German Language and Literature Commons^™

Thuringian Scenes, Utz Rachowski, Michael Ritterson

German Studies Faculty Publications

"Thuringian Scenes" is an ironic name for the twenty-five matter-of-fact statements by a teenage victim of political repression driven to the murder of his tormentor in juvenile detention. The setting is the picturesque Thuringian region of the former East Germany.

Front-Page Jews: Doris Wittner's (1880-1937) Berlin Feuilletons, Kerry Wallach

German Studies Faculty Publications

In ‘Die jüdische Frau und das jüdische Buch’ (The Jewish woman and the Jewish book), an article published 18 March 1931 on the front page of the Jüdisch-liberale Zeitung, Doris Wittner included the following lines that concisely sum up her pioneering ideological and political agendas: ‘Aber bis der endgültige Rechtspruch über des Weibes Ruf und Berufung erfolgt, werden wir jedem Frauengeist, der “strebend sich bemüht”, Anerkennung und Ehrerbietung zollen. […] Insbesondere unsere Glaubensgenossinnen, die gewohnt sind, Menschenlose nur nach Jahrtausenden zu messen.’ With such feuilleton articles, Wittner worked to validate women’s contributions to professional spheres, particularly literature and journalism; to …

Man’S Best Friend? Dogs And Pigs In Early Modern Germany, Alison Stewart

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

When Jacob Seisenegger and Titian painted individual portraits of Emperor Charles V around 1532, a dog replaced such traditional accouterments of imperial power as crown, scepter, and orb.3 Charles placed one hand on the dog’s collar, a gesture indicating his companion’s noble qualities including faithfulness.4 At the same time, another more down-to-earth meaning for the dog had become prominent in the decades before the imperial portraits: the interest in and ability to eat anything in sight. This pig-like ability resulted in dogs, alongside pigs, becoming emblems of indiscriminate and gluttonous eating and drinking during the early sixteenth century when humanists, …

Sexuality And Human Rights (Spring 2014), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

What happens when we think of sexuality, with all of its transgressive and individualistic energies, in terms of rationally established universal human rights? Literary texts that focus on individual cases in the context of larger cultural and social traditions with a particular attention to the power of language can help us sort through some of the complex ideas that emerge from a discussion of sexual rights.

In this class, we will focus on issues such as sadism, masochism, polygamy, prostitution, HIV/AIDS, and transsexuality that bring questions of rights to the forefront.

A photo of this Spring 2014 class was taken …

Sexuality And Textuality (Fall 2014), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

"Sexuality and Textuality" serves as an introduction to gay and lesbian literary studies and queer theory. It looks at questions of sexuality and literature in ancient and early modern texts (from the Hebrew, Greek and English traditions), as well as in modern texts (from German, French, Spanish, Japanese, and English traditions). In addition to literary texts, students will work with a number of cinematic representations of queer sexuality. Besides these primary texts, students will work with important secondary literature about sexuality."

A photo of this Fall 2014 class was taken as part of Professor Bob Tobin's ongoing class photo tradition.

Sophie Discovers Amerika : The Digital Companion, Michelle Stott James, Rob Mcfarland

Resources

Dear Readers:

The following collection of texts has been edited by Alec Down as a companion to our anthology of articles titled Sophie Discovers Amerika: German-Speaking Women Write the New World (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2014). Our anthology of articles takes on a fascinating corpus of literature: in their explorations of the Americas over the past 300 years, German-speaking women have written poetry, novels, screenplays, dramas, erotica, and scientific treatises about many different places in the New World, from Brazil to California, from Canada and Mexico to Argentina.

For obvious reasons, we were not able to include the original primary …

A Question Of Ideology And Realpolitik: Defa Documentaries On China, Qinna Shen

German Faculty Research and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Stolperstein Für Ernst Collin, Peter D. Verheyen

Librarian Publications

Article (in German) provides biographical details about the life of Ernst Collin, son and grandson of Prussian and German court bookbinders, who was one of the leading writers in the field of bookbinding and the history of the book in the period between the World Wars.

On April 1, 2014 two Stolpersteine (Stumbling Blocks) were laid to memorialize Ernst Collin and his wife Else (nee Cronheim) in front of the entrance to their home at Cicerostr 61 in Berlin. Stolpersteine are “monuments created by Gunter Demnig that commemorate victims of the Holocaust. They are small, cobblestone-sized memorials for an individual …

Twenty-Eighth Annual Bibliography 2014 (Contemporary German Literature Collection), Brian Vetruba, Paul Michael Lützeler, Katharina Böhm

WashU Libraries Publications

The 28th bibliography for 560 volumes added to Washington University Libraries' Contemporary German Literature Collection. All published in 2014, these acquisitions include novels, poetry, short story collections, essays, autobiographical works, and literary and cultural periodicals mainly from publishers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. A small number of items published in Italy and Luxembourg were also added. 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 by Washington University's Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures in …

Made In Germany: Integration As Inside Joke In The Ethno-Comedy Of Kaya Yanar And Bülent Ceylan, Kathrin M. Bower

