Ethnic boundaries in American, Dutch, and German national literary policies, 1965–2005

Abstract

This article addresses the extent and ways in which ethnic diversity has been part of American, Dutch and German national literary policy from 1965 until 2005. By analyzing the content of policy documents of the National Endowment of the Arts and the Dutch and German literary fund, I found that ethnic boundaries were weak in the United States, moderate in the Netherlands and strong in Germany. First, national literary policy organizations made much, moderate and little use of ethnic discourse respectively. Crossnational and longitudinal variation was closely related to the need for political legitimacy. Second, ethnic minority granters and grantees were (relatively) the least underrepresented by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Dutch Literary Fund, while the German literary fund included hardly any ethnic minority panelists or authors. The differences in the representation of ethnic minorities could largely be accounted for by demographics and variations in the need for legitimacy.

Globalization and Ethnic Diversity in Western Newspaper Coverage of Literary Authors: Comparing Developments in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States, 1955 to 2005

“…Concomitantly, the representation of ethnic minority authors in literary anthologies and scholarly literary journals increased quite drastically (Berkers, 2009b). However, the National Endowment for the Arts' funding of ethnic minority authors has declined somewhat over time (Berkers, 2009a), while few ethnic minority writers have received a prestigious literary prize. 3 The French idea of universalism suggests there is no need to challenge the literary canon: meritocracy and equality will ensure that every author -majority or minority -has the same chance of being canonized (Duell, 2000).…”

“…However, the Dutch Literature Fund specifically targets ethnic minority authors and has separate funds available for such authors. The share of ethnic minority writers supported by this fund increased from 1% in 1970 to 7% in 2005 (Berkers, 2009a). In recent years, several ethnic minority authors 6 received prestigious national literary awards (T'Sjoen, 2004).…”

“…Ethnic minority authors are largely absent from German literary history books as well as literary journals (Berkers, 2009b). In early 2000, the German Literature Fund supported approximately 400 individual authors, of whom only two were of Turkish descent (Berkers, 2009a). 5 Both authors are also the only minority writers who won prestigious literary prizes (Rösch, 2006).…”

“…Institutional recognition of domestic (Berkers, 2009a;Duell, 2000) and foreign authors of non-Western ethnic origin (Griswold, 1987) appears to result in part from similar macrostructural processes (e.g., international migration). However, authors in the latter category often have already received some literary recognition in their home country and/or in one of the major literary centers (Casanova, 2004;Malingret, 2002), whereas the valuation of domestic ethnic minority authors seems more often linked to questions of acculturation and their relationship to the national literary field.…”

Assimilatie in de literaire mainstream? - Etnische grenzen in dagbladrecensies van etnische minderheidsauteurs in de Verenigde Staten, Nederland en Duitsland

“…Ook etniciteit blijkt een rol te spelen in de selectie en beoordeling van literatuur. Zo maken literaire beleidsmakers (Berkers, 2009a) en samenstellers van literatuurgeschiedenissen (Berkers, 2009b) gebruik van etnische classificaties. Boekrecensies handelen niet alleen over literaire kwaliteit, stijl en thematiek, maar kunnen bovendien informatie over de (etnische) achtergrond van de auteur bevatten (Griswold, 1987).…”