Friedrich Duerrenmatt was one of the most important German-language writers of the post-World War II period. He was the most produced playwright in German-speaking countries between 1964 and 1974, with 213 productions during that ten-year period. Eight of Duerrenmatt's thirty plays and adaptations of three of his prose works were produced in one form or another (play, film or opera) in America. These productions included six on Broadway, two national tours, four off Broadway, two off-off Broadway, and others in at least fifteen regional theatres and numerous semi-professional theatres. He was awarded the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for best foreign play in 1959 for The Visit. Two major films and one opera based on his works were presented in the United States. / The purpose of this study was to document the history of Friedrich Duerrenmatt's plays on the American stage. The emphasis was on the productions, the people involved, and the critical and popular response to the productions. The organization of the study was as follows: The American productions of each play were discussed in chronological order of their first mounting in the United States, beginning with the 1958 production of Fools Are Passing Through in New York and ending with the 1994 Milwaukee Repertory Theater production of The Visit. The study included all professional productions, including plays, films, and operas, which were mounted in the United States and which were either written by Duerrenmatt or derived from a literary work by the playwright. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: A, page: 4207. / Major Professor: John Degen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

My thesis asks whether cultural commemorations helped the GDR to build a distinct national identity, and examines the role of political and cultural actors involved in them. Covering different strands of German cultural heritage, the aims, implementations and outcomes of anniversary commemorations are investigated as a longitudinal series of case-studies: Schiller (1959); Kollwitz (1967); Beethoven (1970); and Luther (1983). Substantial evidence from largely unpublished sources exposes recurring gaps between the theory and practice of these commemorations, essentially attributable to manifest examples of agency by commemoration stakeholders. Each commemoration produced some positive legacies. But driven mainly by demarcation motives versus West Germany, the appropriation of these German cultural icons as socialist role-models to promote national identity was mostly unsuccessful in three commemorations. Kollwitz was the exception as the GDRˈs claimed linkage to her political life was already undisputed in both German states. These research results are both new and important. They address a gap in both memory studies and GDR history scholarship regarding the relationship between commemorations and national identity. Furthermore, the findings of agency offer an original contribution to historiographical debates, by enhancing a ˈconsensusˈ- /ˈparticipatoryˈ dictatorship model of the GDR in preference to a top-down totalitarian system.

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

The German literary craftsman Christoph Martin Wieland (1733-1813) was a great spokesman for the eighteenth century, not least in the compulsion to discourse on erotic love, combining observation with a rhetoric of allusion and metaphor. Erotic love dominated Wieland's earlier prose and poetry. Idealized and rather seraphic in the beginning, it seemed to change radically after 1760. Wieland was then often accused of appealing to prurient interests and was ultimately branded undeutsch, unchristlich and unsittlich Modern scholarship largely discounts the charges of immorality leveled against Wieland. A concensus remains, however, that the poet's approach to love and virtue changed considerably with experience. This view, supported in part by the poet's own declaration that he experienced a great personal metamorphosis toward 1760, is challenged in the study at hand, which--building on contributions by Gruber, Hoppe, Sengle, Seiffert, Paulsen, McCarthy and others--compares Wieland's portrayal of erotic experience during his controversial years 1750-1780, before and after his 'great transformation.' In Part One, Chapters I and II chronicle Wieland's life to 1780, focusing on the relationship between his writing and women, and on factors significant in his perception of love. In Part Two, Chapter III traces the early history of Wieland's eroticism and of critical reaction to the poet's depiction of love, and reviews briefly previous scholarly analyses of Wieland's erotic writings. Chapter IV examines vocabulary, style and content of works written by Wieland in the 1750's in which the erotic is a significant factor, as compared to selected works written in the 1760's and 1770's, after Wieland's 'metamorphosis.' True to the Horatian dictum, Wieland's primary concern was to convey lessons in esthetically pleasing form. His lessons were in love. After his 'great transformation,' he believed the best way to entertain and edify was through humor. The elements of Wieland's Liebeslehre, however, remained essentially unchanged, as did the vocabulary he employed to describe the love encounter. Indeed, in his metaphor, Wieland was more erotic as a 'Platonic enthusiast' and 'seraphic poet' in the 1750's, than he was later when censured by many as an advocate of sexual license / acase@tulane.edu

