The label ‘Muslim’ is increasingly being used to exclude migrants and non-ethnic Germans from German society. Although this process began after 2000 when Germany’s citizenship laws changed from jus sanguinis to incorporate an element of jus soli and minority subjects could no longer be ‘othered’ by their passports alone, it intensified shortly afterwards due to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (Spielhaus 2006). Specifically within the German context, the discovery that Mohamed Atta, one of the perpetrators of 9/11, had lived and studied in Hamburg, the foiled bomb plots of 2006 and 2007, and the 2011 Frankfurt Airport shooting all served to buttress this paradigmatic shift from national/ethnic difference to religious. Yet, rather than responding in kind to this identitarian entrenchment, the work of Zafer Şenocak, SAID, Feridun Zaimoglu and Navid Kermani (all minority writers of varying Muslim backgrounds) suggests new ways of thinking about community, identity and religiosity that are fluid, non-foundational and open to an undecided future, which can all be illuminated by Jean-Luc Nancy’s theories of the ‘inoperative community’ (2000 and 1991) and the deconstruction of monotheism (2008).For Nancy, the traditional understanding of community as the fusion of immanent individuals with a common identity must be resisted, as this disguises our actual ontological interrelatedness as ‘singular beings’ who are radically open to one another. This non-foundational approach regards the spacing of interconnected singular beings (their ‘being-in-common’) as the sense of the world, and rejects universalising ideologies that seek to confer sense upon the world from the outside, since these act to close down meaning and divide us up into polarised communities. In Nancy’s terms, whether these ideologies be political or religious, they are both defined by the monotheistic paradigm that operates through a separate ideal world that acts as our world’s guiding principle. This is why Nancy himself rejects the term cosmopolitanism, as its philosophical roots in the metaphysics of the Enlightenment stem from the ideal world of pure Reason. Nevertheless, just as the inoperative community can be understood as a non-foundational route to cosmopolitan solidarities, the deconstruction of monotheism too leaves space for a non-foundational religiosity that resists traditional identities and symbolism. Nancy proposes, borrowing from mysticism, a God not as ‘the “other world” [...], but the other of the world’ (2008, p. 10), that is to say, a religiosity that does not position God as the subject of the world and its organizing principle, but concerns itself instead with glimpsing the divine in the alterity in our world, which results from the very nothingness of its origins. These arguments, that I place at the forefront of post-9/11 debates surrounding cosmopolitanism and religion, can shed light on the literary writing of Şenocak, SAID, Zaimoglu and Kermani, who draw upon the immanentist tradition within Islamic mysticism in order to intimate a non-identitarian religiosity that figures in the alterity of the world and leaves open all possibilities for the future. In this regard, their fiction hints at an affective and worldly spirituality that can be found in love, sex, music and the natural world, which, whilst also serving to dispel stereotypical associations between Islam and sexual conservatism, hints at a post-monotheistic religiosity beyond identity and ideology. Thus, rather than creating a homogenous foundation through dialogue (the approach of the German state and often of interkultureller Germanistik), the non-foundational and cosmopolitan conceptualisations of the self, community and religiosity found in the writing of these authors both undermine the closed identities that are clashing violently across the globe at the start of the twenty-first century and also open up the space for us to imagine new ways of coexisting.

La sémantique des cadres et l’analyse argumentative comptent parmi les approches les plus sollicitées en linguistique du discours. De nombreuses études parues ces dernières années font ainsi appel aux cadres sémantiques pour analyser la dimension lexicale des discours et aux topoï argumentatifs pour analyser leur dimension argumentative. Or, cette simple addition de différentes techniques d’analyse est contradictoire avec les prémisses même de la sémantique des cadres. En effet, plus encore qu’un outil d’analyse sémantique, les cadres sémantiques sont un format de représentation cognitive structurant nos connaissances ainsi que notre perception du monde. Par conséquent, les cadres sémantiques permettent, en principe, de décrire l’intégralité des structures de savoir sous-jacentes aux discours, et ceci à tous les niveaux d’abstraction. L’intégration des dimensions de sens ici analysées passe par l’intégration du concept de relation argumentative dans la méthodologie communément appliquée en analyse des cadres. Les structures argumentatives reposant nécessairement sur des structures conceptuelles analogues, l’outil méthodologique ainsi développé permet une description intégrée de ces différentes dimensions et de leur interaction dans la construction discursive du sens. Dans la partie empirique, il sera ensuite appliqué à l’analyse des discours parlementaires sur le nucléaire civil à l’Assemblée nationale française et au Bundestag allemand sur la période 1946–2012. / Frame semantics and argumentation analysis are among the most popular research methodologies in discourse linguistics. Over the course of the last few years, semantic frames and argumentative topoi have been used in numerous studies to analyse the lexical and argumentative dimension of discourse. However, their simple addition contradicts one of the most basic premises of frame semantics, namely, the idea that frames are not only a tool of semantic analysis but also the universal format of conceptual representation structuring our know ledge of and our interactions with the world that surrounds us. Semantic frames, thus, potentially allow for a description of all knowledge structures underlying discourse at different levels of abstraction. By integrating the concept of argumentative relations in the established methodology of frame analysis, these different dimensions of discursive meaning construction become describable in frame semantic terms. These argumentative relations between discourse elements at the text surface can be seen as mirroring equivalent relations between the constituent elements of cognitive frames at the conceptual level. This approach will be used in the empirical section to analyse the parliamentary discourse on nuclear energy in the French Assemblée nationale and the German Bundestag from 1946 to 2012.

