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Full-Text Articles in German Language and Literature
A Genealogy Of Victimhood: Empathy And Memory In Recent German Fiction, Catherine E. Mcnally
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 …
Postkoloniale Solidarität: Alltagsleben Von Ddr-Bürgern In Mosambik, 1979-1990, Katrin Bahr
Postkoloniale Solidarität: Alltagsleben Von Ddr-Bürgern In Mosambik, 1979-1990, Katrin Bahr
Doctoral Dissertations
My dissertation examines the everyday life and work of development workers[1] and their families sent by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to Mozambique between 1979 and 1990. I investigate the issues of state and individual solidarity and the interactions of Germans and Mozambicans within the development projects. Since the GDR did not see itself as a colonial power or an heir to Germany's colonial past, it acquitted itself of the charge of being an exploitative imperialist in its foreign policy. From its perspective, it stood side by side in “solidarity” (Solidarität) with its “brother states” (Bruderstaaten) …