Germanic and Slavic Studies

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This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies.

Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).

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Arthur Schnitzlers Traumnovelle - Stanley Kubricks Eyes Wide Shut. Das Geheimnis der Ehe.
(University of Waterloo, 2017-08-30) Buhl, Anne-Kristin; Fetscher, Justus
This Master’s Thesis is a compared analysis of Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle which was published in 1925 and its cinematic adaption by Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut in 1996. The story focuses on a married couple namely Fridolin and Albertine and vice versa Bill and Alice that gets into a crisis. The problems rise from jealousy and mistrust when both the protagonists open up about their unfulfilled dreams and sexual longings with other human beings. The thesis tries to elaborate an answer to the question: What is the secret of their marriages. Most of the studies have investigated the setting, the plot, motifs and other cinematic features while this thesis concentrates on the relationship between the main characters. One specific difference in comparison to other works of Arthur Schnitzler is the ending of his novels. Surprisingly, the Traumnovelle is the only novel that has a happy end and the protagonists do not separate or die. This is the initial point where the thesis wants to ask the question why? How come that Fridolin and Albertine find their ways back together. What has been the real source of their issues and what makes it possible to overcome those, if so. And further: In what respect differs or resembles the relationship of Fridolin and Albertine from the protagonists in Eyes Wides Shut?
Die Inszenierung von kultureller Alterität im Fernsehkrimi Tatort. (English: The Construction of Cultural Alterity in the German Crime Series Tatort).
(University of Waterloo, 2016-01-26) Unkelbach, Katharina Gabriele; Fetscher, Justus; Hörisch, Jochen
This thesis looks at the production of cultural alterity in the German crime series Tatort. It focuses on the episodes Wem Ehre gebührt (2007), Baum der Erlösung (2009) and Familienaufstellung (2009) which all deal with German-Turkish migrants living in Germany. The goal is to show how narration and cinematographic elements (cut, shot, angle and color) serve to manipulate the perception of cultural foreignness. When analysing narration, the focus lies on two striking symbols of cultural alterity: the so called ‘honor-killing’ and the muslim headscarf. The crime series being analyzed reveal that these symbols firstly serve to perpetuate cultural stereotypes and secondly increase the perception of difference and irreconcilability between the German and Turkish culture.
The fascination of apocalypse: A cultural comparison of Canadian and Central European imaginations
(University of Waterloo, 2020-09-28) Schuhmacher, Nadja; Fetscher, Justus; Weiß, Christoph
The modern time seems to be fascinated by the imagination of apocalyptic scenarios. This master thesis aims to analyse apocalyptic fiction from authors of Canada, Austria and Germany and draw a comparison between the subject of the stories, the linguistic style as well as cultural implications made within the narration. As theoretical basis the work is using cultural and historical implications in the chosen countries as well as Klaus Vondungs theory of a ‘kupierte Apokalypse’- the apocalypse without the biblical revelation - which builds the foundation of the analysis. The methodical approach is using the ‘Cultural Theory’ by Mary Douglas and the ‘6 Dimension Model of National Culture’ by Geert Hofstede to analyse cultural characteristics in the different countries examined, and represents the question of cultural coded specifics of apocalyptic fiction. Five narrations form the basis of the interpretative work and represent the countries listed above. ‘Die Arbeit der Nacht’ written by Thomas Glavinic and ‘die alarmbereiten’ by Kathrin Röggla represent the Austrian literature; ‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St. John – Mandel and Oryx and Crake written by Margaret Atwood stand for the Canadian literature. The last novel ‘Der Schwarm’ by Frank Schätzing is the only apocalyptic narration written by a German author during the 21st century and is broaching the issue of a lack of German literature in this field since the end of the last century. The analysis is showing the correlation of the cultural background of the author and its imagination of the end of the world. It is possible to find clear evidence of a cultural code implemented in the narrations which is showing different point of views and various focal points. The final chapter of the thesis is broaching the issue of literature as interpretative medium for social issues as well as preservation of cultural and historical specifics. It is following an application on the Corona Virus crisis during 2020 and is showing how wording is draws a comparison between the pandemic and an apocalyptic situation.
