From New Zealand, Australia and the South Pacific nations to East Asia and the West Coast of America; each of these Pacific regions has at different times stimulated the German imagination. For centuries, German history has been entangled with the Pacific through merchants, mission-aries, explorers, colonisers, and tourists, creating images of the people and places they encoun-ter.
From early settlers in California and the Pacific Northwest in the 1800s to the establishment of a major trade route between Hamburg and Valparaiso, Chile, German relations with the West coast of the Americas refelects a long history. In East Asia, the Prussian state served as one model for the Meiji restoration that sought to modernise the Japanese state, and Meiji intellectu-als drew inspiration from German literature and science. Germany’s colonial legacy in the Pa-cific, from Qingdao to Papua New Guinea, ended during the First World War, and as such, there was no process of decolonisation. Escaping from Nazi Germany, many German Jews spent their exile in Shanghai. Other émigrés travelled via Singapore and setlled in Australia and New Zealand, places that form an important complement to the Californian exile. In the late 20th century, the Pacific became a dream destination for modern adventurers, seeing a surge in Ger-man tourists setting off for destination all around the Pacific. Even at the beginning of the 21st century, postmodern fantasies of dropping out and self-discovery are present in literature against the backdrop of the Pacific.
This volume aims to shed new light on Germany's fascination and interdependence with the Pacific region, but also to show how the Pacific imagines the German-speaking world. We in-vite contributions from scholars who deal with German-Pacific relations in their work.
Topics could include but are not limited to:
- The German fascination with the Pacific, from Johann Reinhold and Georg Forster and Captain Cook’s voyages to contemporary re-imaginings as in Christian Kracht’s Impe-rium.
- The South Pacific Noble Savage trope and decolonial resistance across the Pacific.
- The translation and reception of German-language literature in East Asia, and the endur-ing importance of writers like Adalbert von Chamisso, Friedrich Gerstäcker, and Thom-as Mann.
- Discussions of otherness in various media and from different perspectives in the Ger-man Pacific context.
- South America’s place in the German imagination and vice versa, from Alexander von Humboldt to Heinrich von Kleist’s “Erdbeben in Chili” to German history and culture in the work of Roberto Bolaño.
- Discussions of the Pacific as backdrop for coming-of-age/rites de passage-narratives in young adult literature, for example Marianne Haake's Ein Onkel in Australien.
- German presence in Shanghai as documented in Ulrike Ottinger’s movie Exil Shanghai and in Ursula Krechel’s novel Shanghai fern von wo.
- Nazis escaping to countries at the South America West coast after WWII, which are less researched than the ratlines to the continent's East.
Limbus accepts contributions can be in German and English. Please send proposals for contri-butions in the form of an abstract of approx. 250 words and a short bio by July 28, 2024 to the editors listed below.