Europe, where there is still a need for more sustained analysis. In terms of the relevance of our inquiry, we do not propose to conduct an empirical analysis of collective opinions, but we maintain that the imagery used and the views expressed in fiction and various forms of popular writing offer an adequate and representative reflection of the cultural imaginary of the nation, and of the important issues at stake.We hope to contribute to a more thorough understanding of Britain’s position towards a Europe where the ‘British stranger’ (Wall 2008) has taken residence, and we also feel that we are ideally placed to undertake such an investigation in Switzerland, a country that shares Britain’s marginality with regard to Europe and thus provides the instructive and in some respects privileged view of the stranger within.