Gewalt und Spiele in den Filmen Michael Hanekes
(University of Waterloo, 2020-01-16) Hirstein, Mario; Kuzniar, Alice; Fetscher, Justus
This dissertation examines the intersection of violence and games in six of Michael Haneke’s movies, Benny’s Video (1992), Happy End (2017), Le Temps du loup (2003), Funny Games (1997/2007), 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls (1994), and Caché (2006). Relying on Imbusch’s concept of direct and indirect violence, Galtung’s model of “structural” violence as well as canonical theories of games, such as Huizinga’s notion of a “magic circle,” a fictional space that is devoid of any real-world consequences, I argue that Michael Haneke’s films exemplify the ludic qualities that the most common forms of violence have today. The emergence of violence, which often rests on a blatant disruption of Huizinga’s “magic circle,” takes various forms across Haneke’s films. In Benny’s Video, the young protagonist learns through games to virtualize his surroundings and immunizes himself to suffering and ethical consequences. The pyramid scheme informing his actions lays bare the foundation of the film’s violence, namely the economic world order. Happy End continues and actualizes these themes in a new medial landscape: now everything seems to happen online, yet the victims of the games that the affluent protagonists play suffer in real life. Le Temps du loup highlights another violent aspect of games, their ritualistic nature. Girard’s theories on rituals and sacrifice are vital to understanding this postapocalyptic film that at first seems to subscribe to the deescalating effect of rituals but then satirizes them through its montage and incorporation of a real animal death. Funny Games explores the involvement of the audience in mind-gaming further. Not only do the two intruders Peter and Paul play violent games with the captured family, but Haneke does so with the viewers as well: the film commits violence against the audience in order to “teach” viewers to not see fictional violence as a form of entertainment. 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls invokes the concept of a playing god and ultimately shows the replacement of a religious worldview by an economic one. A young student, Max, is tormented by his peers who always involve him in games that require bets; the games are not played for their enjoyment but for financial gain. Finally, in Caché, we find motives from all hitherto analyzed movies of Haneke: guilt and childhood, the virtualizing effects of games and videos, ritual sacrifice, ironic employment of a “dark pedagogy” (Rutschky), and, most importantly, the ubiquity of ludic structures in the neoliberal present, which has harsh effects on underprivileged players. While games and violence are intertwined in many ways, it is especially this last point, the meta-game of economics, which conjoins both concepts. The structural violence that is inscribed in the global financial game time and again becomes visible in Haneke’s oeuvre – and Haneke’s involvement of the audience in meta-diegetic “mind games” (Elsaesser) is crucial for understanding cultural and economic violence as a constant in our daily lives.
Keeping it simple. Short stories written by the young generation in post-war Germany.
(University of Waterloo, 2017-08-30) Baumann, Julia; Fetscher, Justus; Kittstein, Ulrich
This thesis deals with selected short stories written by the so-called “young generation” in post-war Germany. To emphasize the importance of the historical, social and political background for the popularity of the short story genre in post-war Germany, the first part of this thesis will outline these connections. There follows an analysis of four well-known short stories which will concentrate primarily on the concept of ‘keeping it simple’ (Einfachwerden). As a genre, the German short story received relatively little attention before the end of World War II, but the socio-political situation between 1945 and 1950 saw a rise in its popularity. The immediate aftermath of World War II was known as the Stunde Null. The country and the people had suffered heavy losses during the war, both in infrastructure and lives. With the defeat of Nazism, even moral concepts seemed to be destroyed, and as a consequence many German writers felt the urgent need to make a fresh start in literature. They wanted to free their language from the remnants of pathos and ideology; and so these authors, called the young generation, developed a straightforward, simple and realistic style of writing. The short story turned out to be the ideal genre for German authors to tell stories about the tragic fate faced by people in the post-war era in a simple and realistic, but at the same time, forceful way. The theoretical remarks within the first part of this thesis, provide an historical background and some of the main elements of the short story genre, and will build a basis for the subsequent analysis of the four works being examined. Wolfgang Borchert, Wolfdietrich Schnurre and Heinrich Böll are numbered among the most popular authors of the German post-war era. Their personal ideals and beliefs will be outlined to gain a deeper understanding of their literary texts. The analysis of Die Küchenuhr and Das Brot (Wolfgang Borchert), Auf der Flucht (Wolfdietrich Schnurre) and Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa… (Heinrich Böll) will establish that the authors found different ways to implement the concept of ‘keeping it simple’ and the theoretical beliefs of a fresh start in literature. To this day, these works play a significant role in documenting and reinforcing the struggles people had to face during the post-war era, and also the ideals, beliefs and values that kept them going.