Dans un contexte marqué par l’expérience de l’antisémitisme et du totalitarisme, Broch développe une anthropologie de la responsabilité qui dénonce l’individualisme et l’indifférence qui représente à la fois un danger pour l’humanité et pour la démocratie. Broch décrit la crise du monde moderne, mais au-delà de l’analyse, sa réflexion a avant tout une visée pratique. Il met en évidence les dangers et les folies ordinaires de l’humanité dans un monde dénué de sens, d’indifférence à l’autre et il propose une éthique de l’humanité dans laquelle le dialogue avec l’autre, comme avec soi, avec son passé, est la condition d’une conscience responsable. La responsabilité est au cœur de la conscience humaine et du vivre ensemble qui intègre l’autre. Broch prône, en effet, une politique de la responsabilité, tournée vers l’autre et vers l’avenir. L’autre de l’homme est en lui et conduit à un combat intérieur. Un comportement humain relève à la fois du « talent et devoir de l’homme » puisque l’altérité est le risque de l’humanité, la perte même de son humanité. L’autre de chaque homme constitue dès lors la possibilité de la perte de son humanité et de sa chute dans l’animalité – inscrite dans sa nature. Les notions de dialogue et d’altérité sont pluridimensionnelles : au croisement des questions littéraires, historiques, philosophiques, psychologiques, elles présentent l’ensemble de l’œuvre en articulant ses différents volets dans leur polysémie en échappant à une logique binaire, absente de l’œuvre de Broch pour éclairer le projet éthique et politique de l’auteur. / In a context marked by anti-semitism and totalitarianism, Broch develops an anthropology of responsibility that denounces individualism and indifference, both of which represent a danger for humanity and democracy. Broch depicts the crisis of the modern world. However, beyond analysis, his reflections have above all a practical aim. He reveals the common place dangers and follies of humanity in a world deprived of sense and of indifference to others. He proposes a code of ethics in which dialogue with others, as with oneself and one's past, is indispensable for a responsible conscience. Responsibility is at the heart of the human conscience and of the capacity to live together with others. Broch advocates, in fact, an active responsibility that is turned towards others and towards the future. Animal nature is embodied within oneself and leads an internal battle. Human behavior rises out of the “talents and duties of man” because alterity is the risk of humanity, that one could lose one's humanity. The sensitivity towards others, present in every man, therefore constitutes the possibility of losing one's humanity and of descending into animality. This is inscribed in the nature of man. The notions of dialogue and alterity are multidisciplinary : they are at the intersection of literary, historical, philosophical, and psychological questions. They present the whole work of Broch by articulating polysemously different aspects, escaping a binary logic and elucidating his moral and political project.

The manuscript Berlin, SBB-PK, mgf 863 was written in about 1430 to 1435 and contains more than 600 short narrative texts in German prose (with some Latin insertions). Among them is the collection of the ›Alemannische Vitaspatrum‹ as well as an additional, extensive and multifarious exempla corpus, which mostly contains translations from well-known Latin collections such as – for example and most prominently – Caesarius' of Heisterbach ›Dialogus miraculorum‹. Because of the specific composition of the corpus and its large extent, mgf 863 builds an excellent basis for the investigation of exempla, a text type which has not received much attention in German studies. The manuscript was probably produced in Strasbourg where it belonged to the library of the nuns from the convent of St Mary Magdalen. It contains a large quantity of textual material with close links to Strasbourg in terms of content or history of transmission. My primary interest is in the texts in the manuscript, in their contents and interdependencies, as well as in their history and their contextualization in, for example, groups of manuscripts, exempla tradition and religious practice. The project aims at a contribution to exempla research as well as to literary and religious life in Strasbourg in the late Middle Ages. My approach comes primarily from literary studies, but also uses palaeographical, textualcritical, and historical methods. The thesis combines case studies of the transmission of individual exempla or groups of exempla with general research into the history of texts (›Textgeschichte‹) and the history of transmission (›Überlieferungsgeschichte‹) of German prose exempla. A repertory in the appendix provides an overview of the manuscript's content. It helps to orientate within the study; furthermore, with over 600 entries, it provides a tool for the identification of German exempla.

