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Copyright of Lublin Studies in Modern Languages & Literature / Lubelskie Materialy Neofilologiczne is the property of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Department of German & Applied Linguistics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Daphnis: Zeitschrift fuer Mittlere Deutsche Literatur und Kultur der Fruhen Neuzeit is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In her lifetime, Gertrud Kolmar (1894–1943) enjoyed only limited success with the poetry collections and individual poems she managed to publish. Unlike her contemporary, Else Lasker-Schüler, Kolmar was not a fixture in German, or more precisely, Berlin cultural life during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Only since the 1980s has her work been recognized as a poignant contribution to the expression of interwar Jewish identity. Kolmar's writings are testimony to a unique creative prowess and expressive intent. Imaginative and intriguing in their thematics, imagery, and language, they reveal an acute sense of modernity, as well as existential despair and a struggle for meaning and orientation in spiritually hopeless circumstances. In her two posthumously published prose pieces, Die jüdische Mutter and Susanna, Jewish women provide the medium for her probing exploration of the modern condition. They describe personal catastrophes (violent deaths and their circumstances) as symptomatic of modernity's aporias, and question both individual agency and the ability to retrieve any sense of wholeness or direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses two very different examples of German post-imperial writing as manifestations of a colonialist imaginary that was both retrospective / nostalgic and futuristic / aspirational. They serve to illustrate how colonialist discourse after 1918 shaped attitudes towards colonial space in ways that survived the next historical caesura, that of 1945. Some of the animal stories from former German East Africa assembled in Rudolf Sendke’s book of reminiscences (1925) enact an idealized benevolent and respectful, yet determined and capable role of Germans in unruly and dangerous colonial space, while Adolf Kaempffer, 15 years later, devises a vision of the perfect National Socialist society based on social engineering and racial segregation to be created in an imaginary regained German South-West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction sketches some of the challenges in applying post-colonial theory to conditions and discourses of intra-European coloniality, post-coloniality, post-imperialism and post-dependency. It argues for a sensitive blending of the study of the historically specific with a conceptual approach which acknowledges patterns and brings general dynamics into view. The seven articles collected in this issue of the Journal of European Studies demonstrate a concomitant plurality of approaches to a wide range of exemplary scenarios (from Baltic positionings under the conditions of multidirectional hegemony to German and Polish/Ukrainian post-imperialisms) and on a variety of discursive sites (from memory politics to urban development). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of German Life & Letters is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on representation of Africa in adventure literature of various authors like Jules Verne, Carl Burmann, Karl May and Mark Twain. Topics discusses include disinvestment in the colonization of Africa in the book "Tom Sawyer Abroad" by Mark Twain, depiction of German mission in Africa in the book "Die Sklavenkarawane" by Karl May and integration of Africa into European knowledge systems in the book "Cinq semaines en ballon" by Jules Verne.

Copyright of German Life & Letters is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Goethe’s Römische Elegien (Roman Elegies, 1788) is probably the best-known cycle of poetry in the German language that celebrates the joy of physical love as spiritual fulfillment. Furthermore, the cycle espouses a vision of human wholeness where physical love is an expression of content and completion, emotions that are not often discussed because they are seen as not problematic. Goethe’s Roman Elegies form a testament to the author’s connection, not only with his sexual partner, but also with the location in which the union took place, the symbol of European civilization, and thus with humankind in general. The cycle practices what the author himself, decades later, conceptualized as Weltliteratur (world literature), literature that transcends narrowly defined notions of national literatures. Because of their erotic content, the Roman Elegies have experienced a very varied publication and translation history. The selections and decisions English translators have made win particular poignancy against the background of a reading of the cycle as celebrating connection, as reuniting what had been severed, as engaging in an activity that the translator also defines as his own. They illustrate how in earlier translations moral concerns informed translational decisions that denied English readers a comprehensive appreciation of the very essence of the cycle while later translations adopt their own, often subtly different strategies to capture the sense of wholeness and completion that Goethe tried to convey. An investigation of translational practice and of the interpretation implicit to any translational decision can help to appreciate the significance of the cycle as a contribution to the (itself fundamentally translational) project of overcoming division that lies at the heart of Goethe’s concept of Weltliteratur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights the wide range of critical attitudes toward literary modernity encompassed by decadence in Germany and Austria at the end of the 19th century. Results of the survey of decadent rhetoric during the period in the region; Transition of the rhetoric to the imagery of generational conflict; Role of the concept of decadence in explaining the mood of pessimism that gripped the generation; Suggestive theme explored in the discussions of decadence during the period.

An introduction is presented in which the authors outline the theme of the issue focusing on the play "Faust" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.