Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Unlikely Heroes: Self-Reflexivity, Comedy, And Reflective Nostalgia In Post-Unification German Film, Lindsay Carney

Senior Theses

This paper investigates the portrayal of Ostalgie in post-unification film and its impact on the East German identity. The swift nature in which East Germany was reabsorbed into the West and subsequent dissociation from all commercial, social, and political infrastructures relating to the GDR following reunification inspired the Ostalgie phenomenon as a way to recover an East German distinctiveness and legitimize the East German experience by expanding the narrative beyond the tyranny and injustices of the socialist state. Ostalgie films Sonnenallee, Helden wir wir, Kleinruppin Forever, and the Westalgie film Herr Lehmann contain recurring concepts of self-conscious storytelling, …

Old High German And Gothic Breaking: A Comparative Study, Olivia C. Paglia

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is intended to be a comparative study of Old High German and Gothic breaking. The process of breaking is unique in both Old High German and Gothic compared to the other Germanic languages in that it does not result in diphthongization, but rather the raising and lowering of accented vowels. The intent is to integrate research detailing the process of breaking in Old High German and Gothic in order to better understand how it may be related in both languages. The issue of the Gothic digraphs and the debate over their phonemic values will also be explored, namely …

A New South Tyrol: The Multilingual, Multicultural Society, Alec Lee Parry

Theses and Dissertations

Identity formation is a reoccurring theme in an increasingly global world. Monolingualism and monoculturalism is no longer a possible in a global world. Like greater society, should contemporary literature not also argue for a multilingual, multicultural society? South Tyrol, a province that experienced Nazism and Fascism, control by both Mussolini and Hitler, pitted ethnic German and ethnic Italian speakers against one another. Today, since the founding of Schengen Europe eradicated border controls between Austria and Italy in 1997. South Tyrol is officially trilingual, with German, Italian, and Ladin1 being the official languages, and in recent years, has taken in a …

The Trabant And The Mercedes: A Psychological Analysis Into The Disjunction Of German Reunification, Faith Morris

Senior Theses

Ostalgie, a combination of the German words Ost (east) and Nostalgie (nostalgia), is the psychological phenomenon that describes former East Germans’ longing for a return to aspects of life from the period of communist rule. This paper explores the phenomenon of Ostalgie in reunified Germany in relation to psychological constructs of nostalgia and collective identity.

Ostalgie is essentially both a means and an end. This paper seeks to prove Ostalgie is a means of creating identity, formulated by the interplay of nostalgia and certain social conditions that combined with and aided the failure of democratic capitalism for former East …

Dark German Romanticism And The Postpunk Ethos Of Joy Division, The Cure And Smashing Pumpkins, Logan Jansen Hunter

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an analysis of dark German Romanticism and its connection to the postpunk ethos in rock music. The music is dark and Romantic because of the artists’ reach beyond finite limits to attain Romantic ideals. The postpunk artists explored, Ian Curtis of Joy Division, Robert Smith of The Cure, and Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, present solipsistic lyrics relating to nineteenth century works by German writers Novalis, E.T.A. Hoffman, Heinrich Heine and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The spirit of dark German Romanticism dwells within the postpunk ethos adhered to by Curtis, Smith and Corgan, with each of …

Skepticism, Perfectionism, Romanticism – Cavell, Kant, Kleist, Maximilian Gindorf

Theses and Dissertations

Michael Fischer early commented that in “Cavell’s work, literature is always bringing to mind philosophy, and philosophy is always opening itself to literature, generating a dialogue that transforms each one.” (3) For Cavell, this dialogue unfolds around the philosophical problem of skepticism. Romanticism around 1800 was not only invested in questioning the differences between philosophy and literature, but also absorbed by the problem of skepticism. The specific combination of literature and skepticism, however, changes the appearance of the latter. In order to show how this takes place, the first chapter is dedicated to an interpretation of skepticism as philosophical problem …

Re-Evaluating “Authenticity” In Holocaust Literature – Memory And Trauma In Recent Holocaust Fiction, Christos Giantsidis

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a structural and para-textual analysis of recent Holocaust fiction. Challenging the assumption of the superiority of “authentic” representations of the psychological effects of this historic event, I will highlight the cultural and pedagogical effects of fictionalized accounts of the Holocaust. A short analysis of the terms “memory,” “trauma,” and “history” as understood in the research field of Holocaust studies, will be substantial in debunking the failures of memory as perfect ways to recreate historical “truths.” Theories about trauma and memory by scholars such as Cathy Caruth and Dominick LaCapra will serve as reference points in the validation …

