Jan-Martin Zollitsch

Die Anstöße der ›island studies‹ aufgreifend, wird in dieser Arbeit Richard Nixons Asienpolitik als Abfolge von vier ›Inselmomenten‹ (Midway 1969, Guam 1969, Guam 1972, Guam 1975) porträtiert. Im Fokus stehen Nixons Guamer Bemerkungen vom 25. Juli 1969 sowie die ›Vietnamization‹-Strategie seines Verteidigungsministers Melvin Laird. These: Only Nixon could go to China (but he had to stop over in Guam).
PDF via <https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/20954>

Die Island Studies plädieren für ein „archipelagisches“ Denken und die Überwindung schematischer Inseldeutungen. Anhand dieses Ansatzes soll eine neue Perspektive auf die Geschichte der Insel Guam, ein US-Außengebiet im Pazifik, entworfen werden.

Artikel in der Online-Version via <https://www.bpb.de/apuz/273606/guam-als-archipel-einfuehrung-in-die-island-studies>

Heft als PDF/EPUB oder zur Printbestellung via <https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/273610/inseln>

Besides presenting an archipelagic interpretation of Guam’s recent history – while drawing longer lines to outline continuities, too – and focusing on a wide range of written sources – from early travelogues to newspaper articles as well as recent research literature –, I intend to critically evaluate current research theses on Guam.
pdf link <https://www.dropbox.com/s/enb0qfos9l40shg/ZollitschJan-MartinTheGuamArchipelago_Summary.pdf?dl=0>

Langfassung in Vorbereitung auf den in "Die junge Mommsen" publizierten Artikel. Fokus auf Richard Nixons Weltreise "Moonglow" und der begleitenden Berichterstattung, insbesondere zu seinem Aufenthalt auf Guam und der dortigen Rede am 25. Juli 1969.
PDF via <https://www.dropbox.com/s/la6v6g7aiuroasl/Nixon%20auf%20Guam%202018-03-14%20Onlineversion%202019-03-28.pdf?dl=0>

Über den Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, als ›Ort‹, als ›Nicht-Ort‹ und als ›Nicht-Ort‹ des ›Endes der Geschichte‹. Ursprünglich von 2017, leicht aktualisiertes PDF von 2018 via <http://llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll.li/pdf/checkpoint_charlie_nicht-ort_14-4-2018.pdf>

Die Geschichte der Pazifikinsel Guam in 5 Schlaglichtern: Magellan 1521, San Vitores 1668, Anson 1742, Chamisso und Kotzebue 1817, 1898. Vorarbeiten für eine Verortung der Insel in der Geschichte der US-Außenpolitik.

The history of Guam as outlined in 5 instances. Preliminary sketches for an ensuing study of the place of Guam within the history of U.S. Foreign Relations.

PDF via <http://llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll.li/pdf/zwischenlage_insellage_guam_1521-1898_1-11-2017.pdf>

»What about Guam and where is it anyway, and what do we want of it?« In June 1898, when the crew on board the U.S. Navy convoy dispatched from Hawaii to the Philippines to fight the Spanish empire learned about the order to capture the island of Guam along the way, the common talk was: »What about Guam and where is it anyway, and what do we want of it?« Although the American takeover of the Spanish colony of Guam went down smoothly and the island remains an »organized unincorporated U.S. territory« to this day, questions and uncertainties surrounding the place of Guam in U.S. history continue to prevail.

PDF script <https://www.dropbox.com/s/03vs4puesmywyo5/skript%20%28pdf%29%20_%20the%20version%20that%20I%20presented.pdf?dl=0>

Different perspectives of locating and, more importantly, dislocating Guam/Guåhan are to be explored in my paper in order to offer a reading of the archipelagic history of an island that questions its seemingly singular and self-evident quality; its (strategic) location.

I am interested in bringing together global history and island studies, in studying both centurylong colonial functionalisations and current practices of Chamorro/CHamoru reorientation such as the works of poet Craig Santos Perez or the paradigmatic de-colonial invocation of the founding fathers of the United States now turned against Washington in then governor Eddie Calvo’s 2018 State of the Island Address.

PDF script <https://www.dropbox.com/s/voj0syll2s2gppc/2020-07-03%20Zollitsch%20_%20Guam%20archipelagic%20_%20perspectives%20on%20%28dis%29locating%20an%20island.pdf?dl=0>

The poignant image providing the starting point for my research can be found in Arnold Zweig’s short story Judenzählung vor Verdun (1916), where the dead bodies of Jewish soldiers sink ever deeper into the earth and finally resurface as »bricks« in a different scenery (»under palm trees«), to be employed in the construction of a brick-walled tower. Zweig’s stark vision of material disintegration and ›transsubstantiation‹ can be situated within a broader discourse on death and crisis during the First World War – a constellation, out of which new philosophical propositions would emerge, too (see Ernst Bloch, Franz Rosenzweig).

After setting this context, I would like to explore the modes of relating to the earth – and the ground, respectively – that can be constructed from two tropes in particular: the Beradtian Erdarbeiter and the Kafkian Landvermesser. The first one, literally meaning »earthworker«, was used by the German-Jewish lawyer and writer Martin Beradt in his 1919 memoir of the same title to denote the daily digging routines of the (non-combatant) soldier and neatly conveys his peculiar sensibility towards the condition humaine souterraine on the frontline. The second one, the figure of the Landvermesser (»land surveyor«) of course derives from Franz Kafka’s 1926 novel The Castle. The historical contexts of both tropes are to be reconstructed.

11 pages draft (Vortragsfassung):
<https://www.dropbox.com/s/rbffawftqxqaz5p/2019-10-20%20unearthing%20the%20Erdarbeiter%20_%20vortragsfassung.pdf?dl=0>

27 pages draft (ongoing):
<https://www.dropbox.com/s/jjnfnxq2ntgpliq/2019-10-16%20unearthing%20the%20Erdarbeiter%20_%20ongoing.pdf?dl=0>