Master Thesis Narrative Search for the Golden Spikes. Analyzing the Anthropocene in Theory and Fiction.
(University of Waterloo, 2016-08-31) Schmidt, Lisa Marie; Fetscher, Justus; Kuzniar, Alice
The term Anthropocene, according to an increasing number of scientists, describes the recent stadium of Earth History, having opened with the industrialization. Terminologically and conceptually, it refers to the triggering of telluric processes such as anthropogenic climate warming, which solely derive from human activity, and should replace the current state of the Holocene. Exceeding his originative fields of geology and environmental sciences, the term currently presents itself as a concept with a growing potential for boom. Demonstrating a growing lexematic relevance and a conceptual fertile ground for descriptive models of tilting or turning points, describing the current state of humanity as upheaval, the Anthropocene contains a potential for diagnosing and overcoming disciplinary boundaries between sciences and humanities, exceeding not just the dimension of climate change but also other traditional political, social and fictional dimension of dystopian forecasts. Its fruitfulness has triggered extensive analyses of the conceptual implications of the anthropocentric idea by renowned institutional and staffing sizes of histories of arts and culture, philosophy and literary studies, sociology, economic and legal sciences. When it comes to its ratification, the latter disciplines are even ahead of its original subjects, and its phenomenology has recently been fortifying remarkably diversified interpretations and interpretations of the Human Factor. Against this background, the thesis examines both the theoretical and fictional realms of the Anthropocene as human self-description. In doing so, it delivers two parts of an explanation why both hard sciences and humanities depend on fictional elements whenever making an attempt of self-description: The Anthropocene mixes historical regrets, guilt, as well as projections, discussions, transfigurations and models for the future. Therefore, the literary analysis furthermore presents an outline of the poetic, narrative, typological and aesthetic means of its imaginative con- and destruction, illustration, interpretation and analysis. Therefore, the discussion of the Anthropocene is put against the background of culturephilosophical and historical traditions such as those of Adorno (1944; 1941; 1958 i.a.), Foucault (1969, 1976, 2004) and Benjamin (1969, 1974, i.a.). Special attention is paid to the concept of the Posthuman (Braidotti 2013), Horn’s (2014) idea of future as catastrophe, the geopolitics of literature (Werber 2014) and the approach of the post-souvereign narrative (Schaffrick et al 2015). In doing so, the thesis identifies locality as the main category of human “roots” and the concept of agency.
