The purpose of this thesis is to address the underlying psychological influences on main characters in three German Novellen: Ludwig Tieck’s Der blonde Eckbert, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff’s Die Judenbuche, and Gerhart Hauptmann’s Bahnwärter Thiel. The motivation for my work comes from my deep interest in German as well as German literature. My many years studying in this field paired with a strong interest in the field of psychology have inspired me to write this thesis, which will more specifically address the environmental influences which shape behavior of main characters. While there is an innate, inherited aspect to an individual’s disposition, a large part of a person’s developed personality comes from the natural and social world. Furthermore, I will address the effects of active and passive social and natural environments to show their heavy influences on the development of the protagonists’ personalities. These influences will then be addressed in terms of how they determine the decisions made by the characters as well as their ultimate role in the subsequent actions taken by them.

Literary works contribute to the traditions of culture and unity. Gottfried Keller uses this notion to portray a realistic image of his society in which there is a need for social and political change and progression. Keller's novella Das Fähnlein der Sieben Aufrechten explores the discontinuity between generations in nineteenth-century Switzerland. This investigation explores Keller's presentation of his critique through the portrayal of the existing barriers between generations. It examines how Keller's novella depicts to overcome generational differences through the breaking down of these barriers. In addition, it discusses how a contemporary portrayal adapts and interprets Keller's novella.

This dissertation identifies a small range of German literary and filmic works beginning in 1898 and ending in 2009 in which the embodiment of homelessness demonstrates a reassertion of space. Despite the recent attention paid to space and the sense of permeability and movement that they can suggest in narratives, literary experts have published little on what surely must be one of the most politically and socially-charged of all spaces--uncanny spaces that include individuals so common to us and yet also so varyingly different--that is, homeless spaces. This liminal zone frequently opens up the potential for inner transformation and unforeseen possibility for not only the homeless character but quite possibly for other marginalized groups as well. The work done here looks for homeless instances in modern German artistic expression that suggest productivity, possibility, change and even power in the transient literary and filmic character and how such manifestations relate to Germany's larger social, historical and political contexts. I juxtapose my textual findings on German homelessness with relevant theories like liminality, geocriticism and ecofeminism in order to illustrate how the transgression of boundaries can tell us much about the deconstruction of binaries such as domestic/public, male/female, young/old and the transfer of power; and to demonstrate that a German homeless condition is constructed differently through discrete social and cultural networks and through alternative spaces. I am particularly interested in the lack of analyses concerning homeless women and children and what this suggests about broader trends in gender and age formation with regard to a person's home or lack thereof. My attention to the textual aesthetics and narratological devices that underline homelessness offer additional insight into its poetics and literary significance. In sum, the dissertation at hand contributes to finding value in the homeless population's spatial transgression by actually locating it literally. The following chapters consider homelessness first and foremost as linked to a spatial concept in which the homeless figure's act of moving and transgressing normative boundaries is considered paramount. The German texts and films herein are linked by their relationship with the space in which they evolve.

This dissertation examines aspects of first language attrition (L1= German) in a second language (L2= English) environment. It sheds light on language contact and attrition research and focuses on first generation German immigrants to East Tennessee who were administered a series of tests to ascertain their language attrition to establish extralinguistic factors promoting or inhibiting it. The Study Group consisted of 22 German immigrants to the U.S., both men and women, aged between 27 and 68, who emigrated as late teens or adults and have been here for more than three years. The Control Group consisted of 12 German native speakers in Germany similar to the American informants in education level, age and gender. The informants from both groups were interviewed, given a questionnaire and asked to describe pictures into an audio recorder. They were also given a cloze/fill-in text targeting lexical items and the correct usage of specific L1 grammatical structures such as gender articles, formation of plurals and cases. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data from the Study Group revealed that L1 attrition is not severe, although extralinguistic variables such as age, time since immigration, level of education and amount of L1 contact, affect lexical retrieval and gender assignment, and case and plural marking. Statistical analysis of the cloze test data, picture description and interview indicated significant differences at the p<.05 level both in the lexical and morphological domains between subgroups (organized by variable) in the Study Group versus parallel ones in the Control Group. The qualitative data analysis showed that mostly social domains, such as shopping, daily routine, working settings or leisure activities, were affected by L2 transfer, borrowings or loan shifts. The lexical density test performed on the data revealed group differences between the Study and the Control groups. All the informants spontaneously used English words, phrases and loan translations in their German speech and all are aware of their code-switching, but only 17% view it negatively, while 40% have a neutral attitude towards this practice. The Study Group still highly values German language and culture.

