Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Paul Celan And The Processes Of Survival In Post-Shoah Jewish Writing, Ari Savage

Theses

The following is a study of the poetry of Paul Celan as a representation of psychological and social processes present in the written works of Shoah survivors. It begins with an analysis of the place of writing in Jewish culture, then identifies three primary processes which operate in sequence: alienation, individuation, and integration. By examining Paul Celan’s highly personal and autobiographical texts in the context of his life experience as a Shoah survivor it is possible to discern the social and psychological forces at work which compel survivors to express their traumas in written form, and to gain a better …

Die Unfassbare Sprache, Molly Hornick

Senior Theses and Projects

The Lineage of Language: The Minds of Hamann, Benjamin, and Heidegger

Language, an essential part of human existence, is in its ubiquity almost impossible to define. This aspect of life, nearly absurd to confine into a simple definition, is crucial to the human understanding of being itself. The question of the origin of language began in the late 18th century with the German-language philosopher, Johann Georg Hamann, who criticized the Enlightenment for its reliance on reason alone. The notion that human existence, and therefore language can be grasped into a mere rational approach was similarly rejected by language philosopher Walter …

Of Method: A Propaedeutic To Coleridge's Prose Works, Michael A. Granger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Coleridge’s prose works, published and unpublished, demonstrate a thorough and critical testing and understanding of British and German philosophical responses to skepticism and the ability of philosophy to progress by maintaining a double-minded and conflicted suture of both the practical or imaginative eclipse of knowledge and theorizing the hypothetical epistemological absolute that explains the relativity of facticity. Any inadequate method of inquiry stagnates within attempting a purely figurative or purely demonstrative solution to skepticism. Thus, the appropriate way to approach Coleridge’s understanding of philosophy is the struggle to make inquiry adequate though progression. Coleridge’s methodological impulse originates explicitly in a …

Heilbronn Im Jahr 1945: Warum Hier, Alexander Keuerleber

Student Research Submissions

Die Stadt Heilbronn, im Südwesten Deutschlands, war und ist ein wichtiger Kreuzungspunkt im südlichen deutschen Raum. Dort kreuzen sich wichtige Handelswege: per Schiff, per Auto, per Zug und zu Fuß. Infolge der Handelswege wurde Heilbronn schnell eine einflussreiche Stadt und Drehpunkt im Land. Im Zweiten Weltkrieg führte das zu Konflikt und Bombardierungen. Wie viele andere deutsche Großstädte kam es 1944 in Heilbronn zu verheerenden Bombenangriffen und dann im April 1945 zu einem neuntägigen Kampf. Dieser Kampf war wichtig, weil er einer der brutalsten Kämpfe der Amerikaner in Deutschland war, und weil es auch der allerletzte große Kampfeinsatz für amerikanische Truppen …

Historical Accuracy In German Lyric Diction: A Study In Era-Appropriate Pronunciation Of German In Classical Literature, Annie S. Chapman

Recital Papers

In the performance of classical music, great pains are taken to retain the original practices produced by each era. A string quartet might tune their strings differently to produce an authentic Baroque sound, or a soprano might study to find a correct form of ornamentation for a Classical-era aria. As scholars' knowledge of musicology deepens, musicians have greater opportunity to improve authenticity in performance and give modem audiences a glimpse into the past. It is the intent of this culminating paper to take this idea of historical accuracy and apply it to a field in which it has been neglected: …

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 …

Aus Deutschland Nach Westen: Eine Analyse Der Westen-Abenteuerliteratur Von Friedrich Gerstäcker, Ruby Hoffman

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the construction of masculinity and its role in the construction of the image of America in two books by Friedrich Gerstäcker (Flußpiraten des Mississipi and Streif- und Jagdzüge durch die Vereinigten Staaten Nord-Amerikas). The portrayal of men in these books reflects a largely traditional and hegemonic masculinity, but it contains a number of nuances that complicate that model. With particular attention to the interaction of this masculinity and nature in the American backwoods, a particular image of a successful, real, American man becomes visible. This thesis analyzes how Gerstäcker’s outsider (German)—but immersed—perspective produces a familiar …