Migration and Adolescence: The (Im-)Possibility of Transnational Agency in Alina Bronsky’s "Scherbenpark" (2008), Steven Uhly’s "Adams Fuge" (2011) and Martin Horváth’s "Mohr im Hemd oder wie ich auszog, die Welt zu retten" (2012)
(University of Waterloo, 2017-08-31) Roth, Daniela Hildegard; Boehringer, Michael; Fetscher, Justus
This dissertation project examines the depiction of migration experience and adolescence in Alina Bronsky’s "Scherbenpark" (2008), Steven Uhly’s "Adams Fuge" (2011) and Martin Horváth’s "Mohr im Hemd oder wie ich auszog, die Welt zu retten" (2012), three transnational novels. Transnationalism has been a popular concept in literary and cultural studies for several years and mostly replaced the theoretical categories and methodological approaches offered by intercultural studies. Transnationalism promotes aspects of (cultural) mobility, fluidity, and hybridity that aim to deconstruct binaries and the concept of national literature. The bases for this dissertation project are the following research questions: Why do these novels combine the topics of migration and adolescence? Why do they emphasize the protagonists’ individual traumatic experiences? And what are the belief systems that are transported in these texts? The goal of this research project is to further examine the function of transnationality in these texts, specifically in terms of the transnational concepts of identity that are employed. Here, the analysis focuses on the depiction of the possibility of mobility and agency that is suggested in the idea of a transnational identity, asking, how is agency presented and reflected in these texts? I argue that, by combining migration, adolescence and trauma, the novels show that their protagonists are denied any real possibility of agency and autonomy. Migrants in these novels are not able to create so-called transnational identities because they are defined by discourses that assign particular identities to them. Furthermore, through my analysis I will demonstrate that this agency cannot exist at all, and so cannot be achieved by anyone. Accordingly, what the concepts of transnational mobility and agency are doing here is covering up societal insecurities that are caused by the continuous progress of globalization and neoliberalism, and the accompanying feeling of loss of control. Through my analysis, these insecurities are visible in the novels and the normative and recolonizing tendencies in societies are exposed. In order to show this, I first present the history of migration literature, as well as theoretical influences and important terminology that are applied in the analysis of this literature, including important theoretical turns and paradigm shifts. I claim that the current use of the term transnationalism establishes a new cultural norm that not only covers up social insecurities, but also has a normative stance, in that it produces an ideal that people aspire to, but cannot reach. This forms the connection to adolescence and the question of identity construction during that phase, where adulthood and successful assimilation are presented as the overarching goal. The term (post)adolescence, similar to transnationalism, shows a normative stance in that it idealizes the state of in-betweeness as a form of subversive hybrid subjectivity, but also implies that there is a “correct” way to mature. Building on poststructuralist and postmodernist concepts that question the existence of a pre-discursive subject, and on the idea of the precariousness of identity and the concept of precarity, this dissertation presents strategies of narrative, performative, and situative identity construction as a way to form one’s identity within this framework. The analysis of the three novels shows that the protagonists attempt to achieve agency and authority over their lives and stories by applying the aforementioned strategies of identity construction. By emphasizing their trauma and the narrative unreliability of the narrators, these attempts and their subversive notions are undermined and the texts ultimately show that this freedom and mobility does not exist for the portrayed immigrants, but also that, within the aforementioned discursive structures, it cannot be achieved by anyone at all.
Repression and forgetting: Coming to terms with the past and identity in Bernhard Schlink’s “Der Vorleser” and Günther Grass’ “Die Blechtrommel”
(University of Waterloo, 2024-09-16) Riese, Paula Sophie; Fetscher, Justus
This thesis deals with the representation of coming to terms with the past and identity in two important German novels: Günter Grass' "Die Blechtrommel" (1959) and Bernhard Schlink's "Der Vorleser" (1997). The thesis analyzes the two novels with regard to their thematic treatment of guilt, shame and identity. The narrative techniques and the development of the protagonists are examined. In "Die Blechtrommel", Oskar Matzerath thematizes his story as part of a cross-generational family saga in 20th century Germany. The novel deals with guilt, identity and the political events that shape the lives of the characters. "Der Vorleser" focuses on the love affair between Michael Berg and Hanna Schmitz and the subsequent trial over Nazi crimes in which Hanna is accused. The novel explores questions of morality, guilt and responsibility and the challenges of coming to terms with the Holocaust. The thesis shows that both novels make important contributions to the discussion about coming to terms with the past and identity, despite their different chronology and thematic approaches. While "Die Blechtrommel" offers a direct confrontation with the events of the Second World War through the protagonist Oskar Mazerath, "Der Vorleser" reflects on the long-term effects and moral dilemmas of the post-war generation. Both works illustrate the complex processes of memory and identity formation in German society.