Children's books often show recurring themes. One such theme is friendship. My thesis is a comparatistic work between the German book Die rote Zora und ihre Bande by Kurt Held and the English book Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, as those books have recently been turned into movies recently advertising the theme of friendship. I compare these two books for parallel friendship constellations. This research reveals two types of friendships: cross-sex friendships and same-sex friendships. In both books cross-sex friendships can be seen within a group, 'Zoras Bande' and Wendy and the Lost Boys. I analyze these friendship constellations according to the features found in realistic friendships: companionship, reciprocity, acceptance, cultural background and other similarities. Additionally, both books offer dyads (Zora-Branko, Zlata-Branko, Wendy-Peter) made up of a boy and a girl who stand out from the group. In comparing these dyads I use gender perception as a basis, for it reveals the similarities and differences within those dyads. This research shows that that same-sex groups of friends' share other similarities than the cross-sex friendships. Both authors basically used these group constellations (―die Gymnasiasten‖, the pirates and the Indians) as a narrative device to propel the story. In my research I came to the results that even though both books seem to be similar at core due to the similar friendship constellations, there are nonetheless some differences. I trace these differences back to the different time periods the books were written and published in.

Der Spiegel, the weekly German news magazine, offered extensive coverage of the beginnings of the Iraq War. The magazine blended historical fact and cinematic and historical comparisons to present its decidedly negative view of the conflict. The twofold purpose of this thesis is to illuminate the German attitudes towards the war and the American culture from which it sprang and to explore some of the comparisons and metaphors and the visuals used to communicate this viewpoint. The intent is to examine the gap between the abstract position the magazine expresses and the wider scope of meaning created by the metaphors and visuals. Chapter I concentrates on the magazine's presentation of a perceived history of failures on the part of the American CIA and the manner in which this is combined with allusions to the Rambo image. Through the use of the Rambo figure and other references to film characters (James Bond), the magazine suggests that both U.S. leaders such as George W. Bush and the population at large are victims of their own cinematic myths and vastly overestimate their own capacity to determine the world's fate. Sharply contrasting portraits of two CIA agents who were casualties of the war, Alabama born Michael Spann and German born Helge Philipp Boes, cast the American as an inept blunderer and the German as an idealistic and sensitive defender of Western freedoms. Chapter II concerns the way in which historical comparisons are used to illuminate the conflict. The magazine suggests that the U.S. is an empire in decline. The very heterogeneous selection of examples offered in defense of this argument (e.g. the Roman, British, and Soviet empires) all spring from material that would be familiar to German readers. They offer cursory and arguably superficial analogies to explain today's complex situation. Part II of the chapter explores the use of images from 20th century history, particularly World War II, to explain events. Very often the comparisons seem overblown and particularly inappropriate (e.g. Stalingrad and the Battle of Baghdad; the bombing of Dresden and the bombing of Baghdad). Rhetorically the magazine sometimes distances itself from these questionable analogies by attributing them to others (anonymous "observers"). Such comparisons speak to a specifically German historical sensibility and the deep emotions these events evoke in German readers rather than to the explanatory power of the examples.

The following thesis compares the travelogue Orientalische Briefe by the German author Ida von Hahn-Hahn with the travel journals Mes Journaliers by the French author Isabelle Eberhardt, in the context of how each woman represents herself as a female traveler and author. The comparative study analyzes whether both authors in these texts deal with the issue of breaking out of social and cultural restrictions while traveling to the ‘Orient’. The overall question of my thesis concerns what kind of filters did they use to speak about the ‘cultural other’. The personal backgrounds of Ida von Hahn-Hahn and Isabelle Eberhardt differ in several aspects. The German author Ida von Hahn-Hahn visited the ‘Orient’ in 1843 temporarily and each place on only one occasion whereas the French author Isabelle Eberhardt constantly traveled at the end of the 19th century and at the same time she turned North Africa into her new home. These texts were analyzed in the context of gender discourse analysis, focusing on the discourse of feminity in the 19th century and the discourse of the Western world about the ‘Orient’. The comparison showed similarities and differences in the way both authors present themselves and the ‘Arab woman’ by (de-)constructing pre-existing ‘images’. In my analysis I was able to demonstrate that both authors consciously deal with the western femininity discourse of the 19th century and the Western discourse about the ‘Orient’ by selecting similar motives. Even though their results are quite different, both authors clearly use the ‘Orient’ to express their search of one’s self.

