Student demographic data in today’s elementary and secondary schools have shown an increase in the numbers of diverse students in classrooms across the United States. This change in classroom demographics has established the need for changes to both the classroom educational environment and the preparation of our teachers. Research supports a few documented ways teachers can support both their student experiences and academic performance. Culturally competent teachers, cultural humility, and culturally relevant pedagogy are a few of the ways educators can adapt to the change in student demographics. Linking the literature to these findings will help provide an overview of several factors associated with teacher cultural competency and student academic performance. Included in the research are classroom demographics, cultural bias, teacher education and experience, relational capacity, and culturally relevant pedagogy. The research suggests that the more teachers are aware of their own bias through culturally competent teacher education, the more successful teachers are at reaching diverse students in the classroom. The goal is to provide information on the importance of teacher cultural competency and how it relates to student success. This action research, case study analyzed the relationship between teachers’ cultural competency and their students’ academic performance through a post-positive research study. Data were collected from various resources: classroom observations; teacher, parent, and student focus groups; academic data; and observations of classroom instruction. This study was a 9-week, two-intervention cycle of action research. The purpose of this action research, case study was to gain insight into teacher, student, and parent experiences and perceptions of classrooms where teachers were of Slavic descent and classrooms where teachers were of non-Slavic descent. This action research, case study aimed to answer multiple research questions to investigate why there were discrepancies between classrooms led by Slavic and non-Slavic teachers with regard to the classroom pedagogy and the academic success of Slavic students. Past research has supported a wide array of culturally responsive teaching techniques for a variety of ethnic and linguistic subgroups. The past research did not specifically look at, or study, the Slavic cultural needs in the classroom. This action research, case study specifically looked at the Slavic cultural needs at one particular school. This is the first study to provide information on the importance of culturally responsive teaching for the Slavic community and how teacher cultural humility with Slavic students can potentially improve perceptions, experiences, and academic success. This study can help fill the gap and potentially lead to further inquiry into Slavic cultural humility.

Trümmerliteratur - literally “rubble-literature" - is a brand of literature that became important after the Second World War, led by Heinrich Böll, whom I term the apologist of German Trümmerliteratur. Typically included under this classification are the writers who began to produce in the years immediately following the war, and in whose work the rubble and ruins of the landscape figure prominently. Böll provided the programmatic framework for the movement in his “Bekenntnis zur Trümmerliteratur" but his relationship to another type of ruin writing presents a point of friction when he appears to be working in a romantic mode to describe his experience of Irish ruins. This problem was the point of departure for a new thinking of ruins. Discovering the strains of rubble literature in Grass and Celan presents the second part of this study, which dramatically recasts these writers, demanding that the presence and prevalence of ruin images and themes receive consideration. Grass's hermeneutical ruins, a reading of narrative gaps, presents the first level of ruin, separating the reader from the text's reliability and authorial immediacy. The next type of ruins that Grass presents is the violent ruinating involved in the the act of writing itself, whether chiseled into gravestones or flecking virginal paper. Similarly, Celan's images of ruins are produced in a form consciously resembling berubbled structures, with dashes and slashes often left jutting dangerously into the space of a wide margin, like the rusty reinforcing steel bars of modern construction. Considering these writers in these terms leads to the question of language and how they attempt to overcome the problem of a language manipulated into complicity in the crimes of totalitarianism. Finally, there is the transparency offered in the porous structure of the ruin. These houses prove incapable of providing the shelter or protection. The inhabitants are exposed, exhibited to the observer with all of the intimate contents of quotidian existence, the low objects of the everyday. Entrance into this interiority is a powerful part of what makes the ruins an interesting object for observation. In this literature of ruins and rubble the reader is offered this transparency, an offer of entrance into society's interiority.

