German Literature Commons^™

What Makes A Woman "Pious And Good": The Function Of Several Grimm Brothers' Cautionary Fairy Tales, Hannah Montante

English (MA) Theses

This thesis explores how several of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales, “Little Snow-white and the seven dwarfs,” “The Juniper Tree,” and “Cinderella” exhibit patriarchal expectations of women that fairy tale protagonists strive to uphold, while female villains feel driven to violence and artifice because of their inability to fit into this role. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published these stories in nineteenth-century Germany, which was predominantly Protestant and held the belief that women should be nurturing homemakers who took care of their husbands and children. These cautionary tales instruct women on how to behave and appear physically, likely because these stories …

Timothy Bewes. Free Indirect: The Novel In A Postfictional Age. Columbia U.P., 2022., Emily Hall

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Timothy Bewes. Free Indirect: The Novel in a Postfictional Age. Columbia U.P., 2022. 315 pp.

War On Humor: Killing Laughter In Times Of Strife, Maria Christina Kardash

CAFE Symposium 2023

This project explores the use of humor as a coping mechanism throughout the first World War. It focuses on three main aspects: (1) the evolution of humor prior to, contemporary to, and after WWI; (2) the contrast between Germany's strict oppression of humor and France's more free approach; (3) and the distinction between civilian and soldier humor.

“Since When Is Steve Urkel White?” – Vocal Blackface In The German Dubbing Landscape, Patrick Ploschnitzki

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Dubbed (i.e., lip-synchronized audiovisual translation of) movies and television are ubiquitous in German-speaking countries and often consumed without active reflection of their production. Due to this inattention, the domestication / replacement of cultural references in US media translated into German often goes unnoticed. Translational decision-making becomes highly problematic, however, when entire cultures are replaced or disregarded as a result. In 2004, applied linguist Robin Queen demonstrated that Black actors were dubbed by white voice actors with German dialects and sociolects traditionally read as “blue collar.” There has not been any follow-up research to her crucial contribution that remains topical: the …

Special Focus Introduction: Centering Black Cultural Production In Translation, Corine Tachtiris, Priscilla Layne

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Special Focus Introduction: Centering Black Cultural Production in Translation

Feeling Beyond Words: Ineffability And Haptic Translational Praxis Of Black German Writings, Adrienne N. Merritt

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In this article, I focus on selections from Black German essayistic and creative writings that center experiential knowledge that is personal and often multisensory. My case studies are excerpts from Farbe bekennen: Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (1986), its English translation by Anne V. Adams (Showing Our Colors 1992), and Natasha Kelly’s collection of interviews from her documentary film, Millis Erwachen (Milli’s Awakening) (2018), which Kelly herself translated. These texts, I argue, explore the ways in which words fail to fully express the visceral reaction of living while Black in Germany, particularly those that seek …

Sttcl Editorial Board

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

STTCL Editorial Board

Megan Brandow-Faller. The Female Secession: Art And The Decorative At The Viennese Women’S Academy. Penn State Up, 2020., Christa Spreizer

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Megan Brandow-Faller. The Female Secession: Art and the Decorative at the Viennese Women’s Academy. Penn State UP, 2020. 304 pp.

Thirty-Fifth Annual Bibliography 2021 (Mike Lützeler Contemporary German Literature Collection), Walter Schlect, Paul Michael Lützeler, Tomek Rudel

University Libraries Publications

The 35th bibliography of 811 volumes added to Washington University Libraries' Mike Lützeler Contemporary German Literature Collection. All published in 2021, these acquisitions include novels, poetry, short story collections, graphic novels, essays, autobiographical works, and literary and cultural periodicals from publishers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Organized by author or editor, the bibliography includes local call numbers as well as subject and genre descriptors. This Collection serves as the research arm for the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature's Max Kade Center for Contemporary German Literature. A bibliography of items added the previous year is compiled each year …

Collation Model For Ms. Codex 1077: [Alexander] ...[Etc.], Dot Porter

Collation Models

A German poem in rhymed couplets on the life of Alexander the Great, based on the Latin prose work Historia de preliis, by Archipresbyter Leo. The second work in the codex, Grisardis, is a prose narration of the Griselda legend, a moralistic tale about a virtuous prince (margrave) and a humble maiden, here named Grisardis; Erhart Gross's tale is an adaptation of the version of the story related in the last novella of Boccaccio's Decameron (La novella di Griselda). This manuscript of Grisardis was formerly attributed to Albrecht von Eyb. The third work in the codex, Eurialus und Lucretia, is …

English Translations Of Two German All-Souls’-Day Pieces, Taro Omori

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Since the early eighteenth century the Don Juan legend was a popular subject in Austrian theatres on All Souls' Day (November 2); a peculiar custom, given that the main character is a libertine who indulges in excesses without any fear of divine retribution. One such work was Anton Cremeri's Der steinerne Gast (The Stone Guest) published in 1787; coincidentally Mozart's Don Giovanni premiered in the same year.

