The following Master’s Thesis aims to describe the social and intellectual state of Austrian and German society after World War II through the perspective of two internationally renowned modern playwrights - Peter Turrini and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. As part of the Postmodern movement, the two authors share the view that “modern man” is in a state of self-alienation and strive, through exaggeration and an emphasis on travesty, to bring the intellectually and socially impoverished condition of modern society on stage. Both plays analyze the discrepancy between Europe’s democratic spirit in the mid-sixties and the mentality of everyday individuals (“Katzelmacher”; 1968), as well as the institutional-representatives nearly forty years later (“Ich liebe dieses Land”; 2001), who continue to consider foreigners as a threat and devalue those individuals as outsiders and marginal figures.

Literature by authors from the GDR has often been read with a focus on its sociopolitical context ‒ before and after the fall of the Wall. This rather one-dimensional approach has resulted in a lack of engagement with the more complex issues raised in many of those texts. Frequently, they address broader theoretical questions and delve into universal themes, which tend to be overlooked or sidelined. This PhD thesis concentrates on a selection of post-Wende texts by Monika Maron and Jenny Erpenbeck, two authors from the former East Germany. Starting from the premise that both authors' oeuvres serve on one level as critical investigations of the GDR and the significant aftermath of its collapse, I aim to demonstrate that these narratives have more to offer. My analysis brings to light the complexity of the examined works by addressing what it regards as their central themes: the exploration of questions around the topics of Heimat and memory. This research project draws attention to the texts' representation of underlying issues such as dislocation and fragmentation, and in doing so it examines how both authors depict concerns that go beyond the GDR and its demise. A key task is the analysis of the ways in which Monika Maron and Jenny Erpenbeck portray the symptoms of a wider ‘modern conditionʼ, a state characterized by instability and uncertainty. Based on the concept of ambivalence, introduced to the debates about modernity by Zygmunt Bauman in the early 1990s, this original comparative approach explores the failure and the ultimate collapse of the socialist utopia as a paradigm for the breakdown of the ‘grand narrativesʼ in modern, Western pluralist societies. Thus, this PhD thesis illuminates how both authors position themselves in relation to competing discourses about the GDR, and it simultaneously alerts the reader to the texts' inherent complexity by revealing their strong ties to topical issues regarding the much-debated term of modernity. Ultimately, I claim that Maron and Erpenbeck set out to investigate the impact of larger processes of fragmentation, and try to establish the possible role of and a ‘placeʼ for the individual that is exposed to historical forces and the rapid changes of spatio-temporal parameters within modernity, of which the GDR experience forms one part.

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The thesis analyses the topic of the interpersonal relations in the first three novels written by a contemporary German writer Thomas Lang. The thesis aims to introduce his work in the Czech environment as he is not very well known even among the Czech Germanists. At the same time, the thesis introduces certain trends in the contemporary German literature. One of its most prominent themes is the problem of the interpersonal relations which provides an inspiration for many authors including Lang. In his work, he deals with a dysfunctional communication caused by the modern life style. Lang tells stories of men and women of his generation, who are very much attached to their careers, live through ups and downs or who live on the margins of society. The characters suffer in their life roles which are dictated by the social conventions and they try to find some other ways of living their lives. The characters' problems are mainly seen in a defective communication within their families. This is the case of Lang's first novel Than (2002) where the main protagonist decides not to speak in order to avoid the contact with other people and to be an unnoticed observer of the events. His intention fails as his dumbness attracts attention and he gets into unexpected conflicts. Lang' s second novel Am Seil...

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TITLE: Picture of illness and death in contemporary German literature for children and youth (The analysis and didactic adaptation in the context of selected works of world literature) SUMMARY:Presented thesis deals with literary reflections on illness and death in contemporary German literature for children and youth. The theoretical part explains the basic concepts such as illness, death, child and developmental stages of childhood, literature and literature for children and youth. These themes are then further processed. In more detail is the work devoted to analyzing literary works with that theme. The works are examined in terms of literary aesthetic and thematic components, composition and language components. In the practical part, the work focuses on the students perception of researched topic and work with specific literary texts. The final section compares the aspects of reception on illness and death of students of Czech and Austrian schools at the age of 14 to 19 years based on questionnaires filled in by those students which were used as the main research material. KEYWORDS: illness, death, contemporary German literature for children and youth, Jutta Treiber, Sigrid Zeevaert, Petr Pohl, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, intercultural aspects

