Migration, ethnicization and Germany's new ethnic minority literature

This dissertation critically examines issues in the theory, reception and interpretation of post-World War II ethnic minority German literature, also referred to as "foreigner literature" (Auslanderliteratur) or "guestworker literature" (Gastarbeiterliteratur). The first section confronts German reception of migrant works with theoretical self-conceptions of ethnic minority writers and theorists. The second section contains readings of two Turkish German writers, Sinasi Dikmen (satirist) and Aras Oren (poet and novelist). I conclude that a process of ethnicization is restructuring German literary culture, necessitating critical approaches which account for ethnicity as a foundational feature of cultural formation.;In my overview of 1980s critical reception I outline three distinct approaches to the question of identity in relation to ethnic minority literature. Some critics essentialize ethnicity as an ahistorical category of analysis, while others subsume it under existing "victim" frameworks. A better alternative is suggested by a third group which contributes to an historicized understanding of ethnicity by grounding cultural critique in ethnicized relations rather than offering merely a culturalist critique of ethnic literary formation.;Dikmen and Oren variously represent internal and external conditions of ethnic identity formation. Dikmen opposes the paradigm of ethnic nationalism to integration (assimilation), satirizing individual and structural aspects of both as models of identity formation. Oren uses the medium of city (lyrical) narrative to confront material historical and ethno-individualized strains of ethnic minority positionality. Both writers attribute an emancipatory function to ethnic identity formation as it contributes to autonomous, intersubjective ethnic consciousness. They provide ethical frameworks for evaluating identity-formative problematics under ethnicization. Integrationism, cultural nationalism and historical materialism interface with notions of ethnic consciousness and solidarity, concepts which acknowledge the importance of ethnic formation for social transformation.;I conclude that "identitarian" politics and forms of analysis such as those based on ethnicity and race must be centrally featured in cultural criticism under neocolonial conditions. The current historical conjuncture--characterized by ethnicized/racialized labor segmentation and division and displacement of peoples--has necessitated theorization of ethnic/racial formations in order to arrive at effective forms of cultural, social and political critique and theory.