Writing Switzerland

Edited by

Peter C. Meilaender and Hans J. Rindisbacher

Writing Switzerland

Culture, History, and Politics
in the Work of
Peter von Matt

PETER LANG

Oxford · Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · New York · Wien

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Cover image: The old road winding over St. Gotthard pass (el. 2106 m. or 6,909 ft.) high in the Swiss Alps. Photo by Srdjan Marincic <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_old_road_winding_over_St._Gotthard_pass_(el._2106_m._or_6,909_ft.)_high_in_the_Swiss_Alps.JPG#file>, CC BY-SA 3.0 license, <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en>, no changes made.

ISSN 0721-3727

This publication has been peer reviewed.

© Peter Lang AG 2019

Published by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers,
52 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LU, United Kingdom
oxford@peterlang.com, www.peterlang.com

Peter C. Meilaender and Hans J. Rindisbacher have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this Work.

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About the editors

Peter C. Meilaender is Professor of Political Science at Houghton College. The author of Toward a Theory of Migration (2001), his current research focuses on politics and literature, especially German-language literature. He is co-director of the Swiss Studies Network of the German Studies Association and a member of the board of the Austrian Studies Association.

Hans J. Rindisbacher is Professor of German Studies at Pomona College. His The Smell of Books: A Cultural-Historical Study of Olfactory Perception in Literature (1992) is a pathbreaking comparative literary study of olfactory representation. He is co-director of the Swiss Studies Network of the German Studies Association.

About the book

The work of Peter von Matt, Switzerland’s finest living literary critic, offers a model of humanistic scholarship par excellence: learned, gracious, elegant, dancing nimbly from history and culture to politics and philosophy. Von Matt weaves engaging literary analyses that are simultaneously interpretations not only of authors and texts but also of Swiss nationhood itself. Inspired in particular by his 2012 volume Das Kalb vor der Gotthardpost: Zur Literatur und Politik der Schweiz (The Calf Fleeing the St. Gotthard Mail Coach: On the Literature and Politics of Switzerland; winner of that year’s Swiss Book Prize), this interdisciplinary collection of essays by leading North American scholars of Swiss Studies supplies a critical but appreciative engagement with von Matt’s writing. Of interest to students of literature and of Switzerland, it is the first volume devoted specifically to probing the legacy of von Matt’s thought. It is thus a worthy testimony to the richness and influence of one of late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century Switzerland’s leading intellectuals.

Die Schriften von Peter von Matt, dem bedeutendsten Literaturkritiker der heutigen Schweiz, sind Beispiele humanistischer Gelehrsamkeit par excellence. Gebildet, anmutig und elegant bewegen sie sich leichtfüßig zwischen Geschichte und Kultur zu Politik und Philosophie. Dadurch entstehen ansprechende Literaturanalysen, die nicht nur wichtige Autoren und Texte, sondern auch die Schweizer nationale Identität an sich interpretieren. Besonders durch sein 2012 erschienenes und mit dem Schweizer Buchpreis gekrönten Buch Das Kalb vor der Gotthardpost: Zur Literatur und Politik der Schweiz inspiriert, liefert diese interdisziplinäre Essaysammlung, die von führenden nordamerikanischen Swiss Studies Forschern verfasst wurde, eine manchmal kritische, aber dabei immer auch mit Wertschätzung durchzogene Auseinandersetzung mit von Matts Schriften. Studenten der Schweizer Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften bietet diese bahnbrechende Sammlung die Möglichkeit, sich mit von Matts Gedankengut auseinanderzusetzen. Damit legt der vorliegende Band von dem Reichtum und dem Einfluss eines der führenden Schweizer Intellektuellen des späten 20. und frühen 21. Jahrhunderts Zeugnis ab.

Advance praise

“The collected essays not only showcase the continued vibrancy of Swiss studies in the United States but also pay homage to Peter von Matt’s scholarly achievements, which have left an indelible imprint on Swiss cultural and literary studies over the past decades.”

– Professor Christoph Weber, University of North Texas

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Peter C. Meilaender and Hans J. Rindisbacher

Introduction. Peter von Matt and the Meaning of Swissness: An Interdisciplinary Engagement

Peter C. Meilaender und Hans J. Rindisbacher

Einleitung. Peter von Matt und die Bedeutung von Swissness: Ein interdisziplinäres Engagement

part i Thinking with Peter von Matt: Literature and the Modern Swiss Nation

Peter C. Meilaender

Peter von Matt: Theorist of Modernity

Donovan Anderson

Peter von Matt’s Swiss Seelengeschichte: A Narrative of the Swiss National Experience

Richard R. Ruppel

Alpenbilder im Wandel: Schweizerische literarische Darstellung der Industrialisierung, Globalisierung und des Umweltbewusstseins von Haller bis Muschg←vii | viii→

part ii Thinking with Peter von Matt: Problems of Swiss Identity

Gerald J. Steinacher

Als der gute Samariter die Schweiz retten sollte: Das Rote Kreuz im Dienst der geistigen Landesverteidigung

Barbara Ann Bush

Switzerland’s Heroic Legacy: National Symbols as History and Memory

Margrit V. Zinggeler

Das Kalb vor der Gotthardpost ist eine Kuh: Über die Ausgrenzung der Kultur- und Wissenschaftsbeiträge von Schweizerinnen

part iii Thinking with Peter von Matt: Literary Explorations

Hans J. Rindisbacher

Bunker als System-Metaphern: Burgers Künstliche Mutter und Dürrenmatts Winterkrieg in Tibet

Peter Gilgen

Dürrenmatt’s Detectives and the End of Hermeneutics

Peter C. Meilaender und Peter von Matt

Epilog. Ein kurzes Gespräch

Notes on Contributors

Index←viii | ix→

Acknowledgments

We have accumulated a number of debts in the preparation of this volume. First and foremost, thanks to Peter von Matt for his gracious participation in our original seminar. It was hardly a matter of course that he would accept an invitation from unknown colleagues in the United States to undertake three mornings of conversation with a group of strangers, or would read and respond thoughtfully to a set of essays supplied in advance. We are grateful not only for his time, but also his collegiality, wit, and insight.

The seminar would also not have been possible without generous support from both the Swiss Embassy in Washington and the German Studies Association. At the Embassy, special thanks go to David Best, who was at the time head of the Public Diplomacy and Cultural Affairs section, as well as to his assistant and project manager Susanne Madigan. Their assistance was invaluable. At the GSA, special thanks go to Executive Director David Barclay as well as to Irene Kacandes, who at the time had just been elected as incoming president of the association. The GSA has been very supportive of our efforts to promote Swiss Studies.