Die Reprasentation Und Kritik Des Materialismus In Einer Auswahl Von Volks-Und Kunstmarchen, Kim Nadine Kahmann

Theses and Dissertations

Many of Grimms' Fairy Tales, which were published in 1812, have one striking feature in common. Almost all of them deal with material ownership. Fairy tales, like Frau Holle, Rumpelstilzchen, Vom Fischer und seiner Frau or Hans im Glück negotiate and critique wealth and its impact on humanity. Materialism also figures as a significant element in literary fairy tales, like Ludwig Tieck's Der blonde Eckbert and Der Runenberg as well as Oscar Wilde's The Selfish Giant and The Devoted Friend. This project pursues the question of how these fairy tales and literary fairy tales represent the thriving materialism of the …

Manifestations Of Corporal Oppression – Embodiments Of Culturalpolitical Resistance: The Representation Of The Body In German Literature Of The Long Nineteenth Century, Hans Niehues

Theses and Dissertations

The “long nineteenth century” was subject to various social, economic, political and cultural changes that were propelled by the Enlightenment and industrialization. This alteration of human life also had a physical dimension. It generated new bodypolitics and conceptions of labor which had a significant impact on the human body. This project is concerned with the changing experience of human physicality in the long nineteenth century and how it is reflected in German literature of the time. I study the trope of the body in Gerhart Hauptmann’s Die Weber, Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck and Franz Kafka’s Die Verwandlung. I reveal how the …

Yiddish And Relation To The German Dialects, Bryan Witmore

Theses and Dissertations

In an attempt to balance the complex, multi-component nature of Yiddish with its more homogenous speech community – Ashekenazic Jews –Yiddishists have proposed definitions for the Yiddish language that cannot be considered linguistic in nature. Instead, Yiddish is often seen as a cultural phenomenon. Closely related to the issue of what Yiddish is, is how Yiddish came about. This paper addresses these two issues by comparing Yiddish to German dialects in an attempt to demonstrate Yiddish’s linguistic proximity with German and also to approach a hypothesis for the origins of Yiddish.

The Grouping Of The Germanic Languages: A Critical Review, Michael-Christopher Todd Highlander

Theses and Dissertations

The literature regarding the grouping of the Germanic languages will be reviewed and a potential solution to the problems of the division of the Germanic language will be proposed. This is however quite a complex task. Most of the Germanic languages share a great number of similarities, and individual languages often have features common to more than one group. Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian, and Old English are examples of languages that make the grouping much more complex than it appears on the surface. The grouping Germanic languages has been debated by linguists since the 19th century, and there are …

La Quête D'Identité À Travers La Quête De L'Autre Dans Le Cinéma De Cédric Klapisch, Jade Marie Mathieu

Theses and Dissertations

Malgré une présence extrêmement populaire dans le cinéma français depuis la sortie de son premier film, Riens du Tout, en 1992, Cédric Klapisch est un cinéaste en général peu étudié. Pourtant, si ses comédies séduisent le public, c'est avant tout par leur côté réaliste, avec lequel de nombreux spectateurs peuvent s'identifier. Dans ses premiers films, Klapisch semble avant tout s'adresser aux jeunes en quête d'eux-mêmes, grâce à L'Auberge Espagnole, qui reste son film le plus célèbre, ou à la comédie Le Péril Jeune. Pourtant, au fil de son évolution, le cinéaste met un point d'honneur à intégrer cet esprit de …

The Conflicted Artist- An Analysis Of The Aesthetics Of German Idealism In E.T.A. Hoffmann's Artist, Leigh Hannah Buches

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will analyze the characteristics of the artist as an individual who attempts to attain an aesthetic Ideal in which he believes he will find fulfillment. In the works of E.T.A. Hoffmann, most notably Das Fräulein von Scuderi and Rat Krespel, the artists René Cardillac and Rat Krespel not only fall short of this ideal, but also limit themselves to the point that they cannot advance further without causing destruction in their own lives. The failure of these artists is not due to their imperfections, but rather to their strict adherence to German Idealist principles, which limit the artist …