This thesis defines a kind of satire that wasn’t dealt with before in depth: “Pop-Satire”. This form of satire uses the stylistic elements of pop for satiric purposes. That means that Pop-Satire uses phenomena and elements of everyday culture and popular culture in a satiric way. The analysis of “Pop-Satire” begins in “Pop-Literatur,” then proceeds to satire magazines and finally TV shows are analyzed. The analysis in different media also follows a comparative approach, contrasting American and German literary texts, magazines, and finally TV shows in order to highlight similarities and differences in both cultures. The examined works are Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, Christian Kracht’s Faserland, Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre’s Soloalbum, several issues of The Onion and Titanic, as well as Die Harald Schmidt Show and South Park. All works were produced in the 1990s or the 2000s. The thesis challenges the common interpretation of the “New German Pop-Literatur” as being conservative or completely unpolitical. “Pop-Satire” expresses political views of the “Generation Golf” or “Generation X”. This work states that these generations try to leave old categories behind and develop new forms of critical engagement. The “pop-satiric” texts, which were analyzed in this thesis, thus seemed to have several elements in common, namely post-modern elements like multiple-layered irony undermining all moral institutions given by the text, leaving unclear who or what was actually really satirized and moving the moral authority entirely to the recipient. They all share the attempt to protest against dominant cultural ways of thinking in one way or another. In Germany “Pop-Satire” is taking an anti-position to the mentality of the so-called “68 generation”, in the US it is taking an anti-position to political correctness. In both cases some sort of left-liberalism is seen as the main enemy. However, unlike many earlier analyses of these works suggest, they don’t contain an affirmation of conservative ideals in response. They rather share post-modern elements and express a “post-political” attitude.

This thesis is a comparative study of two major works by the German author E.T.A. Hoffmann, Der Sandmann (1818) and Der goldne Topf (1819). Der Sandmann has been analyzed under the filter of psychoanalysis by Freud himself. The goal of this thesis was to analyze whether a psychoanalytical approach can be extended to other works by Hoffmann, showing the same underlying structures even though the content seems to differ widely between the two works at first glance. Der goldne Topf is the text that I chose to compare to Der Sandmann, as both texts tell the story of a student who is caught in a life between reality and fantasy. Freud's analysis of Der Sandmann is almost completely based on the role of the father in the text. The strongest difficulty in showing the same underlying motivation for the two protagonists, Anselmus and Nathanael, to choose fantasy over reality, death over life, is that there is no apparent father figure in Der goldne Topf. However, by interpreting the two texts on the basis of Freud's psychoanalysis, it can be shown that a father figure is indeed present in both texts, even though it might not seem like it at first. In chapter 1 of this thesis, I will give an overview over those parts of Freud's theory, which will be of importance in the analyses of the two selected works by Hoffmann, namely narcissism, the oedipus complex and the analysis of dreams. In chapter 2, I interpret Der Sandmann and in chapter 3, Der goldne Topf is analyzed, applying the same theories as far as possible. Finally, in chapter 4, I compare the two works, and I show that many features of the texts can be matched up on the basis of this theory, including the role of the father. So far, Der goldne Topf has never been analyzed exclusively on the basis of Freud's psychoanalysis before and, therefore, the findings of this thesis provide new insights for research on the two texts and on E.T.A. Hoffmann in general.

This thesis focuses on the writings of Anant Kumar, an Indian author living in Germany and writing in German. It includes an introduction that examines the long history of literary interaction between Germany and the East. Particular attention is then devoted to two of Kumar's recurrent literary themes: "movement" with reference to progress and "the establishment of identity" through the use of language. Not only do Kumar's texts regularly describe being on the move and examine the intricacies of writing in a foreign language, but on a deeper level Kumar's writings also mirror the current state of Germany as it adjusts and adapts to its shifting international surroundings and inhabitants. Previous scholarly research in the field of German minority literature has been somewhat limited in that it has primarily explored the contributions of Turkish authors. In Kumar one recognizes a new wave of "foreign" writers who likewise deserve close attention and analysis.