Throughout history, there have been playful prefaces to literature (or in classical oratory, before display pieces). But German examples written by authors around 1800 to their own works, together with contemporary, self-authored prefaces to speculative philosophy, constitute a peculiarly paradoxical text type. Once literature was conceived as an autonomous domain rather than as a branch of general learning; as a popular book market took hold; and once systematic philosophy competed with literature’s broad acclaim as well as intellectual independence, the preface became not only a pragmatic, but also a creative and conceptual problem. Hence the preface became complicated as a form, in a broadly Romantic tradition of thought in which every act of genuine reflection was understood to expose epistemological contradiction. After my general, theoretical Preface and my comparative, historical Introduction, I focus on three preface paradoxes and three case studies of remarkably complex textuality: on Goethe, Jean Paul and Hegel. Most notable among their prefatory texts are the prefaces to Werther (1774), to a fictive second edition of Quintus Fixlein (1797) and to Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807). This trajectory is a story that begins with literary creativity and moves towards greater philosophical intricacy. The significance of my study is threefold. First and foremost, considering prefaces in this period of German literature and philosophy complements and augments the negative, subjective Early German Romantic idea of irony, Romantic textual fragmentation, as well as Jean Paul’s and Hegel’s literary and philosophically informed attempts to render both concepts and their manifestation on the page more positive and objective. Fragments are conventionally conceived as additive pieces, fortifying or undermining works. This conception can hold true for prefaces, including those by Goethe, Jean Paul and Hegel. At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, though, a number of writers of fragments argued that their works should be understood as wholes. Precisely some prefaces by Goethe, Jean Paul and Hegel can be read so paradoxically: as unifying, wholesome (in a Sentimental sense) and systematic fragments respectively. Second and third, I show the wider importance of the German preface at the turn of the nineteenth century. Authors around 1800 not only displayed, but discovered and debated a prefatory paradoxicality that we encounter in post-Romantic, post-Structuralist and post-modern literature, theory and philosophy, too. Moreover, I demonstrate the ways in which prefaces by particularly Jean Paul and Hegel influenced especially Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Derrida.

Jusqu'à présent, il est supposé que le roman d'adolescent (Adoleszensroman) est un genre qui traite de la formation de l'identité des jeunes au cours de leur adolescence. La présente thèse propose de définir plus précisément le roman d'adolescent en fonction de deux nouvelles caractéristiques: celle du «sort de l'initiative» (Schicksal der Initiative) et celle du «jugement historique» (historisches Urteil). A ces caractéristiques du roman d'adolescent se juxtapose en outre le thème de la formation identitaire. L'étude se concentre sur les romans publiés dans le monde germanophone depuis les années 90. La thèse adopte une approche historique (literarhistorisch) et herméneutique. La théorie sociologique du genre littéraire contribue à expliquer le tournant et la conjoncture historique des catégories littéraires. L'étude tente d'expliquer que le récit du «travail sur l'identité» par un jeune adolescent est un thème auquel un deuxième s'oppose, à savoir que l'adolescent devient conscient de son «initiation» dans le cadre de sa recherche identitaire et confronte ses plus ou moins «naïves» attentes avec la réalité historique d'une société. Le corpus de romans étudié forme le genre du roman d'adolescent (Adoleszensroman) qui se laisse définir comme le «roman d'adolescent du réalisme post-moderne». Il s'inscrit dans un contexte littéraire et historique dominant à partir de 1995 l'espace germanophone, mais aussi anglophone, et relève d'une certaine «sobriété» (Nüchternheit) morale et politique. / Until now, it is assumed that the novel of adolescence (Adoleszensroman) is a genre that deals with the formation of identity during adolescence. This thesis proposes a more precise definition for the novel of adolescence based on two new features: the "fate of the initiative" (Schicksal der Initiative) and the "historical judgment" (historisches Urteil). These two characteristics of the novel of adolescence are complemented by the already known characteristic of the narration of formation of adolescent identity. The study focuses on novels published in Germany and Austria since the 90s. The thesis adopts a hermeneutic and historical approach (hermeneutisch und literarhistorisch). Sociological theory of literary forms helps to explain the change and the historical conditions of literary genres. The study attempts to explain that the narration of the adolescent "formation of identity" in the novel of adolescence is a theme which complements a second theme: the adolescent takes the "initiative" within the context of his search for identity and confronts his more or less "naive" expectationswith the historical reality of a society. The corpus of novels studied within the thesis form a genre of novels of adolescence (Adoleszensroman-Genre) which can be defined as "novels of adolescence of postmodern realism". It is part of the dominant literary and historical atmosphere which began ca. 1995 and can be characterized by a certain moral and political "sobriety" (Nüchternheit).

