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Hans Sahl im exil: die exterritorialität des Denkens

Hans Sahl im exil: die exterritorialität des Denkens
Hans Sahl im exil: die exterritorialität des Denkens
This is a study of the life and work of the German Jewish exile writer Hans Sahl. As a cultural correspondent – a kind of a German version of Alistair Cook – between the late 1950 and till the 1970 he reported weekly on theatre performances, exhibition openings and public lectures in New York for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and later Die Welt. Unjustifiedly little known for his literary work, he made a name for himself as the first literary translator of important American dramatists, including Tennessee Williams and Thornton Wilder. Sahl’s work and life (1902-93) are presented as paradigmatic for the mediating position of the exile writer. While his identity is studied at the point where the views he develops of himself (what I call ‘personal myth’) and those about him held by others intersect I also explore to what extent it was influenced by the demands made on him by both the national and the trans-national contexts within which he had to function. Moreover, I demonstrate how Hans Jonas’ Imperative of Responsibility guided both Sahl’s self-image as a mediator between the cultures of the New and the Old Worlds, and his attitude towards his Jewish origin between an exile and a Diaspora identity. The book suggests that the reason why Sahl never received much recognition in his lifetime lies in his exile identity and the challenge that the ambiguous generic character of his work poses to its reception. I analyze Sahl’s works in their specific political and historical context. Textual analysis, based on close reading of his published works (autobiographical fiction, two volumes of recollections, and editions of poetry) and archival study is informed by identity theory (Hall, Anderson), debates about exile and Diaspora (Gilman, Bhabha, Rushdie) and theories of cultural memory (Halbwachs, Nora, Assmann).
383530223X
Wallstein
Reiter, Andrea
2d3fad43-ac1d-4ec7-bd9f-0b9168492a84
Reiter, Andrea
2d3fad43-ac1d-4ec7-bd9f-0b9168492a84

Reiter, Andrea (2007) Hans Sahl im exil: die exterritorialität des Denkens , Göttingen, Germany. Wallstein, 432pp.

Record type: Book

Abstract

This is a study of the life and work of the German Jewish exile writer Hans Sahl. As a cultural correspondent – a kind of a German version of Alistair Cook – between the late 1950 and till the 1970 he reported weekly on theatre performances, exhibition openings and public lectures in New York for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and later Die Welt. Unjustifiedly little known for his literary work, he made a name for himself as the first literary translator of important American dramatists, including Tennessee Williams and Thornton Wilder. Sahl’s work and life (1902-93) are presented as paradigmatic for the mediating position of the exile writer. While his identity is studied at the point where the views he develops of himself (what I call ‘personal myth’) and those about him held by others intersect I also explore to what extent it was influenced by the demands made on him by both the national and the trans-national contexts within which he had to function. Moreover, I demonstrate how Hans Jonas’ Imperative of Responsibility guided both Sahl’s self-image as a mediator between the cultures of the New and the Old Worlds, and his attitude towards his Jewish origin between an exile and a Diaspora identity. The book suggests that the reason why Sahl never received much recognition in his lifetime lies in his exile identity and the challenge that the ambiguous generic character of his work poses to its reception. I analyze Sahl’s works in their specific political and historical context. Textual analysis, based on close reading of his published works (autobiographical fiction, two volumes of recollections, and editions of poetry) and archival study is informed by identity theory (Hall, Anderson), debates about exile and Diaspora (Gilman, Bhabha, Rushdie) and theories of cultural memory (Halbwachs, Nora, Assmann).

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More information

Published date: December 2007
Additional Information: Vom überzeugten Linken zum Renegaten: Hans Sahl im Brennpunkt der ideologischen Debatten des 20. Jahrhunderts. Hans Sahl (1902-1993) war in doppelter Weise von den ideologischen Kämpfen des 20. Jahrhunderts betroffen: Als Warner vor Hitler und vor dem Erstarken rechter Bewegungen musste er 1933 aus Deutschland fliehen. Als jüdischer deutscher Intellektueller wurde er bei Kriegsausbruch in französischen Lagern interniert. Mit Hilfe Varian Frys erreichte er 1942, kurz bevor es zu spät gewesen wäre, New York. Ein Auskommen fand er dort aber erst in den späten fünfziger Jahren. Nachdem der Versuch, sich mit der Heimat zu arrangieren, am Klima der Adenauer-Zeit gescheitert war, kehrte Sahl erst 1989 nach Deutschland zurück. Als kritischer Linker, der schon als Schüler Marx und Engels las, wurde er früher als viele seiner Weggenossen unter dem Eindruck der Moskauer Prozesse schon im Exil zum Renegaten. Dieses Exil im Exil prägte seine Selbstverständnis nachhaltig im Sinne doppelter Ortlosigkeit und »Exterritorialität«. Als einer der letzten Zeugen der ideologischen Auseinandersetzungen, die das 20. Jahrhundert geprägt hatten, starb er 1993 in Tübingen. Andrea Reiter analysiert anhand bislang nicht ausgewerteten Archivmaterials und mit kritischem Bezug auf das Werk erstmals die Exilidentität Hans Sahls.

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 46014
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/46014
ISBN: 383530223X
PURE UUID: 3d4337a8-d4ee-4a6f-863c-5cfaf6fbd6d0

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 14 May 2007
Last modified: 11 Dec 2021 16:30

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Contributors

Author: Andrea Reiter

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