German Language and Literature Commons^™

Sophie: A Digital Library Of Early German Women’S Writing, Megan S. Morris, Dr. Robert Mcfarland

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of my research was to help with the development of the Sophie Project. It was conceived by members of the Germanic and Slavic Languages Department who had been confronted by the difficulties of the lack of usable German-language texts written by early women authors. Finding the texts of eighteenth and nineteenth century writing by Germanlanguage women authors seemed to be difficult enough, but finding texts in modern print that could be used in the classroom was even more difficult. The Sophie Project aims to ease this difficulty. As self described by its home page, it is a “digital …

Louise Gottsched: Digital Library Research From 1771 German- Language Women’S Texts., Samuel C. Lindsey, Michelle Scott, Dr. Robert Mcfarland

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Scholars have failed to systematically observe and record old German facsimiles of German women’s literature for a variety of reasons. First, many of the records have remained unpublished. Second, it is expensive to get hold of these texts due to their rare and fragile condition. Third, it is difficult to read the Old German type and handwriting. Johann Christoph Gottsched was one of the most important dramatic theorists of Enlightenment-era Germany. One of his greatest students and influences was his very gifted and intelligent wife, Louise Adelgunde Victorie Kulmus. While some of her dramatic and theoretical works have been published, …

The Voice Behind The Crown: Gender And Power In The Literary Legacy Of Maria Theresia, Elizabeth Mcfarland, Dr. Michelle Scott James

Journal of Undergraduate Research

As one of the most powerful and charismatic leaders of Enlightenment-era Europe, Maria Theresia von Habsburg is well-known for her widespread political and social reforms and for her skillful political maneuvering which centralized the disintegrating Austrian Empire and led to a golden age of education, commerce, art, and science. Despite Maria Theresia’s influential position vis-à-vis European philosophy, political theory and aesthetics, this amazing woman is known only through second-hand histories of the Habsburgs.

The Effects Of Soviet And Post-Soviet Political Climates On The Transposition Of A.S. Pushkin’S Belkin Stories From Literature To Film, Geoffrey Griffard, Dr. Raisa Solovyova

Journal of Undergraduate Research

First of all, I must say that it was a great honor and privilege to receive the ORCA award and the opportunity to set off on my own academic journey. I was able to work with two of my greatest loves—film and Russia. In the journey, however, I also had to deal with the darker sides of their characters—those of bureaucracy and escapist entertainment.

Computer-Animated Agent In The Virtual Room As A Learning And Teaching Tool, Fabian Fulda, Dr. Randall Lund

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Many people have difficulty learning foreign languages, especially when it comes to pronouncing words and phrases exactly.¹ A 3-dimesional animated agent, in this case a computer animation which models the motions of important instruments of speech, can be an effective tool for teaching and learning how to pronounce desired words and phrases exactly.

Polish Folk Art Since The Fall Of Communism, William Badger, Walter Whipple

Journal of Undergraduate Research

During the Second World War, Poland’s occupiers ravaged whole collections of her folk art, alternatively destroying them or carting them off as wartime spoils. Then, in Communist times, the folk arts experienced an unexpected renaissance. The state fostered folk art through numerous incentive programs including pensions for the artists and periodic nationwide folk carving contests, which boasted cash prizes as well as prestige.

Dorothea Schlegel (1764-1839): Uncovering An Unheard Voice In The German Romantic Literary World, Amanda Rose Bingham, Dr. Cindy Brewer

Journal of Undergraduate Research

While women have received focused attention in the recent decades, the early romantic German writer, Dorothea Mendelssohn Veit Schlegel, has not had proportionate consideration from literary critics. Modern readers of German literature are likely to be most familiar with the canonical texts such as Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, primarily written by men, whereas these texts may have received less attention when published. Texts by many women writers of that same time period are considered by many scholars today to be trivial literature although they had much wider readership. The texts resonated with the general public and can provide greater cultural insights.

Los Papeles Del Infierno, Enrique Buenaventura, Carlos Gardeazábal Bravo

Global Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Enrique Buenaventura (1925-2003) hizo parte de la generación de artistas que conectó al país con la modernidad estética mediante un lenguaje propio, vinculando su trabajo con el de los grandes creadores de las vanguardias teatrales. Buenaventura impulsó la renovación del teatro colombiano junto a otros dramaturgos como Santiago García y Carlos José Reyes. Una de las mejores muestras de la producción de ese periodo es Los papeles del infierno, un ciclo de piezas en un acto compuesto originalmente por La maestra, La tortura, La autopsia, La audiencia, La requisa, El menú y El entierro -junto a La orgía, la cual …

Gedanken An Robert Schopflocher, Kerstin Steitz

World Languages and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Engendering Childhood: The Autobiographical Novel In Eighteenth-Century German Literature, Eckhard Rolz

School of American and Global Studies Faculty Publications with a Focus on Modern Languages and Global Studies

During the latter part of the 18th century two German authors in particular showed great interest in the topic of childhood and how childhood experiences shaped their lives. Heinrich Jung-Stilling finished his autobiographical novel Heinrich Stillings Childhood and Youth in 1777, and Karl Philipp Moritz authored Anton Reiserbetween 1785-1790. The purpose of these narratives was not spectacular action or passionate love stories but pure observation of a human being—with particular attention to small details. The texts examined present, often contrary to their stated aims, a persistent picture of a childhood in which family constellations produce children who lack a fixed …

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.’