La recherche porte sur l’écriture abondante de Hundertwasser et sa place dans le positionnement de cet acteur du renouveau artistique. On lui reconnaît une « œuvre-vie » singulière, puisque, visant à bouleverser la société, il a élargi son domaine, passant de la peinture à l’écologie, via l’architecture. Partant du contexte géohistorique, de l’arrière-plan pictural du début du XXème siècle, des théories des scientifiques et des « prophètes » allemands du XXème siècle ainsi que de l’émergence des mouvements écologistes, il s’agit d’étudier les nombreux poésies, récits, discours, manifestes, interventions dans les médias et commentaires, où Hundertwasser expose et développe ses convictions. L’objectif est de montrer que la dynamique créative de l’artiste s’enracine dans ses écrits. / The research focuses on the abundant writing of Hundertwasser and its place in the positioning of this actor of artistic renewal. He is recognized for his singular "work-life", since, aiming to upset society, he has expanded his field, from painting to ecology, via architecture. Starting from the geohistorical context, from the pictorial background of the beginning of the 20th century, the theories of 20th-century German scientists and "prophets" and the emergence of environmental movements, it is a question of studying the many poems, stories, speeches, manifestos, interventions in the media and comments, where Hundertwasser exposes and develops his convictions. The aim is to show that the creative dynamic of the artist is rooted in his writings.

Ce travail vise à scruter quatre lectures de Kafka dans la philosophie allemande. Pourquoi ces philosophes ont-ils rencontré et interprété Kafka ? La première hypothèse est d’ordre biographique : leurs découvertes de Kafka sont marquées par le sentiment d’une proximité personnelle à l’égard ce qu’il donne à lire. Kafka est l’écrivain d’un certain moment, où le rapport à la langue ne va pas de soi, où l’expérience de l’exil prédomine, et où les mutations historiques rendent les contours de la subjectivité flous. La seconde hypothèse est philosophique : leurs lectures se fondent sur la nécessité de philosopher autrement, afin d’intégrer ces mutations. On ne peut plus penser selon les catégories du sens, de l’identité, de la conscience - mais il faut accepter que le sujet découvre en lui un étranger. Le défi que Kafka dresse devant ces philosophes serait donc de pouvoir « penser la métamorphose ». Celle du sujet, mais aussi celle que subit la philosophie au contact de la littérature. Et enfin, celle que Kafka invente dans l’ensemble de son œuvre, dont nous montrons qu’elle est irriguée par le « devenir-animal ». / We are focusing on studying four readings of Kafka in german philosophy. Why have these philosophers met and interpreted Kafka ? Our first hypothesis is a biographical one : their reading of Kafka’s books are influenced by the feeling of a proximity between his life and their experiences. Kafka represents a crisis : in his work, the language is not innate anymore, experiencing exile is prevailing, the historical mutations affect the concept of subjectivity. The second hypothesis concerns the philosophy itself : because of these mutations, the traditional metaphysical categories of sense or consiousness are obsolete ideas. The subject is becoming a stranger. Kafka is challenging philosophers to « think out the metamorphosis », the subject’s metamorphosis, the philosophy’s metamorphosis, and finally, the one Kafka invented, which is everpresent in his works, the notion of a « becoming-animal ».

