German Language and Literature Commons^™

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 …

Music And The Mind, Amanda K. Densmoor

Student Publications

How does music affect a work of literature? What does it reveal about the psychological state of the characters?

Waking Dreams: Modernist Intoxications And The Poetics Of Altered States, Jason Ciaccio

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Intoxication as a poetic principle is often identified with the romantic imagination. The literature of the intoxicated reverie is commonly thought of as synonymous with works such as Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” DeQuincey’s accounts of numerous nightmares and reveries, a number of Keats’ odes, Novalis’ hymns, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s stories, and Poe’s oneiric Gothic tales. Each of these, in part through their opiation or the incorporation of various other draughts, evokes a realm of dreams and visions of various sorts that are commonly associated with romantic poetic practices. The ecstatic trance, the sense of passing into another domain that is …

"Part Of That Force That Always Wills The Evil And Always Produces The Good" On A Devilish Incoherence, Peter Baumann

Sophia and Philosophia

When Mephisto was asked by Faust, "Well now, who are you then?" (“Nun gut, wer bist Du denn?”), he gave the well-known answer, "Part of that force that always wills the evil and always produces the good" (“Ein Teil von jener Kraft, die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft”: Goethe, Faust, 1334-1336). This answer raises some important questions which in turn lead to interesting answers. Let us start by looking at the content of Mephisto's utterance.

Neidhart: Selected Songs From The Riedegg Manuscript: Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Mgf 1062, Kathryn Starkey, Edith Wenzel

TEAMS Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions

The medieval German poet called Neidhart is one of the most important poets of his time. Set in the village among peasant maidens and their boorish male counterparts, Neidhart's satirical songs stand in marked contrast to courtly love song and enrich our understanding of medieval literary culture. This book presents for the first time annotated English translations of a substantial collection of songs attributed to this prolific poet. Its source is the thirteenth-century Riedegg manuscript, the oldest extensive collection of songs attributed to Neidhart. This book presents a representative survey of the songs in order to make this material accessible …

What Is Contemporary Art?, Irina A. Hinkel

Open Access Theses

The topic of the thesis is “What is contemporary art?”. While exploring contemporary art, its conceptions, characteristics and remarkable events related to it, I concentrate mainly on research of contemporary art as universal, particularly on such phenomena as multicultural art, postdramatic theater, audience interaction, as well as challenged aesthetics. This thesis also considers postmodern art, since contemporary art in its current form departed from postmodern art. I rely on and address the German language prose and drama, as well as visual arts. The work of Elfriede Jelinek, John von Düffel, Peter Handke, Kristof Magnusson, and multicultural artists Vladimir Kaminer, Feridun …

Theatres Of Reality, Fiction, And Temporality: Vegard Vinge And Ida Müller’S Ibsen-Saga (2006 - 2015), Andrew L. Friedman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the influence of modernist aesthetics and ideologies on contemporary, European and U.S. experimental theatre. I argue that modernist and contemporary experimental theatres offer competing notions of reality, fiction, and temporality, which I interrogate through Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller’s Ibsen-Saga. I illuminate this tension by reading current modes of performance against the Saga’s productions and work practices, as well as their aesthetic and ideological foundation in three modernist sources: the artificiality of Ibsen’s realism, the utopianism and totality of Richard Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk, and the temporal provocations of the historical avant-gardes. I contend that the …

“Über Die Liebe”: Love And Sex According To Eduard Von Keyserling, Caroline Urvater

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation is built around an annotated translation of Eduard von Keyserling’s 1907 essay, “Über die Liebe.” The author’s citations are often made from memory and consequently, are not always entirely accurate. This fact is discussed and inaccuracies are corrected.

Chapter One begins with an overview of the historical background of the Keyserling family. It includes biographical material that describes the author’s life and experiences, and introduces his illustrious forbears. It also points to the writers and philosophers who influenced the author’s thinking.

Chapter Two, a review of the literature, discusses some of the dissertations, articles and books that were …

Blitz Aus Heiterm Himmel: Monstrous Femininity And The Illusion Of Gender Equality In The Gdr, Sarah Bonoff

Lawrence University Honors Projects

The anthology Blitz aus heiterm Himmel was published in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1975. It includes short stories written by both men and women in which the protagonist undergoes a miraculous gender change of sorts. While the various authors take different approaches to the concept of gender, there are themes that tie the stories together. In the stories that scholars have analyzed, their analyses generally focus on either the portrayal of men and the role of masculinity, or the discourse of women in science. I instead chose to focus on and analyze three of these short stories (“Selbstversuch: …

A Theory Of Associations: An Explanation And Applications To Wagner's Das Rheingold, Parker T. Gordon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis posits an interdisciplinary theory of associations. Within inter- and intra-textual texts, there exists a presence that points toward an originating source, which audience members may or may not consciously recognize. This presence accumulates associations from surrounding materials through abstract and subtle references or through direct quotations. These associations, once examined in relation to one another in the context of the narrative, may help readers discover additional insights and uncover new information about a text. My theory draws upon literary scholarship primarily grounded in intertextual theory and adaptation theory. Inspired by the intertextual insertion of pre-existing music in film …

