The history of the Weimar Republic has most commonly been written from the vantage point of its ultimate failure. Recent trends in historiography have shown that the first German democracy was by no means doomed from the start. Instead, contemporary sources convey a very varied picture of optimistic and pessimistic diagnoses of the times. At the centre of these diagnoses often stood the idea of “crisis” which contained the notion of an open yet problematic future. This thesis aims to investigate the use of sickness metaphors in political and related public discourses. More specifically, it analyses in which contexts these have been used, which semantic forms can be found, to which political points of view they can be attributed, and finally which purpose they served within political and journalistic controversies of the times. The main body of the thesis consists of three parts (ch. 2-4). Following the introduction, Part II is a methodological outline concentrating on the main relevant theoretical approaches: discourse analysis, the history of basic concepts, the Cambridge School of political ideas, and metaphorology. Furthermore it pays special attention to the history and use of the concept of “crisis”, both in its contemporary form and its use within historical writing.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:606141 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Langewand, Knut |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/60545/ |
Page generated in 0.043 seconds