Heartlands: Home as a moral landscape in Anglo-American literature

This subproject examines representations of lived Heimat spaces in the American novel since 1970. It proceeds from the premise that perceptions of social and geographical space are invariably structured by deeply embedded hierarchies of value, that is, by moral topographies that materialize as spaces providing orientation, meaning, and frameworks for social practice. As a concept for investigating such moral topographies, the project employs the notion of Heartland. While this term frequently carries politically charged connotations in contemporary U.S. public discourse, the project adopts it in an expanded heuristic sense to emcompass artistic constructions of identitiy-forming Heimat regions more generally. The subproject explores the negotiation of new regionalisms—often discussed in terms of the “return of the region” in the age of globalization—and looks at the mechanisms of consecration and authorisation through which prestigious Heimat atmospheres cquire cultural relevance and visibility.

The subproject will examine several formations of the contemporary American novel. The corpus comprises texts that construct heartlands in relation to a variety of regions (including “squatter regionalists” such as Barbara Kingsolver or Marylinne Robinson); works that connect the problem of the regional heartland with questions of multicultural belonging (as is characteristic of so-called hyphenated literatures, including African American, Latinx American, Asian American, Native American, Jewish American writing); and diverse forms of ecocritical sensibility, ranging from classic nature writers such as Wendell Berry to postapocalyptic imaginaries in authors such as Cormac McCarthy and Colson Whitehead. Focusing on heartlands as moral topographies promises to generate new insights into the modelling and evaluation of atmospheres of home and belonging. At the same time, attention to recent forms of regionalist branding and place-making will help sharpen the distinctions between classical and contemporary representations of home, belonging, and the regional. Finally, the project addresses the mechanisms of literary consecration in order to illuminates how cultural relevance and authority are conferred upon literary constructions of Heimat within the context of the increasing academization of the literary field since the 1970s.