In the nineteenth century Don Juan gradually disappeared from the stage, but the custom of performing plays on All Souls' Day did not. Ernst Raupach's 1835 piece Der Müller und sein Kind (The …

Bettina Von Arnim And Civil Action: How To Defy Oppression By Championing Others, Tesla L. Gontjes

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Children, cooking and church: Like most of the European world before 1900, these were “the three Cs” designated by society for women in Germany. However, some women broke through these expectations and pursued a fourth “C”: Civil action. Such a woman was Bettina von Arnim (1785-1859). A writer, activist, feminist, and intellectual, von Arnim was politically active during a time when women were delegated to domestic duties and expected to be completely subservient to their husbands. She lived during a tumultuous era of French, Prussian, and Austrian occupation of Germany during the early 19th century. Instead of being a mild-mannered …

Lia Brozgal. Absent The Archive. Liverpool Up, 2020., Aubrey Gabel

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Lia Brozgal. Absent the Archive. Liverpool UP, 2020. 368 pp.

Candelas Gala. Clara Janés: La Poética Cuántica O La Física De La Poesía. Csic, 2021., Nicolás Fernández-Medina

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Candelas Gala. Clara Janés: La poética cuántica o la física de la poesía. CSIC, 2021. 203 pp.

Joel Scott, Translator. The Aesthetics Of Resistance, Volume Ii. By Peter Weiss. Duke Up, 2020., Mona Eikel-Pohen

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Joel Scott, translator. The Aesthetics of Resistance, Volume II. By Peter Weiss. Duke UP, 2020. x + 320pp.

The Faustian Deal: What Is Good And Evil?, Jaclyn Elmquist

English Honors Theses

How is the “deal with the devil” is portrayed in contemporary films? This essay compares how the original Faustian deal informs modern-day portrayals. Thus, I examine how devils were first represented in early works such as The Faustbuch, Mary of Nijmegen, and Goethe’s Faustus. These depictions and their historical context provide the basis for my research. I compare these works to the films, Rosemary’s Baby, Wall Street, and Sweet Smell of Sucess. In the mentioned films, the main characters make deals with a devil or demon for wealth, success, or fame. I explore how the Faustian character of each film …

Emily Johansen. Beyond Safety: Risk, Cosmopolitanism, And Contemporary Neoliberal Life. Bloomsbury, 2021., Irene Gammel, Jason Wang

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Emily Johansen. Beyond Safety: Risk, Cosmopolitanism, and Contemporary Neoliberal Life. Bloomsbury, 2021. xiii + 171 pp.

„Kopfschmerzen, Familiensorgen": Urszenen-Konfigurationen, Psychotherapie-Parodie Und Sublimierungspraktiken In Kafkas "Proceß", Anna Lynn Dolman

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The thesis presents a re-reading of Kafka's novel "The Trial" against the background of Kafka's negotiation of Freudian psychoanalysis. Rather than merely employing the Freudian framework as a hermeneutic tool, the thesis argues that Kafka constructs his novel along the lines of psychoanalytic theories while simultaneously attempting to deconstruct them and question the effectiveness of the so-called talking cure by means of ironically subverting a therapeutic configuration. The starting point of the thesis centers on an oftentimes overlooked scene at the very beginning of the novel, arguing that the voyeuristic old couple across the street from K. demonstrate that the …

Riding The Bahn, Reading Berlin: Berlin In Transit(Ion) From Reichshauptstadt To Weltstadt (1871-1930), Mikael Olsson Berggren

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Riding the Bahn, Reading Berlin: Berlin in Transit(ion) from Reichshauptstadt to Weltstadt (1871-1930) is a study of the relationship between Berlin’s public transit network and representations of the city in literature and film. The ride within the confines of the city differs from journeys with the national railway, and the passenger’s encounter with urban space diverges from the perambulating flâneur. Although Berlin’s intra-urban transit system relied on horse-drawn carriages and busses until the construction of the Stadtbahn in the 1880s, the number of passengers commuting and traveling in and around Berlin grew exponentially each year between the 1870s to the …

Mette Leonard Høeg, Editor. Literary Theories Of Uncertainty. Bloomsbury, 2021., Samantha Lepak

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Mette Leonard Høeg, editor. Literary Theories of Uncertainty. Bloomsbury, 2021. xi + 295 pp.