Yoko Tawada: Fluctuant Identities in Intercultural Communication
My research will concentrate on the transformation of personal and cultural identity reflected in Yoko Tawada’s literary works. Born and raised in Japan, Tawada has been living in Germany and continuously writing in German, her second foreign language, as a poet, novelist, playwright, and essayist for nearly 30 years. Being an East Asian who spent nearly half of her life in a Western society and an extraordinary world citizen who moves effortlessly between continents, cultures, and languages, Tawada has acquired an impressive intercultural awareness, which makes her one of the most unique figures in the contemporary German literary landscape. My interest in Tawada was sparked by my own struggles as an international student in the US as well as in Germany. If conducted successfully, this project would not only shed light on a new age of German literature for a changed multicultural society in German speaking Europe, but also contribute to a better intercultural competence and comprehension through the literary realm that are desperately needed for the rapidly changing global society.
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