Table Of ContentBeyond the Mother Tongue
Beyond the Mother Tongue
the postmonolingual condition
Yasemin Yildiz
fordham university press New York 2012
this book is made possible by a collaborative grant
from the andrew w. mellon foundation.
© 2012 Fordham University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yildiz, Yasemin.
Beyond the mother tongue : the postmonolingual
condition / Yasemin Yildiz. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8232-4130-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. German literature—20th century—History
and criticism—Theory, etc. 2. Multilingualism and
literature—Germany. I. Title.
PT405.Y55 2012
830.9'34—dc23
2011028583
Printed in the United States of America
14 13 12 5 4 3 2 1
First edition
For Michael
contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Beyond the Mother Tongue?
Multilingual Practices and the Monolingual Paradigm 1
1. The Uncanny Mother Tongue: Monolingualism
and Jewishness in Franz Kafka 30
2. The Foreign in the Mother Tongue: Words of Foreign
Derivation and Utopia in Theodor W. Adorno 67
3. Detaching from the Mother Tongue: Bilingualism
and Liberation in Yoko Tawada 109
4. Surviving the Mother Tongue: Literal Translation
and Trauma in Emine Sevgi Özdamar 143
5. Inventing a Motherless Tongue: Mixed Language
and Masculinity in Feridun Zaimoğlu 169
Conclusion: Toward a Multilingual Paradigm?
The Disaggregated Mother Tongue 203
Notes 213
Works Cited 259
Index 285
acknowledgments
I am delighted to acknowledge the many people who have sup-
ported this project in different ways over the years. I have been
extremely lucky to have Leslie A. Adelson as a mentor. Thought-
ful and generous, she is a scholar of the highest standards and
has been an ideal interlocutor in the evolution of this project. I
am grateful to her for challenging me to become a better scholar
in so many ways. Both Peter Uwe Hohendahl and Biddy Martin
enriched this project with their expertise and their clear-sighted
questions. Nancy K. Miller’s continued interest in my projects
has meant a lot to me over the years.
At Illinois, a wonderful group of friends and colleagues made
the work on this book deeply enjoyable. Lilya Kaganovsky and
Rob Rushing, in particular, provided support and nourishment
of many kinds and have made Urbana truly a home, while being
equally excellent travel companions. They and the incomparable
Dara Goldman were insightful readers of earlier versions of this
argument and willing sounding boards for new ideas. With their
detailed and encouraging feedback, as well as their own inspiring
work, the members of my writing group—Ericka Beckman, Ellen
Moodie, and Anna Stenport—have been an indispensable part of
the process. I treasure especially the additional, invaluable meet-
ings with Ericka. For excellent questions, conversations, and leads,
I am grateful to Matti Bunzl, Jon and Meredith Ebel, Jed Esty, Jim
Hansen, Matt Hart, Brett Kaplan, Harriet Murav, Bruce Rosen-
stock, Manuel Rota, Nora Stoppino, and Renée Trilling.
x Acknowledgments
My colleagues in the Department of Germanic Languages and
Literatures at the University of Illinois warmly welcomed me. As
department heads, Mara Wade and Harriet Murav freed me from
commitments that allowed me to complete this book under ideal
circumstances. I thank especially Laurie Johnson, Carl Niekerk,
and Anke Pinkert for stimulating conversations and responses to
my work. For research assistance, I thank Renata Fuchs, Regine
Kroh, Molly Markin, and Dustin Smith. Their assistance and a
much-needed research leave in the form of Humanities Released
Time were made possible by the Campus Research Board of the
University of Illinois.
Earlier versions of three of the chapters in this book appeared
in the journal Gegenwartsliteratur and in the collections Glo-
balization and the Future of German and Yoko Tawada: Voices
from Everywhere. I thank the editors of these publications for
their support and feedback: Paul Michael Lützeler, Bernd Hüp-
pauf and Andreas Gardt, and Doug Slaymaker.
At Fordham University Press, Helen Tartar and Thomas Lay
have been fantastic to work with. I want to especially acknowl-
edge Helen’s role in establishing the Modern Language Initiative,
which supports first-time book authors in non-Anglophone lit-
eratures with generous support by the Mellon Foundation. This
book appears under the auspices of the initiative. Tom’s combina-
tion of enthusiasm and practical skills has made the entire pro-
cess a great experience. I was especially gratified by the positive
responses of Amir Eshel and B. Venkat Mani as well as by their
insightful suggestions, which helped shape the final draft of the
manuscript.
Elsewhere, Beth Drenning and Neil Levi contributed much to
this project as friends and keen intellectual thinkers. Beth brought
Wordsearch to my attention and shared her copy of the catalogue
with me. Neil provided helpful feedback on the Adorno chapter.
Ute Bitzer, Jörg Bitzer, Bettina Brandt, Russ Castronovo, Rita
Chin, Carola Hähnel-Mesnard, Dirk Moses, Anna Parkinson,
Brad Prager, Kader Konuk, Matthew Lore, Barbara Mennel, Grit
Schorch, Jennifer Uleman, and Karen Winkler supported this
