Browsing by Subject "German"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Dance on the Page, Poetry on Stage: Encounters between Modernist German Poetry and Dance
    (2019-09) Tripp, Meagan
    This dissertation examines themes of identity, kinesthetic empathy, movement and rhythm, materiality, and corporeality in texts and performances, past and contemporary, that stage encounters between German-language modernist lyric poetry and dance. While prominent traditions of scholarship look at the intermediality of art forms as a defining feature of modernism, dance has received significantly less scholarly attention than other art forms. This is particularly remarkable given the fact that many modernist authors were drawn to dance and that the writings of early modern dancers repeatedly called for the establishment of dance as an art form level with music and poetry. Dance of the early 20th century and the field of dance studies offer literary and cultural studies a unique system of knowledge production, by which I mean practices that contribute to the development and circulation of new concepts and methods. By taking an interdisciplinary approach to examining instances of dance in modernist German poetry, this project aims to provide insight into why the dancer was such an attractive subject for poets as well as to highlight the gaps and tensions between dancing and writing. With the trope of dance in lyric poetry as a point of departure, I bring well-known dance poems and less commonly discussed poems of the period into dialog with the theories of poetics and theories of modern dance that emerged during the early part of the 20th century. In an effort to further work against a text/performance dichotomy, the final chapter undertakes a study of contemporary choreographic works of the past few decades that stage a modernist poetic text. Combining analyses and close readings of poetry, poetic theories, archival materials, performances, and theoretical conversations that intersect literary and dance studies, the project seeks to broaden the ways in which people view and discuss the role of dance in and for modernist German poetry as well as poetry within contemporary dance performances. An interdisciplinary look at the modernist dance-poetry intersection demonstrates that many questions and concepts of interest to modernists receive renewed or continued attention today.
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    Der poetische Realismus bei Otto Ludwig
    (1918-06) Kuhlmann, Otto Fred
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    Epic Elements in Middle High German Lyric
    (1910) Koenig, Alfred Edmund
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    Goethes Ideale Frauengestalt
    (1919-02) Bertram, M. H.
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    Ideas of Freethinking Protestant Pastors in Modern German Novels
    (1919-06) Huchthausen, John L. A.
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    The Intentional Curation of Short Verse Narratives in a Compilation Manuscript for a Medieval Audience
    (2022-07) Groepper, Emily
    This dissertation investigates a compilation manuscript of short verse texts from the fourteenth century, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (ÖNB), Cod. 2885. It examines the organizational structures in order to demonstrate that it is a purposefully curated collection. By analyzing individual stories and clusters of texts according to their stylistic, thematic, and linguistic features, I demonstrate that the collection is carefully constructed with a specific audience in mind. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the codex that contributes to a more detailed description of its audience. This includes an analysis of the manuscript in comparison to similar contemporary manuscripts, and it considers the inclusion of paratextual features and narrative structures. Additional focus is given to the characters within the narratives as well as the emotions expressed by those characters. This points toward how various emotions were valued or devalued and helps to build a more robust profile of the intended audience. These multiple, overlapping layers demonstrate that the manuscript’s audience consisted of both men and women with a relatively high social standing. They most likely lived in an urban environment and were familiar with biblical, Latin, and medieval German literatures. Though they may not have been part of a formal, royal court, they still aspired to hold on to the lofty ideals propagated by courtly literature. While this is a case study, it has the potential to be mapped onto other compilation manuscripts. This approach contributes to the reconstruction of the medieval reception of short verse narratives and a closer understanding of how, why, and for whom such manuscripts were produced.
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    The right to be multilingual: How two trilingual students construct their linguistic legitimacy in a German classroom
    (2014-06) Ennser-Kananen, Johanna Ennse
    In order to maintain multiple languages within the US school system, multilingual students need to feel legitimate as speakers of their languages. While prior research has investigated the "right to speak" of individual second language (L2) learners (Norton, 2000) as well as the overt and covert policies around "legitimate languages" at schools (Heller, 2006), no research exists that examines the negotiation of linguistic legitimacy of multilingual students. The purpose of this case study is to fill this gap. It describes the legitimacy discourses in one German foreign language (FL) classroom in a US high school and how two trilingual students, "Jana" and "Karina", construct their legitimacy as speakers of Latvian (L1), English (L2), and German (L3) in this environment. Overall, this study thus aims to promote multilingualism in education.Qualitative methods were employed to gain insights into the legitimacy discourses and negotiations in one German classroom. More precisely, the data were gathered through participant observation of classes and breaks (about 145 hours), semi-structured interviews with two focal students, 30 peers, and the German teacher, and video recordings of 38 lessons. These data were transcribed and analyzed according to principles of thematic analysis. Findings illustrate the focal students' struggle to see themselves as legitimate L1 users because of the societal racialization of monolingualism, which associates their whiteness with speaking only English. In addition, while their peers performed German in the classroom for entertainment in order to balance different investments, this option was not available for Jana and Karina, who derived most of their legitimacy as German speakers from orienting towards the German teacher's discourses, that is by focusing on task fulfillment and correctness. Rare occasion of resistance against these discourses are described and analyzed. Further, Jana's and Karina's legitimacy as English speakers appeared to be unstable despite having been exited from the ESL (English as second language) program. Insights from this study expand Van Leeuwen's (2008) model of legitimation by conceptualizing legitimation as interactive and dynamic process. They further inform practitioners and teacher educators by describing how classroom discourses of correctness and an overemphasis on production and entertainment can inhibit multilingual legitimacy.
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    Towards a multiculturalism for the 21st century : German and Scandinavian literary perspectives, 1990-2005.
    (2008-08) Karlsson, Elisabeth Helena
    This dissertation is a reading of literary texts from 1990-2005 by four authors of immigrant extraction in Germany and Scandinavia. I ask how these authors engage in both a reality of multiculturalism and a discourse of multiculturalism. The project is organized around the tension in these texts between negative experiences of ethnic and global disadvantage and positive representations of minority identity and cultural mixture. I argue that the four writers-Feridun Zaimoglu (Germany), Bertrand Besigye (Norway), Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Sweden) and Emine Sevgi Özdamar (Germany)-combine in their texts a serious critique of the dominant culture with a playful, critical, often provocative outlook on identity. In light of recent theoretical critiques of the terms "multiculturalism" and "minority", I defend the value of minority perspectives and sensibilities to contemporary German and Scandinavian society, identity and culture. I start my discussion with an analysis of the Kanak identities in two of the Turkish-German Feridun Zaimoglu's texts. I discuss how Zaimoglu's appropriation of the derogatory word for foreigner in Germany serves a critique of a dominant German culture reluctant to embrace its new ethnic minorities. Then I analyze the Ugandan-Norwegian Bertrand Besigye's prose poetry. I show how cultural and racial difference can be used playfully to insert difference into a national identity too narrowly and homogenously defined. In Jonas Hassen Khemiri's texts, I discuss how Khemiri criticizes the ethnic definitions assigned to immigrants by the Swedish majority culture and how he pushes for a more open, cosmopolitan national identity. Engaging with the Turkish-German Emine Sevgi Özdamar's texts, lastly, I examine how the author's conciliatory and humorous attitude toward the reality of multiculturalism potentially fosters cross-cultural identification and more open and generous identities. In the end, I show that a multiculturalism worth defending is one that acknowledges persisting ethnic and racial inequalities and prejudices while it at the same time expands the horizons of our cultural, national and individual identities.