Cette thèse consacrée à Die Ausgewanderten de W.G. Sebald (1992) procède à une étude microscopique et détaillée de l’écriture dans sa singularité, une radiographie du texte et de sa matérialité hétérogène. L’étude montre la structure binaire sous-jacente de l’ouvrage, la complexité des stratégies stylistiques et narratives, la manière dont le signifiant se soumet à l’impératif catégorique du signifié mais aussi la prééminence de signes tangentiels et obliques ; elle s’intéresse également à la singularité de l’enchaînement des discours rapportés et met en lumière le geste mélancolique du narrateur sébaldien. Il apparaît que l’intertextualité revêt une spécificité particulière puisque la polyphonie sébaldienne est orientée différemment de celle envisagée par M. Bakhtine. La deuxième partie s’attache à étudier la critique de la civilisation (Kulturkritik) dans une œuvre fortement marquée par la constellation idéologique de l’École de Francfort et plus précisément par « La Dialectique de la Raison » de Horkheimer et d’Adorno. La prose allemande muséale de l’auteur, qui rappelle celle d’Adalbert Stifter mais aussi, par ses emboîtements narratifs, emprunte la virtuosité bernhardienne, est incrustée de « moments » de bonheur ou de beauté qui mettent en évidence et soulignent l’inouï du monde concentrationnaire. Les thématiques de l’exil et du pays natal sont au centre des intérêts de la troisième partie. L’étude s’attache à montrer que l’ouvrage réécrit en quelque sorte une littérature de l’exil que l’auteur, professeur de littérature de langue allemande, a eu l’occasion de fréquenter mais aussi d’analyser. C’est un « chœur d’exilés » qui se fait entendre dans Die Ausgewanderten et qui manifeste la tragédie de l’homme moderne. / This thesis on The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald (1992) focuses on a microscopic and detailed study of Sebald’s writing in its specificity, a radiography of the text and of its heterogeneous materiality. The study pays attention to the binary structure of the work, the complexity ot the stylistic and narrative strategies, the way the signifier obeys the categorical imperative of the signified and the primacy of tangential and oblique signs ; it also deals with the singular linking of reported speech and underlines the melancholic gesture of the narrator. It appears that intertextuality owns a particuliar specificity because the polyphony it creates differs from the Bakhtinian model. The second part deals with cultural criticism (Kulturkritik) which owes a lot to the ideological model of the Frankfurt School and to Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment in particular. The museum-like German prose of the author, which recalls that of Adalbert Stifter, but also, thanks to narrative nesting, emulates the virtuosity of Thomas Bernhard, is embellished with happy or beautiful “moments” which underline and emphasize the unprecedentedness of the extermination camps. The third part will set out the themes of exile and the native country. The study underlines that The Emigrants reconstructs a literature of exile that the author, a professor of German literature, has perused, studied and analysed. The chorus of emigrants that can be heard imparts what the tragedy of modern man amounts to. / Diese Dissertation über Die Ausgewanderten von W.G. Sebald (1992) führt eine mikroskopische Untersuchung der Schreibweise, ein “Röntgenbild” des Textes und dessen heterogener Materialität durch. Die Studie legt die binäre Struktur des Werks an den Tag, beschreibt die Vielschichtigkeit der stilistischen und narrativen Strategien, die Unterordnung des Signifikanten unter den kategorischen Imperativ des Signifikaten, aber auch den Vorrang des tangentialen und indirekten Zeichens. Sie kommentiert ebenfalls die sonderbare Einschachtelung der direkten Rede und den melancholischen Gestus des Erzählers, und arbeitet die eigenartige Dimension der Intertextualität im Rahmen der vom Bachtinschen Modell stark abweichenden sebaldischen Polyphonie heraus. Der zweite Teil geht auf die kulturkritische Dimension ein, die durch die ideologische Konstellation der Frankfurter Schule, beziehungsweise durch die Dialektik der Aufklärung von Horkheimer und Adorno tief geprägt ist. Die museale deutsche Prosa des Schriftstellers, die an diejenige Adalbert Stifters, infolge der narrativen Einschachtelungen aber auch an die Virtuosität Thomas Bernhards erinnert, ist mit Glücks- oder Schönheitsmomenten verziert, die das Unerhörte der Shoah umso mehr unterstreichen. Im dritten Teil steht die Thematik von Exil und Heimat im Mittelpunkt des Interesses. Es wird deutlich, dass W.G. Sebald eine Literatur des Exils umschreibt, mit der er Umgang und geistigen Austausch gepflegt hat, die er erforscht und kommentiert hat. Hier ist ein “Chor von Ausgewanderten” zu hören, der die Tragödie des modernen Menschen zum Ausdruck bringt