This dissertation offers a re-interpretation of Novalis' Fichte Studien. I argue that several recent scholarly readings of this text unnecessarily exclude "organicism," or a panentheistic notion of the Absolute, in favor of "nonclosure," or the endless, because impossibly completed search for knowledge of the Absolute. My reading instead shows that, in his earliest philosophical text, Novalis makes the case for a Kantian discursive consciousness that can know itself, on Jacobian grounds, to be the byproduct (or accident) of a self-conditioning being or organism, and even more specifically a byproduct of God's panentheistic organism, at the same time that Novalis does not allow the possibility of discursive immediacy with that absolute standpoint; the epistemic consequence is that, while empirical science can proceed in the good faith that it makes valid reference to being, nonetheless it can never know its description of being to be final or complete. I call this position "organic nonclosure," and argue that Novalis holds it consistently throughout his very brief philosophical career. The keys to understanding Novalis' reconciliation of organicism and nonclosure are contextual and textual. Contextually, Novalis appreciates the inadvertent organicism in Jacobi's metacritique of Kant and also applies Jacobi's organicist metacritique to Fichte as well, with the result that Novalis' position in the Fichte Studien bears much resemblance to Herder's panentheistic ontology and modest epistemology. Textually, Novalis engages in a polysemy in the fragments of his Fichte Studien that performs the dependence of the sphere of empirical consciousness on a higher, intellectually intuitive being (a being that could only be a divinely creative intellection), and, simultaneously, the impossibility of presenting that identity in discursive terms. In other words, for Novalis, human knowledge of the existence of the organicist Absolute is enabled by, but also limited to, the merely contingent, empirical, and private experience of the dependence of the human subjective standpoint on an objectivity simply given to it.

<p>Abstract</p><p>Exploring two main lines of inquiry, this dissertation investigates the style and aesthetic of the music of Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) and its references to composers such as Brahms, Liszt, Schumann, and Beethoven. First, rather than simply accepting the image of Joachim as the great nineteenth-century violinist and collaborator of Johannes Brahms who advocated the "canonization of the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms," I ask who Joachim was in light of his own compositions and literary circle. Especially significant was his "soul mate" Gisela von Arnim (daughter of Bettine von Arnim), from the second generation of two major literary "institutions" - the Grimm brothers and Arnim/Brentano, the Des Knaben Wunderhorn-collectors. Joachim and Gisela's literary role-play throws light on her function as his inspiration and muse. Second, each chapter investigates Joachim's works as "psychological music," the term he himself applied. Given that psychology was not yet an established academic discipline in the 1850s, Joachim's use of "psychological" is all the more intriguing. </p><p>Sources including archival letters, manuscripts, and Joachim's published correspondence, as well as his compositions from (or begun) in the 1850s, reveal that "psychological music" was both a compositional approach and an aesthetic. Extensively using ciphers, anagrams, song quotations, literary titles and allusions, and occasionally melodramatic elements, Joachim's compositional aesthetic conflicted with his "absolute" aesthetic as a violinist in the later 19th century. </p><p>Joachim's relatively strict use of form, his idiosyncratic use of "motivic transformation," and his expressive studies of literary/historical characters in his overtures separated him from Liszt. Furthermore, while Joachim navigated harmony in ways criticized by Louis Spohr and contemporary critics as "ear-tearing harshness" (1852), the composer maintained an almost consistently symmetrical ("four-square") syntax. Joachim's "psychological" aesthetic was typified by idiosyncratic, individual stylistic features like "trapped motives," captured by (sometimes obsessive) repetition, and he applied ciphers much more conspicuously than did Schumann. In the end, Joachim's "psychological music" displays three overarching features: first, extramusical programs from autobiographical and/or literary contexts; second, the implicit or explicit dedication of the works to Gisela von Arnim; and third, supporting correspondence marking the work as an "outlet" for Joachim's self-perceived, psychological inner turmoil.</p> / Dissertation