My D.Phil, dissertation sheds new light on German literary decadence around 1900, its universal concepts, plurality of discourses and poetic transformations. The heuristic value of my dissertation is a refined differentiation of Dekadenz which reconstructs the literary history of the concept and for the first time proposes specific poetic constellations. In chapter 1, decadence is reviewed with its rich research heritage and introduced as a decisive concept and discourse of aesthetic modernism. Although much has been written on decadence, the concept is clearly in need of scholarly reconsideration. I argue that decadence is not only a vague epochal construct and an ensemble of motifs, but also encompasses discourses, universal concepts and a versatile literary style. In view of the stylistic eclecticism around 1900, I argue that decadence is a dynamic and malleable concept which can be combined with other aesthetic styles, movements and philosophical contexts depending on the specific author. Chapter 2 contextualizes Dekadenz from its etymology and central discourses to its universal concepts. Etymologically derived from the Latin verb de-cadere decadence signifies a downward movement and a figure of fragmentation. It evokes cultural and political decline especially that of the Roman Empire (décadence romaine) and undergoes various aesthetic transformations (1857-1894). After touching upon the precursors Baudelaire (1857), Bourget (1883) and Bahr (1889-1894), I dwell on Nietzsche to demonstrate the philosophically complex German double evaluation of decadence. I derive three universal concepts from Nietzsche (health vs. sickness, endings vs. new beginnings, fragmentation vs. wholeness) which are crucial to my literary analysis. My comprehensive literary analysis centers on three specific poetic constellations of decadence between late realism and aesthetic modernism. Chapter 3 illuminates Mann's spätrealistische Dekadenz (1894-1924) with his (Nietzschean) double evaluations. Transformations of decadence are shown in his early novellas, Buddenbrooks, Der Tod in Venedig and Der Zauberberg. Chapter 4 illustrates Hofmannsthal's ästhetizistische Dekadenz (1891-1902) in his early essays, his prose fragment Age of Innocence and Das Märchen der 672. Nacht. A significant transformation of decadence is illuminated in Ein Brief (1902), where Nietzschean decadence is concentrated and tentatively overturned. In chapter 5, Rilke's modernistische Dekadenz (1898-1910) is shown from his early fragment Ewald Tragy to his only novel Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge. His novel attempts a poetic 'revaluation of all values' and culminates in the emergence of a genuinely modernist decadence.

Cette thèse de doctorat se donne pour objet d’analyser la notion de réalité dans l’oeuvre d’Ilse Aichinger, née en 1921 à Vienne. Cette recherche s’attache à la réflexion théorique de l’auteure sur les relations entre littérature et réalité, ainsi qu’aux différents aspects textuels de l’écriture de cette réalité. Il s’agit également de replacer la production d’Aichinger dans le contexte de la littérature d’après 1945, au sein de laquelle la réflexion sur la transmission du réel et sur la fonction cognitive de l’écrivain occupe une place essentielle. La première partie de ce travail traite de la place de la fiction dans l’oeuvre et la pensée d’Ilse Aichinger, à travers les notions de fictivité et fictionalité. Cette analyse est complétée par une réflexion sur le statut de la fiction dans le contexte de la production et de la réception des textes littéraires de cette auteure. Le savoir constitue la seconde approche de ce travail sur la notion de réalité. Nous caractérisons dans cette partie le statut du savoir au fil de l’oeuvre d’Aichinger, pour ensuite nous intéresser à ses mises en oeuvre spécifiques, telles que le savoir subjectif ou l’intuition. Pour finir, cette recherche se consacre à l’étude de deux articulations de la réalité plus spécifiques à la littérature. Il s’agit d’une part de traiter la notion d’artificialité textuelle,ce qui aboutit à une réflexion sur l’authenticité et le statut de l’imaginaire chez cette auteure. Une étude de l’évolution des structures narratives dans l’oeuvre d’Aichinger vient conclure cette thèse. / This doctoral research analyzes the statute of the reality notion within Ilse Aichinger’s literature. It focuses on her theoretical cogitation about the connection between literature and reality and on the different textual aspects of her writing about reality. We also tried to set Aichinger’s production back in the context of literature after 1945, in which cogitation about transmission of reality and about the cognitive function of writers plays a great part.The approach of the first part is the importance of fiction through the concepts of fictivity and fictionality. This analysis is completed by a cogitation about fiction in the context of literature production and reception. Knowledge is the second approach of this research about reality. In this part, we first characterize the status of knowledge in Aichinger’s literature and secondly describe some particular examples which are characteristic for Aichinger’s writing, as subjective knowledge or intuition. We finally analyze two different ways of writing about reality in literature. The study on the artificiality of the literature text leads to a reflection about the meaning of authenticity and imagination by this author. We conclude this research by analyzing the changing of narrative structures in Ilse Aichinger’s literature.