Germanistische Beiträge 38.2016
Refine
Year of publication
- 2016 (15)
Language
- German (15)
Has Fulltext
- yes (15)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (15)
Keywords
- Joachim Wittstock (2)
- Austria-Hungary (1)
- Danube Swabians (1)
- Finis saxonae (1)
- German as a foreign language (1)
- Hessendorf (1)
- Maria Theresia (1)
- National Archives (1)
- Radnicki (1)
- Saxon culture and history (1)
Through the emergence of a mysterious wall a nameless protagonist is forced to lead a life of isolation behind this wall. Through the resulting threshold the space is divided into a separate space of the defunct civil society and an interior, insulated survival space. The exterior space is marked by elements of dissatisfaction, basically caused by the lack of interpersonal communication. The initially hostile enclave gradually becomes a space of militant feminism, in which a recluse is compelled not only to surviving but also to establishing herself at the zero point of civilization. The paradisiacal environment, leading to the dissolution of formal boundaries and to the comunion with the nature is visibly disturbed by the appearance of a stranger. It congeals to a space of creation, as the unnamed woman writes down her experiences in this place on the backs of old calendar pages. The natural environment of the mountains becomes through writing a place a self-insurance.
The latest publication of Professor Ioana Crăciun from the University of Bucharest deals with the (de)construction of bourgeois values and norms in the silent movies during the Weimar Republic. In five substantial chapters the author approaches the representation in the silent movies of different aspects which she considers relevant for that epoch. The themes range from the metropolis and its psychopathological aspects, the male homosexuality, the destiny of children, the law-breaking and the Doppelgänger motif.
The following study is dedicated to the city of Sibiu as the literary place in the short story “The Blue Sphere” [Die blaue Kugel] by Joachim Wittstock.
Starting from the selection of historical monuments and buildings evoking important personalities of the Transylvanian Saxons, Joachim Wittstock recalls cultural and historical aspects of the Saxons who have left their mark on the present. Using the blue sphere as a metaphor for perfection and balance, the writer from Sibiu describes the city as a literary topos in a time when German culture had reached its peak (18th-19th centuries) suggesting the eventual final decline.