<p>The period following the Second World War in Austria represents a unique historical situation. On the one hand, strongly conservative and restaurative trends in politics, publications, media, and social life dominated the country - at the same time, a radically new avant-garde movement emerged. What today is collectively referred to as the Wiener Gruppe was, in the 1950s, a circle of young writers, connected by friendship and collaboration with the filmmakers Kurt Kren and Peter Kubelka. These artists created experimental works that pre-empt the concept of performance art established at a theoretical level two decades later, and anticipate the re-conceptualization of the role of the reader theorized by Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault in the 1960s. </p><p>In this dissertation, I outline the socio-political situation in Austria during the years following World War Two in Chapter One and discuss the key concepts and works which are relevant for the understanding of experimental literature and film in Chapter Two and Three. I demonstrate that the radical experimentation of postwar experimental authors and filmmakers draws attention to the materiality, visuality, and performativity of their works and establishes experimental literature and film as individual art forms: writing-as-writing and film-as-film. In conclusion, I argue that their works represent an implicit critique of language, culture, and society in the context of the "grand narratives" or the "invisible structurations" supporting a post-World War Two Austrian society.</p><p>In this dissertation, I will outline the socio-political situation in Austria during the years following World War Two in Chapter One, and discuss the key concepts which are relevant for the understanding of experimental literature in Chapter Two and Three. I will demonstrate that the radical experimentation of postwar experimental authors and filmmakers draws attention to the materiality, visuality, and performativity and establishes experimental literature and film as individual art forms: writing-as-writing and film-as-film. In conclusion, I argue that their works represent an implicit critique of language, culture, and society in the context of the "grand narratives," the "invisible structurations" which support society.</p> / Dissertation

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Some German text and bibliographies. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-63). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Some German text and bibliographies. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-63). Also available on the Internet.

abstract: Approaches to Holocaust representation often take their cues from both academic and public discourse. General opinion demands serious engagement that depicts the full range of the brutality and inhumanity of the genocide and the victimization of targeted groups perpetrated by the National Socialists. Such a treatment is considered necessary to adequately represent the Holocaust for generations to come. The analysis of four texts will show that humor is not only appropriate but is also an important addition to Holocaust discourse. This study argues that humor plays an important role as a stylistic tool for discussing the Holocaust as well as for its remembrance and representation. Jurek Becker's novel Jakob der Lügner and Ruth Klüger's autobiography Weiter Leben: Eine Jugend are witness-texts by Jewish authors. Humor in these two works helps the authors engage and work their experiences. Klüger's autobiography also utilizes humor to critically engage in the discussion of Holocaust representation. This study also analyzes two non-witness Jewish texts: the stage play Mein Kampf by George Tabori and the feature film Mein Führer, die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler by Dani Levy. These two works utilize overt humor to challenge established Holocaust representations. Drawing on ideas from Mikhail M. Bakhtin, Julia Kristeva, Giorgio Agamben, the core argument of this study demonstrates humor performs two main functions in the Holocaust literature and film chosen for this investigation. First, it restores a potential loss of dignity and helps victims endure the incomprehensible. Second, it challenges the prevailing truth and the established order. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. German 2013

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Acting the Child examines the ways in which adult male characters in film and literature from Europe and America can use the role of the child to their political and emotional advantage. As childhood became an increasingly powerful cultural concept, adult men accessed that power to define themselves and organize social relationships. The thesis proposes “infantilization” as a term to describe how these characters act like children or force other characters into the role of the child. The thesis analyzes key moments in the development of infantilization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first chapter explores the uses of infantilization, which produce strong effects in Honoré de Balzac's Le Père Goriot and Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes. These novels demonstrate the ways in which infantilization creates surrogate families in Parisian society. These roles can define and justify extramarital affairs or same sex relationships, which have no legitimate expression. The second chapter demonstrates how H. G. Wells' criticisms of Victorian culture and politics often revolve around male identity such as the scientist-adventurer. As the concepts of boyhood and girlhood solidified, they could describe individual adults or entire social groups. Infantilization was already part of the political discourse, and my thesis demonstrates how Wells challenged these categories. The third chapter extends the analysis of aggressive, masculine characters by examining D. W. Griffith's The Avenging Conscience (1914) and Broken Blossoms (1919) in conjunction with a selection of American recruitment posters for World War I. The analysis shows that World War I had a profound impact on infantilization. Griffith's satirical representation of the man-child subtly criticizes World War I and echoes Wells's attack on Empire. The last chapter explores the effects of the war on infantilization by analyzing three delayed responses: Bernward Vesper's The Trip, Alfons Heck's A Child of Hitler, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's In a Year of Thirteen Moons. Like Fassbinder, I find German adults acting like children in order to cope with a troubled present.

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No description available.