Marie Eugenie delle Grazies Drama Der Schatten wurde am 28. September 1901 im Wiener Hofburgtheater, einer der bedeutendsten Bühnen Europas, uraufgeführt, jedoch nach nur vier Vorstellungen abgesetzt. Das mit dem Bauernfeld-Preis ausgezeichnete Stück bildet den Zenit von delle Grazies literarischem Schaffen und beinhaltet Diskurse von hohem damaligem Stellenwert, die uns einen tieferen Einblick, vom Standpunkt der modernen Frau, ins Fin-de-Siècle Wien geben können. Das Drama und seine Dichterin wurden im Wien der Jahrhundertwende sowohl gefeiert als auch gerügt. Delle Grazie hatte mit Vorurteilen gegen sie als Frau und Dichterin, sowie mit der Kritik an ihrer unkonventionellen Dramaturgie zu kämpfen. Betrachtet man Der Schatten jedoch im Kontext der Zeit, wird schnell erkennbar, dass die Wiener Dichterin sich vorzüglich darauf verstand die Diskurse ihrer Zeit aufzugreifen und künstlerisch und unikal zu verarbeiten. Inhaltlich ist ihr Protagonist, der Dichter Ernst Werner, die moderne Antwort auf Goethes Faust. Werner ist der faustische Künstler, der sich in freudscher Fasson mit seiner dunklen Seite, seinem Schatten, auseinandersetzt. Dabei werden immer wieder Nietzsches philosophische Ideen thematisiert, insbesondere die des Übermenschen, der sich seine Welt neu erschafft. Darüberhinaus weist das Drama in seiner Darstellung ritualistische Charakteristen auf und erschöpft in seiner Thematik postmodernes Gedankengut, wie es im Film der Jahrtausendwende problematisiert wird.

Berge Meere und Giganten (BMG) by Alfred Döblin is a fictional account of future events in which humanity brings about the ruin of western civilization by its own technological hubris. Although BMG has been examined considerably for its literary merit in light of the Döblin corpus, few scholars have identified Döblin's work as an apocalyptic text especially after the Judeo-Christian tradition. The apocalyptic nature of BMG implies a profound religious experience on the part of the author, which in my view offers at least one plausible explanation for Döblin's repeated fixation with BMG. In my thesis, I explicate the apocalyptic themes of BMG by considering the intertextuality of the apocryphal Book of the Watchers, the canonical Book of Revelation from the New Testament with some of its connections to Babylonian mythology, and finally the function of the author as a conduit of the literary tradition of apocalypticism. Ultimately, I demonstrate that BMG draws heavily from these apocalyptic texts and is consistent with the Judeo-Christian apocalyptic tradition, which utilizes the descriptions of macroscopic catastrophes in human history as a metaphor of spiritual transformation.

The novel Agnes von Lilien by Caroline von Wolzogen, although celebrated during the period of Weimar Classicism, was not generally well known to English-speaking readers and researchers until recently. This project aims to address this situation by creating an easily accessible English translation of the novel complete with critical annotations for the benefit of researchers and lay readers alike. The annotated translation presented in this work is an excerpt of the full translation of the work drawn in particular from the first third of the novel. This novel, first published in 1798, reflects many ideals of the Enlightenment, as well as opinions on women's roles and women's education. In the introduction, I trace the way that the novel seeks to gently persuade the nobility and educated middle class to change the world around them. This is done through the ever-present contrasts filling its pages alongside the novel's emphasis on ideal possibilities. Rather than serving as a revolutionary critique, I assert that the story conveys a quiet call for a level of social reform that still assures the nobility their power while nevertheless challenging them to use that power for the betterment of society. Women are urged to extend their reach to the outer boundaries of womanhood rather than being content with the confinement imposed by traditional society. I conclude that the strength of Wolzogen's text and the trait that draws readers back even centuries later is the fact that, under the cloak of intrigue, adventure, and romance expected from the novel form, the ideals of the Enlightenment shine clearly. In spite of social and political changes over the past two centuries, the call to virtue, industry, reason, and self-improvement, regardless of gender or social class, still maintains its relevance and power for readers in the modern era.

Space, in the post-World War context, was the new frontier of ‘global’ dominion. Space Race of the 1950s was a competition to signal technological capability and military strength. The objective of War of the Moon is to unpack the motivation for Moon race in 1950s. What did countries have to gain politically, economically, socially and technologically by conquering space and landing on the moon. At what cost? Who financed it, and where did the labor, land, and raw materials sourced come from. And how it was used to accomplish said landing. Space security is a massive aspect of all current space programs, but this is not a new feature, in fact, its beginnings are in the Cold War era. The second objective of this thesis and exhibition is to understand through rhetoric analysis the language of “defense” as an ‘offensive’ strategy. The artwork uses computer technologies to interrogate media and archives mimicking the state’s methods to suppress information. The work examines through archives the erasure of minority groups from cultural depositories or archives, thereby writing them out of history as the meta themes of exploration of space, and deliberate and chronicled. It is important that this work is not viewed as reactionary, but engaged in a direct dialogue: these pieces exist within the public sphere, in exhibition and projection spaces vetted by governmental, private and non-profit agencies. What is required of the work is to be subversive — to be flexible, to remain able to move freely anywhere and everywhere, and to cross barriers when necessary.