Television in Literature
(University of Waterloo, 2017-08-31) Krieger, Janina Ursula; Karpenstein-Eßbach, Christa; Fetscher, Justus
In this master thesis I discuss a topic which is highly neglected. We do see people reading all the time. When we see a person holding a book in his or her hands in the bus, we associate this person as being smart and educated as this person is not staring in his or her mobile phone. We also see actors reading a book in a movie, or talk shows about people discussing books, for example Das Literarische Quartett. There is a unclear amount of literary films, for example Das Buch der Vorleserin, Harry Potter and many more. But while reading a book yourself, one barely reads about a character watching television. There are many analyses and discussions about the importance of literature for television, but there is barely research about the role of television in literature. This thesis occupies this niche as it discusses the function of television in literature. In order to create a deeper understanding for the medium television, I reconstruct the history of television since the Second World War. I sum up technical advances and analyze its effect on the society, and how the human medium behavior changed over the past 50 years. I stop the reconstruction at the turn of the millennium as the rise of the internet revolutionised human media behavior, which opens a new field of research. I analyze the function of literature in four novels: Botho Strauß (1977): „Die Widmung“, Eckard Henscheid (1984): „Beim Fressen beim Fernsehen fällt der Vater dem Kartoffel aus dem Maul“, Matthias Zschokke (1982): „Max“, and Jean-Philippe Toussaint (2001): „Fernsehen“. These were the only novels I could find which mention a television in any matter. I studied the novels and scrutinized every reference of television as an object and as an action, when a character was watching television. I analyzed the importance of the medium (television) or the action (watching television) for the story, the relationship between the characters and the medium, and between the narrator or author and the medium, and the connotation of the words, which described the scene. While I was considering the different circumstances of the time of origin of the novels, I summed up differences and similarities between the novels. Outstanding was the fact, that all four novels presented bad effects of the medium television and watching TV. In my last chapter I try to answer the question, why there are a few books, which mention a television in their story and why the narrator and/ or the author of the book is blackguarding television in all cases. I want to answer the question, if the answer lies in the never ending competition between literature and television. The duo literature and television has a difficult past filled with periods of approximation and alienation, which I also reconstruct within the introduction. Is there a connection to the fact that the writers ignored television for years?
Topography and Nature Symbolism in Thomas Mann’s ‘Zauberberg’
(University of Waterloo, 2022-08-31) Eppert, Katharina; Fetscher, Justus
In my master's thesis I examine the meaning of topography and nature symbolism in Thomas Mann's novel "The Magic Mountain". I select text passages and chapters that exemplify the importance of mountains, height and snow for the whole story and inevitably lead to the question of whether the story would have worked in the lowlands. For example, the first chapter “Arrival” already resembles a journey to Hades if one looks at the topographical and natural symbolic references that Thomas Mann has skillfully interwoven. But nature, flora, and fauna, and above all the seasons, also play an important role in Mann's contemporary novel and underline the inner and outer movement of the protagonist Hans Castorp. In their fictionalized form of the novel, places such as the Berghof or Davos serve as a cipher that significantly reflects the tension of the whole plot and at some points leads to disorder or disorientation. Spatial movements can be found throughout the text, up and down, right, and left, but those also culminate in the chapter “Snow”, which is why I dedicate a focus of my work to that. On the one hand I examine the symbolic meaning of the snow, which can be seen both as a bringer of death and as a means of blurring the boundaries, on the other hand I deal with the spatial movement (internal and external) of Castorp - and to what extent he can be regarded as the only balancing figure in the novel. A symbiosis of opposites is created, for example, in snow and sea. The work demonstrates the importance of the mountains as the novel's spatial-theoretical setting and explains why flat land and sea are to be regarded as topographical and symbolic "opponents" and decisively advance the plot.

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