The Roma And Sinti In Germany: Orientalism And Exclusion From German Historical Narratives (Romantisiert, Kriminalisiert, Und Abgewertet: Orientalismus Und Narrative Der Roma Und Sinti In Deutschland), Kimberly A. Longfellow

Celebration

The Roma and Sinti represent presence and absence in German culture. Although there has been a population of Roma and Sinti in Germany for centuries, they are often perceived by the German majority population as distinctly "eastern" and, as such, non-German. The perceptions of Roma by the German majority population mimic Orientalist assumptions, where the Roma are romanticized, criminalized, and generally devalued in comparison to Eurocentric narratives. Through an analysis of the Roma presence in German history, literature, and current events, one can see that the experience of the Roma in Germany is largely structured by the perceptions and assumptions …

Inhabiting The Discourses Of Belonging; Franz Kafka And Yoko Tawada, Aviv Hilbig-Bokaer

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

Inhabiting the Discourses of Belonging; Franz Kafka and Yoko Tawada examines the role of language in creating the identity of the foreigner in German prose. Writing at opposite ends of the 20^th century, Kafka and Tawada serve as harbingers for a broader sense of alienation that comes with writing as an Other. Using lenses provided by Spivak, Butler, Said and Deluze, this essay surveys the broader cultural concepts and theoretical implications of the notion of the metaphorical subaltern that can be created in prose, and the particularities presented by the German language in creating and articulating this identity. This …

Shifting Understandings Of Lesbianism In Imperial And Weimar Germany, Meghan C. Paradis

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

This paper seeks to understand how, and why, understandings of lesbianism shifted in Germany over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through close readings of both popular cultural productions and medical and psychological texts produced within the context of Imperial and Weimar Germany, this paper explores the changing nature of understandings of homosexuality in women, arguing that over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the dominant conceptualization of lesbianism transformed from an understanding of lesbians that was rooted in biology and viewed lesbians as physically masculine “gender inverts”, to one that was …

Reconsidering The Emergence Of The Gay Novel In English And German, James P. Wilper

Purdue University Press Books

In Reconsidering the Emergence of the Gay Novel in English and German, James P. Wilper examines a key moment in the development of the modern gay novel by analyzing four novels by German, British, and American writers. Wilper studies how the texts are influenced by and respond and react to four schools of thought regarding male homosexuality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first is legal codes criminalizing sex acts between men and the religious doctrine that informs them. The second is the ancient Greek erotic philosophy, in which a revival of interest took place in the …

Kind Girls, Evil Sisters, And Wise Women: Coded Gender Discourse In Literary Fairy Tales By German Women In The 19th Century, Julie Koehler

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation is an analysis of fairy tales by German women in late eighteenth and nineteenth century. Although hundreds of women published fairy tales in Germany in the nineteenth century, they remain absent from current scholarship. Recent work by scholars Shawn Jarvis and Jeannine Blackwell have brought these fairy tales back into print, but there remains very little critical work on them. This dissertation takes the focus of retellings of the Kind and Unkind Girls tale type, also known as “Frau Holle.” At first glance, the women’s variants depict modest, passive, and hardworking Kind Girls who are very similar to …

Die Infragestellung Des Deutschen Literaturkanons, Des Deutschen Kinos Und Der Deutschen Identität In Den Erzählungen „Dem Hof Im Spiegel“ Und Auf Der Anderen Seite Durch Eine Transnationale Ästhetik, Laurianne M. Posch

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Orientalistische Darstellungen Als Gesellschaftskritik: Thomas Mann, Demokratie, Und Die Deutsche Moderne, Ian D. Mackay

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Thirtieth Annual Bibliography 2016 (Contemporary German Literature Collection), Brian Vetruba, Paul Michael Lützeler

WashU Libraries Publications

The 30th bibliography for 660 volumes added to Washington University Libraries' Contemporary German Literature Collection. All published in 2016, these acquisitions include novels, poetry, short story collections, 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 by Washington University's Department of Germanic …

Wanderer, Kommst Du Nach Pécs, Edith Borchardt

German Publications

No abstract provided.

Bedecke Deinen Himmel, Zeus! Goethe And The Quest For Individual Sovereignty, Anthony D. Magestro

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

This project examines Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774) and his early poetry and their influence on the German literary movement of Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress, 1770-1785). As a reaction to the rise of rationalism, Goethe’s texts embody the value of raw, subjective emotion versus logical, objective understanding of the preceding Enlightenment period. Through his literature, Goethe challenges the status quo of absolute rule of church and state as well as humanity’s relationship with God: are we bound to the laws of the Almighty’s design or are …

Expressionist Art And Drama Before, During, And After The Weimar Republic, Shane Michael Kennedy

Dissertations and Theses

Expressionism was the major literary and art form in Germany beginning in the early 20th century. It flourished before and during World War I and continued to be the dominant art for of the Early Weimar Republic. By 1924, Neue Sachlichkeit replaced Expressionism as the dominant art form in Germany. Many Expressionists claimed they were never truly apart of Expressionism. However, in the periodization and canonization many of these young artists are labeled as Expressionist.