A Genealogy Of Victimhood: Empathy And Memory In Recent German Fiction, Catherine E. Mcnally

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation addresses literary representations of empathy and altruism in Jenny Erpenbeck’s 2015 novel Gehen, Ging, Gegangen and Bodo Kirchhoff’s 2016 novel Widerfahrnis. These novels demonstrate continuities and discontinuities between German literature of the postwar, reunification and contemporary contexts.Analyzing expressions of empathy by Erpenbeck and Kirchhoff’s protagonists, I locate them in historical and literary contexts, the roots of which can be traced to the first generation of postwar German literature (1945-1968), particularly Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass. In both Grass and Böll’s early postwar fiction, German experiences of the war and its aftermath are foregrounded, and focus is placed …

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 …

Language Transfer Between English And German: A Phonetics-Based Study Of Interactions Between Speakers' Native And Second-Language Vowel Systems, Emelia Bensonmeyer

Scripps Senior Theses

The present study addresses language contact processes in which the phonetic systems of the languages that bilinguals speak interact. Specifically, language transfer with respect to English and German was examined, focusing on native German speakers (L1) who learned English as a second language (L2). It employed as its central method an analysis of their vowel systems, both language-specifically and cross-linguistically. Extralinguistic variables were also considered, ranging from speakers’ age of acquisition (AOA) of English to their length of residence in an English-speaking environment to their consideration of home. Results indicated statistically significant differences between speakers’ production of /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ …

Das Deutsche Lied: Eine Songwriting-Tradition Für Das Volk, Ethan Watson

Honors Theses

This thesis focuses on the analysis of two prominent German Lieder. Through the works of Goethe, Schubert, and Wolf Biermann, I have attempted to show the progression of the songwriting genre and how it has transitioned from universally-understood emotion to specific political protest through the intimate monologues contained in song.

Barbarossapokalypse, Amanda M. Glass

Honors Projects

Barbarossapokalypse is a short animated film that explores the mindset behind “sleeping king” legends. Frederick Barbarossa was a Holy Roman Emperor who was particularly popular with his public. After his death, people longed for a return to the “good old days” of his reign. He became a cultural icon for the German people; a symbol of hope, of a better future.

While in general, the future often looks grim, hope is not something humanity can afford to lose. What matters is where that hope is drawn from. Symbols like Barbarossa are dangerous, as they can lead to people always looking …

Art Of The Weimar Republic And The Premonitions Of Fascism, Leshan Xiao

CMC Senior Theses

Founded in 1918 following the carnage of World War One until the Nazi takeover of 1933, the Weimar Republic is widely renowned as a bastion of freedom and democracy that existed only briefly between the reigns of two authoritarian regimes. The Weimar period witnessed an unprecedented prosperity of art and culture, with tremendous advancements in the fields of literature, the visual arts, and film. However, the remnants of the old Empire persisted within the new Republic, and new fascist factions rose to prominence within German society. Artists that lived through the era, both liberal and conservative, observed and provided their …

Beginning In Heidegger, Nietzsche, And Mallarmé, Austen H. Hinkley

Senior Projects Spring 2016

This project is focused on the theme of beginning. The first chapter is a reading of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time as an attempt at beginning a new ontology that understands itself as a construct that must be, to quote Heidegger, “critical against itself.” The second chapter is a reading of three of Nietzsche's metaphors as a way of both examining and enacting a beginning. The third chapter is concerned with Mallarmé’s revolution of poetic form in Un coup de Dés, which enacts a new beginning on which the poem reflects through its images and form. Through an understanding of …

Insurgent Spectacles: Spring Awakening, Woyzeck, Mother Courage And The ‘New’ Broadway Spectacle, Noah Porter Soltau