The following thesis will examine the links between popular culture and tourism, and their impact on collective memory. The discussed material will include films produced in modern Germany and Poland, and other cultural phenomena related to the war and post-war reality. The analysis will also address the issue of Dark Tourism, strongly associated with modern tourism. Furthermore this work will explore the strategies implied by travel agencies and museums to meet the needs of modern tourists and their potential in promoting new touristic attractions.

After a general overview of the persecution of Gypsies (Roma) during World War II, this thesis focuses on the situation of Gypsies on the territory of Serbia and Croatia. The two republics are chosen because of their unique structures during the years 1941 to 1945. Both republics had puppet regimes set up by Germany; however, Croatia was an ally to Germany and strove to mirror the Third Reich in all its policies. The regime's head, Ante Pavelic, was known as one of the most brutal and merciless men on the territory of Yugoslavia, and with him Croatian paramilitary forces committed great atrocities in concentration camps established in Croatia. Serbia was divided up among Germany and its allies, and its racial policies varied depending on the occupying forces. In Croatia, all Gypsies were annihilated, but in Serbia many survived because of the protection provided by local peasantry and occupying forces from Hungary, Bulgaria or Italy. The thesis points at four main findings: (1) the negligence toward the Gypsies' plight and persecution; (2) the fact that, according to Nazi definitions, the persecution of Gypsies was based on their race rather than their style of living; (3) the fact that there were multiple concentration camps throughout the territory of Yugoslavia, with the most brutal camp at Jasenovac in Croatia; and (4) the fact that the Holocaust was far more than a Jewish phenomenon. Examining the two regions and highlighting them, the thesis proves that the fate of Gypsies in German-occupied territories of Yugoslavia was the same as the fate of Jews, that they were persecuted under superficial excuses, but with racial sentiments as the primary motivation. This new material, along with little known facts, documents, and stories show how marginalized Gypsies have been since the end of the war, and how little scholarly attention has been paid to their suffering. These new and some unpublished materials also help depict the brutality of Jasenovac, the Auschwitz of the Balkans, and prove that the atrocities during World War II were not committed only by German soldiers, but that they reached their peak among people of other nationalities as well. Finally, the thesis claims that Gypsies deserve to be placed in the study of the Holocaust along side of Jews, and to receive the rights and remembrance that Jews have been afforded.

Austrian playwright Jovita Epp's German language novel Amado mí­o, which takes place in post-WWII Argentina, is a modern adaptation of the traditional colonial novel. As such, the romances between the female main character, an Argentine of German descent, and her two love interests, an Argentine of Spanish descent (Criollo), and an Austrian Argentine, reflect the hopes and fears of persons and/or cultures caught up in the imperialist dreams of their nation. In the wake of WWII, Argentina becomes a space in which European(-descended) settlers can look back at Europe's "barbarism," questioning the imperialist worldviews that brought Europe to the brink of destruction. At the same time, these colonists search for European values that are salvageable from the cultural wreckage in Europe and employable in reconstructing a new identity in Argentina.

The study theorizes that a nation-state can manifest a condition similar to that of personality commonly associated with humans. Through the identification of consistent behaviors, a personality like condition is recognizable, and the underlining motivations dictate national policy independent of any current social/political influence. The research examines Russia during two historical periods examining the conflict events and social/political transitions of the period, to identify common behavioral characteristics, which indicate the existence of any independent personality like trait. The study focuses on two historical periods: the Monarch Period of Peter I (The Great), and the Post-Soviet Union period of Vladimir Putin, periods selected as historical eras in which Russia experienced major political or social transition. Using a comparative qualitative historical analysis with a behaviorist focus, the research examines these periods by profiling each era’s elements of society and the events of domestic and international conflict that Russia experienced, while evaluating the actions taken in response to each. The research discovers that Russia exhibits personality like traits, similar to those associated with humans and are likewise developed from experience, and once imbedded into Russian psychology, regardless of the current social/political elements or situational conditions, remain prime motivators to Russian behavior. The personality like characteristic identified was similar to inferiority, which leads to behavior characteristics comparable to narcissism, as the definition of narcissism relates to the need for admiration and or acceptance. The study identified the origins of the inferiority like complex and the narcissistic like behavior pattern exhibited by Russia in both periods.