The 10 most recently published documents
Family relations and women’s destinies are two recurrent themes in the novels of two prominent figures of the French-speaking Swiss literature, Anne-Lise Grobéty (1949–2010) and Rose-Marie Pagnard (1943–). Although depicting different universes, more politicized in the first and more poetic in the second, a cross-reading of their works allows to observe a similarity in the treatment of the evolution of the feminine cause within the family unit. Two novels from the 1970–1990 period, «Pour mourir en février» (1970) by Grobéty and «La Leçon de Judith» (1993) by Pagnard, attest to the young girl’s difficulty in building her own identity within her family. The female friendship is presented in both works as a prerequisite for the personal fulfilment of female figures. However, it is rejected by the family who perceives it as a threat to the established patriarchal order. On the other hand, filiation novels of the 2000’s, «La Corde de mi» (2006) by Grobéty and «J’aime ce qui vacille» (2018) by Pagnard, reveal an appeasement of the relations between the young girl and her family, in particular the father figure. The sorority is accepted and even recognised as an aid to the reconstruction of the family bond.
This article deals with a selection of contemporary texts by Swiss authors that address the theme of the family in various ways. The question put forward is whether such literary representations still represent today’s families or whether they miss the mark. The variety of literary forms and the spectrum of perspectives in this selection proved far more diverse than expected. Nevertheless, auto-fictional narration is still fundamental, whereby retrospectives of a life lived are conveyed from within the narrator’s own family circle. The discourse of memory continues to dominate substantial parts of the narrative, and a preoccupation with father-son and mother-daughter relations within family constellations still remains relevant. However, humour and irony are also important as a means of creating distance at moments where reality verges on the absurd and the narrator’s own family is shown in a comic light, or where the terrain is delicate, as for example when the action takes place in a nursing home.
The particular relevance of family in human life and experience, which is addressed in family novels, is also evident in sociological studies. In what way can these views complement each other? The text is meant as a contribution to discuss this question, starting by presenting some statistical data on the contemporary diversity of individual and collective family behaviors. They are summarized in five theses focusing on an elaborated, open understanding of human generativity, i.e. the individual and the institutional shaping of generational relationships. These generalizations allow to build a bridge to studies on the family novel. I postulate that the commonalities of family sociology and family novel can be seen in the critical dealing with notions of normality, the tense shaping of social relationships, and – consequentially – the dynamic search for personal and collective identities. These processes go hand in hand with experiences of ambivalence and practices to cope with them.
This article outlines the development towards the codification of civil law, the most important cornerstones of the original Swiss “Civil Code” of 1912, as well as important developments in family law, and discusses their societal context. It will become apparent that legislation in family law over the past decades has been primarily characterised by efforts to achieve equality. From the 1970s onwards, legislative revisions were made in an attempt to follow the social developments. Adoption and child law were revised first, followed by marital and divorce law. While these mentioned legal bases were revised in partial steps in the 20th century, same-sex couples did not receive legal regulation of their partnership until the beginning of the 21st century. Whether the non-marital partnership should have their own legal regulation is currently left open by the legislature. In December 2020, however, the doors of the Civil Code opened for same-sex couples. Marriage for all was approved by the people in the vote of 26 September 2021. Nevertheless, this is not the end of the legislative revisions. In the near future, the discussion on equal rights will focus on a new regulation of the law of descent.
As this introduction and the following contributions will show, family in its many forms continues to be an essential element of social life as well as of literary plots. With regard to Swiss literature, the family in its diversity intersects with a multi-lingual corpus, opening up a new view of the relationship between social precon-ditions and literary reflection.
As this introduction and the following contributions will show, family in its many forms continues to be an essential element of social life as well as of literary plots. With regard to Swiss literature, the family in its diversity intersects with a multilingual corpus, opening up a new view of the relationship between social preconditions and literary reflection.
Familiengeschichten sind in den letzten dreißig Jahren besonders unter politisch-historischen Aspekten sowie mit einem erinnerungskulturellen Interesse untersucht worden (insbesondere in Deutschland und Österreich, aber auch in Frankreich). Obwohl die Schweiz in die Zivilisationsbrüche des Zweiten Weltkriegs lediglich verwickelt worden ist, ohne von den Auswirkungen in einem vergleichbaren Ausmaß betroffen zu sein wie ihre Nachbarländer, ist der erinnerungskulturelle Diskurs ebenso relevant für schweizerische Literatur. Im vorliegenden Band stellt sich zunächst die Frage, inwiefern die Modelle, die die Forschung zu Familienroman und Generationenerzählung in anderen Literaturen ermittelt hat, auch für die Literaturen der Schweiz gelten. Dabei eröffnet die Untersuchung eines mehrsprachigen Korpus von deutsch-, französisch-, aber auch italienischsprachigen Erzählungen aus der Schweiz ein Untersuchungsfeld, in dem unterschiedliche literarische Traditionen in eine gemeinsame nationalstaatliche Perspektive gestellt werden. Konkret untersuchen die Beiträge im vorliegenden Band, wie Familiengeschichten im Spektrum der schweizerischen Literaturen erzählt werden. Dabei steht die Frage im Raum, ob die Schweizer Gegenwartsliteratur im Hinblick auf die erzählten Familienstrukturen einen Spiegel oder vielleicht einen Zerrspiegel der Schweizer Gesellschaft ergibt.
