German Language and Literature Commons^™

Young Germans In The World: Race, Gender, And Imperialism In Wilhelmine Young Adult Literature, Maureen O. Gallagher

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation shows how popular reading material for young adults was used to craft a new generation of German imperial citizens in the Second Empire (1871-1918). Uniting insights from contemporary postcolonial theory, gender studies, and the global history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany, it shows the intersectional development of German national identity in the children’s and young adult literature of Wilhelmine Germany. As literature written by adults for young people, designed both to entertain and instruct, children’s and young adult literature offers a unique window on how Germany built nation and empire simultaneously during this period. Focusing on texts set …

‚Literarisch Inszenierte Sprachbiographien’ Familiengedächtnis, Liebe Und Stadt In Dimitré Dinevs Engelszungen, Marica Bodrožićs Das Gedächtnis Der Libellen Und Ilma Rakusas Mehr Meer. Erinnerungspassagen, Anja Katharina Seiler

Doctoral Dissertations

Literary characters as well as the realities that surround them can be portrayed and developed through the lense(s) of the languages that these characters speak and experience. This dissertation analyzes such ‘literarily enacted language biographies’ (‘Sprachbiographien’) in the following German texts: Engelszungen by Dimitré Dinev (2003), Das Gedächtnis der Libellen by Marica Bodrožić (2010) and Mehr Meer: Erinnerungspassagen by Ilma Rakusa (2009).

Drawing upon current research that focuses on literary multilingualism as well as language biographies, this dissertation analyzes which literary strategies Dinev, Bodrožić and Rakusa employ in these texts to narratively (re)construct the protagonists’ language biographies. Three common thematic …