This thesis examines the periodization and canonization of Expression in art, drama, and film and proves that Expressionism began much earlier than scholars believe and …

Luther And The Jews: An Exposition Directed To Christians On Martin Luther's Anti-Semitism, Defense, And Legacy, Megan Wilson

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis is an analysis of the historical relations between reformer Martin Luther and the Jewish people. Its primary purpose is to defend Luther’s image as a prominent figure in Christian history while considering the possibility of his anti-Semitic views. This thesis focuses particularly on a number of Luther’s written works in order to achieve this goal, with a secondary concentration on historical and incidental defenses that can be used to exonerate him. This thesis also serves to inform contemporary Christians of the controversy surrounding these views and the result of his legacy in more recent centuries.

Notes On How To Rework A Ph.D. Dissertation For Publication As A Book, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

The Karl J. R. Arndt Collection, Karl J. R. Arndt

Finding Aids

Karl J. R. Arndt (1903-1991) was a Professor of German at Clark University from 1950 to 1991. He served as Chief of the Religious Affairs Division of the U.S. Military Government for Germany in Stuttgart from 1945 to 1949. During this time he collected his "War, Political, Historical and Exile Literature Library" of some 490 books and pamphlets. The collection provides an insight into how the Germans saw their time politically and historically during the years preceding Hitler, during the Third Reich and during the occupation years.

Twenty-Ninth Annual Bibliography 2015 (Contemporary German Literature Collection), Brian Vetruba, Paul Michael Lützeler, Katharina Böhm

WashU Libraries Publications

The 29th bibliography for 585 volumes added to Washington University Libraries' Contemporary German Literature Collection located on level B of Olin Library. All published in 2015, these acquisitions include novels, poetry, short story collections, essays, autobiographical works, and literary and cultural periodicals from publishers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.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 cooperation with the University Libraries.

Gretchen’S Soliloquy “Ach Neige, Du Schmerzenreiche” From Goethe’S Faust: A Vocal Performance Analysis And Set Of Performance Guidelines For Various Solo Voice Settings, Savanna Sokolnicki

Theses and Dissertations--Music

The great novelist and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) arguably made his most significant contribution to the artistic world with his literary masterpiece Faust I. Goethe’s love of music and melody is evident throughout all of Faust, particularly in the expressive poetry of the character of Gretchen, whose meaningful words gave inspiration to a variety of musical manifestations, especially in German Lied.

This document serves as a performance guide for vocalists. It provides vital information on the setting and arrangement of the poetry within the musical settings, the background and significance of the composer and …

Honoring The Victims: How The Change In Ethics Ruined Science In The Third Reich And What To Do With The Remaining Medical Data, Kathleen M. Mitchell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper analyzes both sides of the debate over using the Nazi medical data and brings forth one possible compromise. While using the data can provide the scientific community information that can be beneficial for society—and thus salvaging some good out of the evil—are the survivors’ sentiments on the subject truly being heard? The idea that the victims are once again being abused by using the information without their consent is not a matter to be taken lightly. On the other hand, if the data is valuable, it can be detrimental to scientific experimentation to deny access or destroy the …

The Beautiful Soul In The Confessional: Crafting The Moral Self In Friederike Helene Unger's Confessions Of A Beautiful Soul Written By Herself, Michelle A. Reyes

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This article examines how Unger’s Confessions of a Beautiful Soul written by Herself creates a new model of moral acquisition. This model finds its place between religious morality and moral performance, calling for the novel’s protagonist, Mirabella, to cultivate a moral self through the spiritual practice of reading. Such a model still revolves around moral transformation, but it is no longer of her soul, but rather her thoughts; that is, Mirabella must first collect various depictions of morality from a wide scope of literature, then choose from these which ones she deems as of greatest importance to her, namely virginity …

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 …

East-West Cultural Mediation In The Works Of Galsan Tschinag, Richard Hacken

Faculty Publications

This presentation applies the theory and tools of postcolonial theory to the literary techniques and output of the Mongolian writer, Galsan Tschinag, who publishes most of his works in German. It focuses on literary mediation between Asia and Europe, especially Germany, as found in his poetry and prose. In secondary literature Galsan Tschinag has been called the corrective “polar reverse of an Orientalist;” an apologist for round stones in a culture of angular concrete; a wanderer between worlds; an ambassador for Tuva; a linguistic nomad; the poet as shaman; a phenomenon on German talk shows; the Tuvan Moses; a cultural …