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

As the largest “foreign” population in Germany, Turkish immigrants have been the primary target for concerns about integration and the impact of immigration on German culture. Since the founding of the first Turkish German cabaret in 1985 by Şinasi Dikmen and Muhsin Omurca, the misconceptions and one-sided expectations associated with integration have been played, parodied, and satirized by Turkish German performers. As producers of contemporary ethno-comedy, Kaya Yanar and Bülent Ceylan appeal to mass audiences with a new approach, inverting questions of integration by creating communities through laughter in which audiences are at once in on the joke and its …

Cultural Discourse In Taiwan. Ed. Chin-Chuan Cheng, I-Chun Wang, And Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek., Chin-Chuan Cheng, I-Chun Wang, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

The collected volume Cultural Discourse in Taiwan — edited by Chin-Chuan Cheng, I-Chun Wang, and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and published by National Sun Yat-sen Uiniversity Press in 2009 — is intended as an addition to scholarship in the field of Taiwan Studies. The articles in the volume are in many aspects comparative and the topics discussed are in the context of literary and culture scholarship. At the same time, the volume is interdisciplinary as the articles cover historical perspectives, analyses of texts by Taiwan authors, and cultural discourse as related to Taiwan consciousness, language, and linguistic issues. Copyright release …

Clcweb Best Practices, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Mapping The World, Culture, And Border-Crossing, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek, I-Chun Wang

CLCWeb Library

Authors in the collected volume Mapping the World, Culture, and Border-crossing — edited by Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and I-Chun Wang and published by National Sun Yat-sen University Press in 2010— begin with exploring theoretical premises about the processes and ramifications of cultural crossings to establish a clearly defined theoretical context for the case studies which follow. The case studies range from the creation of identity through patriotic songs in Taiwan under martial law, to nationality and Japanese identity, cultural autonomy in contemporary North America, Asian migration to Latin America, ethnic identity in the writings of Tan, Naipaul, Eliot, and …

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 …

Luise Adelgunde Victorie Gottsched, Jesse C. Wood, Dr. Michelle Scott James

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Johann Christoph Gottsched is an extremely well-known figure in German literary history. He was a prominent author of the enlightenment, and scholars and casual readers of German drama and literature recognize him as one of eighteenth century Germany’s most read authurs. Unfortunately, the light on Johann Gottsched has cast a shadow on his wife, an equally talented author and playwright. Luise Adelgunde Victorie Gottsched wrote many plays in her life and translated many more. Once her husband began compiling the Dictionary of the German Language & Model Grammar, however, she devoted her time to helping him with this monumental task. …

Viennese Feuilleton During The Early 1920s: Description And Analysis Of Bertha Pauli’S Biographical Sketches As Contributions To A Literary Genre1, Ruth Kirsten Seppi, Dr. Robert Mcfarland

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I spent the summer of 2002 scrolling through microfilm, cataloguing everything written by women between 1921 and 1926 in the Neue Freie Presse, one of the most influential Viennese newspapers then. On the front page of the morning edition, a line divided the column titled “Feuilleton” from the rest of the paper. Various writers wrote feuilletons, and the name “Bertha Pauli” appeared regularly. Her sketches of women were intriguing because the subject matter was unique. However, when I looked for more information about her, I could not find much.

Fundamentals Of Modern Belarusian, Christian Marchant, Dr. Michael Kelly

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Republic of Belarus, located in the very heart of Europe, is a relatively unknown country to many westerners. Belarus has an important role in the political future of Europe. Belarus is located in the geographic center of Europe and is a major corridor for energy transport. The country is the only dictatorship remaining in Europe, and with the recent expansion of the European Union, it will now lie directly on its eastern border. Any traveler visiting Belarus would benefit greatly from a knowledge of Belarusian, yet there is a striking absence of any material in English about the Belarusian …

The Sophie Digital Library Of Early Women’S Research: A Blueprint For Mentored Undergraduate Online Research, Blaine Evanson, Dr. Michelle Stott James

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I was first introduced to Sophie in September 2001 in my German Cultural History class. Dr. McFarland announced that there was some grant money left over and that some students who were interested in the research would be invited to work a few hours each week helping prepare texts to be published on the website. I immediately recognized the opportunity to get research experience and knew both how important and beneficial such an opportunity would be, as I was planning on applying the following year for graduate school.

Celtic And Slavic Contact On The Balkan Peninsula: A Linguistic Analysis Of Modern Celtic And Slavic Languages, Daniel Josef Gashler, Walter Whipple

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Celts and Slavs were widespread and important cultural phenomena in Iron-Age Europe. Their influence is still felt in contemporary Europe and the Americas. Many states and peoples speak modern languages derived from proto-Celtic and proto-Slavonic. The purpose of my research is to show that these ancient cultures were once in contact on the Balkan Peninsula. The ultimate goal is to discover the time period, duration, and social nature of this contact through examining linguistic evidence of contact present in modern South Slavic (those Slavic languages spoken on the Balkan Peninsula) and Celtic languages.

Maria Theresia Ledochowska, Jacob Jarvis, Dr. Michelle James

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of my project was to obtain original texts written by a woman named Maria Theresia Ledochowska. She was an Austrian woman, living at the turn of the nineteen century to the twentieth century. She was the foundress of an organization under the sanction of the Catholic church, which embrace the cause of missionary work in Africa, as well as the abolishment of slavery. Like the texts of many early woman authors, her work has largely been ‘left on the self to gather dust.’