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the political and ideological work done by what I call "insurgent spectacles," which comprised a historical episode of American theater occurring primarily from 2006 to 2008. The spectacles had liberatory and redemptive potential not in spite of their identity as mass culture, but indeed precisely because of it. They functioned in a contested political and ideological space within the schema of mass culture. The insurgent spectacle is so-called because it superficially resembled other bits of Broadway fluff with its glitziness, over-production, and ham-fistedness that allow the audience to be intellectually disengaged. During this episode, it persisted (often …

The Wreck Of Titanic: A Comedy, Christopher Giuggio Shea

Senior Projects Spring 2014

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Eurotech Students In Germany: Preparation, Experience And Outcome, Daisy A. Michaels

Master's Theses

Higher education study abroad programs for U.S. students are on the rise. A variety of undergraduate disciplines are being coupled with international components to bring U.S. students to a higher level of global awareness to meet the demands of today’s economy. The University of Connecticut’s Eurotech Program is an example of this trend. Its students earn degrees in both German and engineering in a five year program. They are given practical training through study and internships in Germany under the auspices of the Baden-Württemberg Exchange Program. One of the Eurotech Program’s major goals is to enhance job opportunities for its …

Pushing The "Scented Envelope": Elisa Von Der Recke At The Cultural Crossroads, Carrie L. Cox

Theses and Dissertations

Pushing the "Scented Envelope": Elisa von der Recke at the Cultural Crossroads Carrie L. Cox Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, BYU Master of Arts This thesis serves as an introduction to the 5-volume electronic edition of the collected works of the influential German-language author Elisa von der Recke to be published by the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages at Brigham Young University. The compilation presents a modern edition of Recke's published writings and letters in German, with an extensive critical apparatus in English, including introductions to the edition, author and individual sections, biographical information, a complete bibliography of …

Representation And Deconstruction Of Turkish German Stereotypes Through Gegen Die Wand And Kebab Connections, Charli Celine Kerns

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Trümmerliteratur: The Aesthetics Of Destruction Ruins, Ruination, And Ruined Language In The Works Of Böll Grass, And Celan, Kurt R. Buhanan

Theses and Dissertations

Trümmerliteratur - literally “rubble-literature" - is a brand of literature that became important after the Second World War, led by Heinrich Böll, whom I term the apologist of German Trümmerliteratur. Typically included under this classification are the writers who began to produce in the years immediately following the war, and in whose work the rubble and ruins of the landscape figure prominently. Böll provided the programmatic framework for the movement in his “Bekenntnis zur Trümmerliteratur" but his relationship to another type of ruin writing presents a point of friction when he appears to be working in a romantic mode to …

Irgendwo Muss Man Doch Einmal Hingehoeren': Irmgard Keun As Heiress To The Flaneur.", Matthew D. Embley

Theses and Dissertations

Flanerie is the art of taking a walk, leisurely observing the movements and spaces of the city. By writing about cityscapes, urban realms, and the condition of society, flaneurs are able to describe the uniqueness of the metropolis and give life to the modern city—creating a photograph of an urban setting. In the early nineteenth century, and even today, flaneur literature has been ultimately dominated by men who have documented their cultural and aesthetic interactions with the city. During these times, unwritten rules have often excluded the female from participating in parts of the urban society. Today, these unwritten rules …

Some Of Goethe's Youthful Figures Viewed Today : Einige Von Goethes Jugendlichen Gestalen Heute Betrachtet, Ruth H. Landrum

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Wahrend des Weltkriegen was die allgemeine Gesinnung unneres Landes gegen die Deutschen so feindlich, dass wir sogar nichts mit ihrer Musik, Literature, und "Zultur" zu tun haben wollten. Aber nun herrscht der Friele schon seit einiger Zeit. Unser Unwille ist vorgei; wir sing wieder duldsam und freundschaftlich gegen sie gesinnt und taten also wohl sie ohne Vorurteil zu betrachten. Un die Deutschen der Gegenwart besser zu verstehen, wollen wir Goethe so recht verstehen lernen, weil er noch heute ihr Denken stark beeinfluest.

During the world war the general attitude of our country against the Germans was so hostile that we …