„Trauerspiel“. Die Schuld im Spiel. Spiel, Souveränität, Schuld, Einfühlung im Lichte Benjamins
(2022)
This article discusses the theatrical form named in German Trauerspiel (the baroque drama or mourning play), focusing on the constitutive elements of its concept – both play and mourning. Although it has often been compared or reduced to ‘tragedy,’ in a sort of excessive anticipation of Romantic theatrical forms, Trauerspiel is more likely to express the traumas of secularization in the early modern age, as both noble and humble subjects face religious and political turmoil. Taking inspiration from Walter Benjamin’s renowned thesis in the book „Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels“ (1925), the article investigates some crucial actual elements of baroque drama-writing such as sovereignty, guilt, empathy, and the search for further intersections with the theories of playwriting proposed in 1938 by Johan Huizinga and discussed a few years later by French critic and thinker Georges Bataille.
Brecht equated the practice of historicizing with that of alienating. According to him, the process of historicizing is about letting the present become so alien through the relationship to another time and history that traits, structures, and patterns become visible that would otherwise no longer be perceived in everyday life. For this to succeed, according to Brecht, the present itself must appear historical and temporarally fixed.
However, most historical theater productions seem to be far away from this practice of historicization. History has been driven out of its own emotional images in the practice of theatrical historicism. Instead, they create the appearance of ‘vitalization’ and the ‘resurrection’ of history from the dead. Charged as a substitute for religion, these monumental historical images serve as a basis for legitimizing a world disenchanted by metaphysics.
Bellini’s operas can become very interesting from this point of view. They not only appear strange in the present but they challenge it by placing it in a strange light. The historical locations of Bellini’s operas are anticipated in the sense of Brecht. These rooms do not evoke distant times but a past that extends into our time and thus refers to the future past of our present. The historical times in “Norma,” “La Sonnambula,” and “I Puritani” are times of transition.
Bellini must have experienced various interim periods – between foreign rule and national liberation, between absolutism and democratic participation, between late feudal order and unbridled capitalism – as times of great and fundamental uncertainty. He historicized this experience in his operas. They expose people’s feelings and actions in the space of a pure in-between, which no longer has a reliable origin or a fortuitous outcome. Bellini’s protagonists are exposed to a transitional existence that is held in perpetual suspension.
Walter Benjamin’s formulation about epic theater is well-known: Brecht succeeds in turning the theater from a “Bannraum” sort of spell room, into a “conveniently located exhibition space.” The epic playwright draws on “the great old opportunity of the theater in a new way – on the exposure of what is present.”
Whether consciously quoting Benjamin or not, the words “exhibition” and “exposure” are often used by theater makers and scholars to reinforce the seriousness either of the act of showing or of the shown object. If something is being exhibited and not simply represented, the stress lies on the attempt to have an effect: to have consequences beyond the aesthetical as-if-frame. “Exhibition” and “exposure” seem first to recur with a precise and alternative sense in Benjamin, in Brecht and in the Russian avantgarde regisseur and author S. Tretiakov, who became a friend of Brecht in the 1920s. What they understand by “exhibition” seems to be something very specific, not a mere metaphor, rather an operational term. Benjamin uses it in various texts and different formulas (as, for example, the famous and enigmatic „Ausstellungswert“, or “exposition-value”, combined with “cult-value”, in a kind of historical dialectic of the work of art). But the concept of aura and its agony generally steal the show, while the concepts of „Ausstellen“ and „Ausstellungswert“ are often misunderstood according to our current idea of “exposition” from the context of museums, galleries and exhibitions, and according to our experience of “absolute visibility” as a paradigm of modern life (Agamben 2005). This easy to misunderstand, difficult to grasp “exposition-value” seems to name a different experience and an innovative chance that resides in modern reproducibility. Its difference could be not only relevant for theater and its history as an art form, but also for theater intended as a dimension and opportunity of social practice.
