Eternal Interns: Kathrin Röggla’s Literary Treatment of Gendered Capitalism

In today’s Germany, university graduates and first-time job seekers find themselves in a different position than did those of previous generations—for many, obtaining a secure, full-time job has become a dream of the past. To boost their resumes, many enter a loop of internships and other similarly precarious states of employment. This article examines the way in which author Kathrin Roggla treats these insecure economic times in her 2004 novel Wir schlafen nicht, with a focus on sex and gender in the New Economy. Are jobs gendered, and what are the resulting effects for both men and women? I discuss the continuum of business masculinity and femininity and argue that business masculinity (as performed by men or women) creates, and ultimately depends on, a feminization of the workforce. By personifying the New Economy and presenting her female characters as the losers of capitalism, Roggla unmasks grievances in contemporary Germany, revealing the entire economy’s process of feminization and its effects, which are borne more heavily by women than by men. This article is available in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol35/iss1/7 Eternal Interns: Kathrin Roggla’s Literary Treatment of Gendered Capitalism Florence Feiereisen Middlebury College In twenty-first century Germany, starting a career with all the benefits of Germany’s social market economy, a given for the previous generation, has slipped out of reach; even members of the well-educated middle class have trouble carving out a life for themselves in these financially insecure times. The characteristics of today’s society, “excessive work and scarcity of employment” (von Dirke 155), create a difficult situation for young people: many enter the loop of underpaid internships to boost their resumes, a phenomenon so widespread since the late 1990s that the newspaper Die Zeit coined the term “Generation Praktikum” ‘generation internship’ in 2005.1 Companies, praised for providing their interns with “valuable experience,” tease them with the possibility of regular employment, exploiting them all the while. This essay examines how Kathrin Roggla (b. Austria 1971) deals with the insecure economic times since the new millennium in her literary works. I look at how sex and gender are implicated in the New Economy and in globalization processes, and how they are reflected in Roggla’s texts.2 How are jobs gendered, and what are the resulting effects for both men and women? Has an unsustainable model of business masculinity forced the entire economy into a process of feminization? Does Roggla offer a solution? In Wir schlafen nicht ‘We Never Sleep’ (2004), as well as in her earlier novels Abrauschen ‘Zooming Off ’ (1997), Irres Wetter ‘Crazy Weather’ (2000), and Really Ground Zero (2001), Roggla puts urban society at the turn of the twenty-first century under the literary magnifying glass. She criticizes a world whose inhabitants are in1 Feiereisen: Eternal Interns: Kathrin Roggla’s Literary Treatment of Gendered Published by New Prairie Press 96 STT Sabine von Dirke describes literature as a “seismograph of the human toll brought about by these socio-economic transformations” (142). Yet the focus shifts with the new millennium. Deupmann suggests that literature after 2000 does not revolve around the homo oeconomicus alone; rather, a description of the economic system and its implications begins to take center stage (151f.).5 In Roggla’s case, the focus is on the effects of the New Economy on its active and passive participants. It is therefore not surprising that Roggla shifts from a specific protagonist in Irres Wetter and Abrauschen to an entire armada of co-protagonists in Wir schlafen nicht. After having conducted 24 long and 20 shorter interviews with members of the IT-sector, consulting companies, and other parts of the New Economy, Roggla assembled six fictional characters: Silke Mertens (aged 37), key ac2 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 35, Iss. 1 [2011], Art. 7 http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol35/iss1/7 DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1741