German Language and Literature Commons^™

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 …

Kafka's German-Jewish Reception As Mirror Of Modernity, Abraham Ariel Rubin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explores the diverse and contradictory ways German-Jewish intellectuals identify what they commonly refer to as Kafka's "Jewish essence." Focusing on the commentaries of Margarete Susman, Hans-Joachim Schoeps, Gershom Scholem, and Max Brod, I claim that Kafka's German-Jewish reception reflects a broader historical dilemma that grew out of the Jewish encounter with modernity: Are Judaism and Jewishness best defined through religious, cultural, national, or ethnic categories? It is precisely this ambiguity that forms the historical backdrop to Kafka's Jewish interpretations. Situating the early phases of Kafka's posthumous reception within the broader context of interwar German-Jewish culture, my dissertation examines …

“Hagene, Der Vil Ungetriuwe Man”? Courtly Rivalry, Loyalty Conflict, And The Figure Of Hagen In The Nibelungenlied, Katherine Devane Brown

Masters Theses

The variety of scholarly approaches to the Middle High German poem Das Nibelungenlied has generated a wide range of conflicting analyses of the character of Hagen, a figure who plays a key role in both the plot and the interpretation of the work. This thesis proposes that viewing Hagen’s relationship with Siegfried in relation to the poem’s central theme of loyalty (triuwe) allows for an analysis that integrates both the positive and negative aspects of Hagen’s character. By examining the depiction of courtly rivalry in four contemporary Middle High German works (Herzog Ernst B, Wolfdietrich A, …

The Mechanics Of Franz Kafka's 'In Der Strafkolonie': A Reading Through Verbal Associations, Charles Beck Cochran

Masters Theses

Theoretically based in a Judaic philosophy and in Kafka’s related mythology, which locates the origins of the world in language, this thesis takes its practical starting point from a relatively little-documented writing method of Kafka that appears inseparably linked to his language mythology. This writing method is one in which Kafka developed the fictional world of his narratives out of language or associations in language. In a unique attempt to document its full impact on the development of a literary text, the thesis seeks to utilize this writing method as a reading method, identifying the verbal associations from which Kafka …

Unmasking Wagner's Grail: Homoeroticism, Androgyny, And Anxiety In Parsifal, Tyler Cole Mitchell

Masters Theses

Most readings of Wagner’s final music drama Parsifal seek to illumine a clandestine presentation of Wagner’s racist doctrine or make sense of a less-shrouded but still ambiguous panegyric to Christianity. However, little scholarly material addresses Wagner’s provocative account of sensuality and homoeroticism in this Bühnenweihfestspiel [Stage Consecration Festival Play]. This thesis explores desire and homosexuality within the drama and considers how and why Wagner masks these themes through the opaque mythos of religion, race, and community. Parsifal was partly informed by Wagner’s own complex neuroses: his sexual anxieties and scandals, amalgam of German philosophies, and confusion concerning Germanness. As filtered …

Dreams, Hallucinations, Moving Statues, And Ekphrasis In Ludwig Tieck's Visual Writings, Joseph D. Rockelmann

Open Access Dissertations

When reading Ludwig Tieck's texts the reader becomes aware that dreams, the unconscious, and art play a key role. This study seeks to posit that Ekphrasis and dream interpretation are similar due to both analyzing a visual image and attempting to translate the visual into the verbal in order to gain a better and more complete understanding of it. G.E. Lessing believed that poetry and the visual arts were equal since each art form has its own strengths and when combined they create a complete art form. The artist focuses on portraying a single moment and its beauty so that …

Theory And Practice Of Translation: An Original Translation Of Regina E. G. Schymiczek’S Die Weide Der Seepferde (The Pasture Of The Seahorses), Bradley J. Davey, Ralph W. Buechler

Honors College Theses

This study outlines the original translation of the recently published Die Weide der Seepferde (2013) from Regina E. G. Schymizcek. We employ known translation techniques by following Hervey’s (2006) suggested gradients of degrees of translation and cultural transposition. While translating the work we discovered a unique aspect of German-English translation which we believe fundamentally adds to knowledge of translation theory.

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.

Brahms The Exotic: The Representation Of Non-European And Ethnic `Others' In The Hafiz/Daumer Settings Of Opus 32, "Romanzen Aus L. Tieck's Magelone," And "Zigunerlieder," Opus 103, Kristina Marie Eckelhoff

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Though scholars, performers, and classical enthusiasts alike recognized and praised the many facets of his compositional craft, Johannes Brahms's treatment of poetry in his Lieder has led to much conflicting assessments. The negative critiques exist partially because the majority of scholars do discuss an interpretation of the poems but seldom explain precisely how Brahms conveys the texts' meanings through his music, leaving the more specific details of text-to-music relationship and what it shows about Brahms's own understanding of the texts unexplored.

Brahms's Lieder have also been criticized because of the supposed lack of exotic qualities in those works that portray …