A More Immanent Critique; or, Inside the House That Alexander Mitscherlich Built

Abstract

Frequently, to be an immigrant is to be submerged in one’s new physical and institutional settings, to be inside without feeling like an insider. The position is at odds with critique, which is traditionally predicated on distance. This article attempts to undo the contradiction between the two circumstances. From inside a unit that the preeminent postwar psychoanalyst and critic Alexander Mitscherlich helped plan for the developer Neue Heimat Städtebau in Emmertsgrund, outside Heidelberg in Germany’s southwest, it articulates a critique of his pedagogical foray into mass housing and urbanism. In the process, it stakes out a critical position for Germanists with immigrant backgrounds.