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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-181). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Theses (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Includes abstract. Document formatted into pages: contains vii, 55 p. Bibliography: p. 53-55.

published_or_final_version / Transport Studies / Master / Master of Arts

“Children of a Former Future” argues that the political upheavals of the twentieth century have produced a body of German-language literature that approaches children and childhood differently from the ways these subjects are conventionally represented. Christa Wolf, Herta Müller, and Jenny Erpenbeck use the child as a device for narrating failed states; socialization into obedience; and the simultaneous violence and fragility of normative visions of the future. In their narratives of girlhood under authoritarian or repressive societies, these authors self-consciously decouple the child from the concept of futurity in order to avoid reproducing the same representational strategies as the twentieth-century authoritarian regimes that co-opted the child for political ends. Examining literature from the GDR, Communist Romania, and post-Reunification Germany, “Children of a Former Future” argues that these representations offer important insights into the fields of German literary studies, queer theory, and feminist scholarship. The dissertation contends that a historically-grounded reading of Cold War and post-Cold War German-language literature can meaningfully contribute to and complicate current feminist and queer scholarship on the child. This scholarship has focused primarily on historical, social, and cultural developments associated with Western democracies and capitalism. “Children of a Former Future” demonstrates how a consideration of literature from Socialist and post-Socialist context complicates these theorizations of the child. At the same time, the dissertation demonstrates how the analytical modes developed by queer and feminist scholarship can create new frameworks for the interpretation of German-language literature. “Children of a Former Future” examines authors who intentionally set out to complicate readers’ preconceptions about children in their writing, specifically the pervasive theme of childhood innocence. Written during the 1970s, Christa Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster (1976) examines the effects of authoritarianism on childhood development, as well as critiquing the German Democratic Republic’s founding historical myths. Herta Müller’s Niederungen (1982/4) and Herztier (1994) examine childhood in an ethnic German community in Communist Romania; Müller’s protagonists grapple with the legacies of their parents’ experiences with fascism and Soviet labor camps, as well as the experience of entering Romanian society as a cultural minority during the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Writing after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Jenny Erpenbeck’s Geschichte vom alten Kind (1999) and Wörterbuch (2005) critically examine the emotional impact of adult idealizations of childhood through the lens of post-authoritarian transition states. “Children of a Former Future” argues that these narratives use the child to reflect on socialization into obedience and conformity; kinship formations; social reproduction; trauma; and political life. Wolf, Müller, and Erpenbeck highlight the ramifications of the emotional burdens placed on children, particularly on girls. Their representations resist conventional idealizations of children and childhood. Intensely concerned with complicity, the authors scrutinize how children are taught to conform to and even revere repressive social systems. The authors posit that certain childrearing practices in fact enable the rise of authoritarianism, in that they condition children that love is contingent upon obedience. The dissertation argues that for these authors, examinations of childhood are at once opportunities to sift through the experiences that begin to constitute the individual self, and to analyze how these psychological dynamics contribute to, sustain, and reproduce larger social and political dynamics.

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In this dissertation, I approach the interpretation of a classical text in performance by examining the practical elements (directorial and design choices: set, costumes, lighting, music, etc.) and promotional materials (programmes, press releases, photographs, etc.) for a selection of significant test cases in order to determine how these production decisions engage with external factors of political, intellectual, and cultural import. Trojan Women is a particularly useful case study to explore within the parameters of this method because the dynamism and immediacy of the play is most powerfully articulated when production choices allow for it to be wielded as a weapon of protest or reaction against contemporary policy, especially the waging of war. Using a chronological approach, this analysis of Trojan Women as a text for performance provides a broad and in-depth discussion of the reception of the play in the twentieth century, the period in which the ancient text was most frequently performed. Through the investigation of several influential productions on the international stage, and through an examination of the roles of key players (particularly Gilbert Murray and Jean-Paul Sartre), Trojan Women emerges as a play that offers theatre artists a unique and effective forum for debating issues of human responsibility in times of war a central theme in the play and a considerable preoccupation during a century of armed conflict. Chapter One discusses how the play was used to criticize imperial activity and promote ideological causes in the first half of the century. Chapters Two and Three draw attention to a major cluster of performances reflecting the spirit of international war protest in the 1960s and 1970s. Chapter Four addresses productions of the play affected by delayed responses to the Holocaust. Chapter Five features performances in the 1990s that respond to crises of civil conflict and genocide.

An examination of the Bellum Gallicum and Bellum Civile of Caesar, and books 21-30 of Livy, with particular reference to battle narratives; this thesis analyses the characterisation of commanders and their soldiers, and the use of soldiers as a moral focus, as part of the creation of causative patterns and explanations within narrative. I: sets out preconceptions and problems in the depiction of soldiers and leaders, and defines the terminology and scope of the argument: it also explains the analytical method of the thesis using Sallust, BC 57-61 as an example. II: On Caesar, BG. Begins with the drawbacks of the 'propagandist' approach: explores topoi of military action and character thematically (markers of bravery/cowardice, portrayal of Romans/enemies, the role of centurions, Caesar/subordinates/enemy leaders). III: On Caesar BC. Examines Caesar's modes of historical explanation in portraying civil war, through discussion of selected sections of the BC (also using comparative material from Cicero's Philippics): the start of the war; the fall of Corfinium; the Ilerda campaign; Curio in Africa; the battle of Pharsalus. Includes a consideration of Caesar's treatment of Labienus. IV (i): Traces narrative explanation on a large scale in Livy 21-3, and sections of 24-5, examining its relation to themes of Roman justification and destiny: observes and comments on parallels with Caesar in the depiction of soldiers and leaders. IV (ii): Continues with analysis of selected episodes, where particular tensions towards the end of the second Punic war condition and complicate narrative explanation: includes a view of the characterisation of Hannibal and Scipio. V A brief summary of the conclusions of the argument, and of its possible consequences and implications in a wider historiographical context.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-121). / iv, 121 leaves, bound 29 cm

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 1973. / Submitted to the Dept. of English. Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;