This thesis examines the way in which the traumas of World War II and its aftermath in the former Yugoslavia are dealt with in the work of the post-punk group Laibach. The Laibach project challenges traditional memories by combining seemingly incompatible images of Nazism, Stalinism, Hitler, etc. The result is a forced reworking of the traumas of the totalitarian past. The renewed focus on past traumas encourages critical awareness and active participation in the process of memory for the individual. Laibach's work encourages awareness not only of the past, but also of existing state systems. By complicating the desire to forget the past, Laibach fosters an understanding of the interrelatedness of history and the present. Beyond exploring Laibach's provocations, this thesis also discusses similar aspects of projects in German artistic and intellectual culture to examine how these individuals continue to work through the problematic past of World War II.

<p> In the mid 1920s, reflecting the concerns of the "<i>Sprachkrise </i>", Ludwig Wittgenstein and Franz Kafka composed writings deeply concerned with language's ability to express human thought. In his <i>Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus</i>, Wittgenstein attempted to draw the boundary of meaningful language. During the same period, Kafka developed his thoughts on language and ethics in his <i>Oktavhefte</i>. I compare these works, showing that they share an understanding of language as a domain bound within the physical world and incapable of expressing our spiritual being. Presenting itself as rigorous philosophical writing, Wittgenstein's <i> Tractatus</i> constantly reminds its reader of the limitations of its own logical and philosophical language by claiming itself to be "nonsense" and only a ladder the reader should climb and get rid of. Kafka, without constructing rigorous logical arguments, composed a critique demonstrating the unnaturalness of natural language and showing that its poetic nature lets language transcend its own boundaries.</p>

The fascination with the image of the prostitute in contemporary German and English language film betrays certain ideological underpinnings of our Western, patriarchally structured culture and political system. By analyzing the contemporary filmic representation of the prostitute, it can be demonstrated that woman's place in society has become more visible and vocal. While objectified images of women still dominate in the films of English and German speaking countries, the depth and identificational quality of these characters has greatly improved, suggesting that the inequities of a patriarchal society are slowly being recognized and rectified.

It is a well established fact that Grimms' fairy tales have been adapted by the Grimm brothers to suit the taste of middle class Europeans in the 19th and 20th centuries. Later, the National Socialists in Germany used the fairy tales to teach racism. This thesis presents the theoretical discussion in East Germany (the GDR, "DDR") which served as a rationale for using some of these fairy tales in the socialist education of children, and outlines the ideologically motivated selection of the fairy tales. The thesis analyzes the DDR regulations, which governed education in kindergarten and elementary school as well as in (after school) day-care programmes. It shows the extent to which Grimms' fairy tales were used in socialistic teaching of children. It is clear that the fairy tales selected and edited by the Grimm brothers to cater to the taste of the 19th century bourgeois were also considered effective in the teaching of values to children in a socialistic society. It appears that this aspect has not yet been addressed in modern western literary criticism.

This study contains a detailed interpretation of the fragmentary play Catharina von Siena by the Sturm-und-Drang (Storm and Stress) poet Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751-1792). Although we have only drafts of this play, the topic, the structure, and the relatively long time Lenz spent on the drama indicate that it was nevertheless an important work. Over three chapters this study approaches the Catharina fragments in various ways, the main focus being on improving our understanding of the text. Before starting on the actual interpretation a few basic questions need to be examined, these relating to the conditions in which the play was created and developed, the choice of subject and themes, the manuscripts and their history, as well as the six editions of Catharina von Siena . For this reason the central interpretative chapter is prefaced by a chapter on the genesis of the play, as well as another chapter on the manuscripts and texts. Since it was not possible to work with original manuscripts, a microfilm and reader print copies of the manuscripts were used. The textual examination was based on the readily available edition by Damm. Where necessary the reading by Titel/Haug and the older text editions by Weinhold, Lewy, Blei and Freye were used to supplement these, and also for the purpose of comparison. A pluralistic methodological approach was applied. A more exact period of time for the creation of Catharina von Siena was defined, information about the way Lenz worked and about his intentions with regard to construction and effect was obtained as well. Through this detailed study of the fragments, correspondence and biographical data, we can establish reasons for the fragmentary character of the play, and are able to ascertain the special nature of the drama. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.