{"title":"ACROSS LANGUAGE BORDERS: WRITING INTEGRATION AND BELONGING IN KINDERTRANSPORT DIARIES","authors":"Monja Stahlberger","doi":"10.1111/glal.70018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.70018","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The diaries of six Kindertransport refugees who fled Nazi persecution in Germany and Austria to Britain in 1938 and 1939 offer unique insights into how language use reflects negotiations of identity and belonging. Moving beyond traditional concepts of bilingualism, a translingual framework reveals how these young refugees navigated between German and English in their diary writings. Through close textual analysis, this research identifies various linguistic strategies including code-switching, the borrowing of words and phrases, script-switching between Sütterlin and Latin script, and gradual syntactic changes. These practices demonstrate how the refugees developed fluid, hybrid forms of expression that reflected their evolving cultural identities. While some diarists explicitly discussed language challenges, others displayed unconscious linguistic adaptations that signalled their integration process. Rather than shifting from writing texts entirely in German to writing entirely in English, these young refugees developed dynamic linguistic repertoires that allowed them to express complex experiences of displacement and belonging. Their diaries thus serve as valuable historical documents that show not only personal narratives, but also the intricate relationship between language use, identity formation and cultural adaptation in forced migration contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":54012,"journal":{"name":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","volume":"79 2","pages":"129-147"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/glal.70018","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147562124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"ERNST MEISTER'S BOOK OF NATURE IN PYTHIUSA","authors":"Wouter van Staveren","doi":"10.1111/glal.70019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.70019","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Der Aufsatz untersucht mehrere Gedichte aus Ernst Meisters Gedichtsammlung <i>Pythiusa</i> (1958), die sich mit der Natur als einem Buch voller Zeichen auseinandersetzen, das auf den Akt der Lektüre durch den Dichter wartet. Indem ich den Gedichtband in die Tradition der „Naturlyrik“ einordne und ein „close reading“ von „Tabula“, „Stumme Testamente“ und „Verbündet“ vornehme, zeige ich, wie Meisters Gedichte durch eine Vielzahl von Stilmerkmalen, darunter Apostrophe, dem Dativgebrauch und Verdichtung, ein Gleichgewicht zwischen konkreten Erfahrungen der sinnlichen Welt — Phänomenalität — und abstraktem philosophischem Denken — Begrifflichkeit — erreichen, um Meisters Gedichte als eine ‚kosmologische‘ Variante der Naturlyrik zu spezifizieren. Ich argumentiere, dass Meister auf eine Naturlyrik zielt, die wahrheitsgemäßer ist in dem Sinne, dass die Natur mehr zu ihrem eigenen Sein als kreatives, technologisches Subjekt wird, das seine eigenen Artefakte produziert, anstatt als Spiegelbild allzu menschlicher Kategorien zu fungieren. Diese kosmologische Annäherung an die Natur enthüllt die ignorierte, aber zutiefst phänomenale Grundlage von Meisters Poesie und denkt die Entwicklung und Möglichkeiten der Naturlyrik als Genre auf neue Weise.</p>","PeriodicalId":54012,"journal":{"name":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","volume":"79 2","pages":"148-165"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147563523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"DEUTSCHER KANON UNDER CONSTRUCTION: ZU SHARON DODUA OTOOS UND HEINRICH BÖLLS GESAMMELTES SCHWEIGEN (2022) UND FATMA AYDEMIRS DOKTORMUTTER FAUST (2024)","authors":"ANNA RUTKA","doi":"10.1111/glal.70023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.70023","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht Texte der zeitgenössischen postmigrantischen Autorinnen Sharon Dodua Otoo und Fatma Aydemir im Hinblick auf die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit dem deutschen Literaturkanon. Die Relektüren von Heinrich Bölls Satire <i>Doktor Murkes gesammeltes Schweigen</i> (Otoo) und Johann Wolfgang von Goethes <i>Faust</i> führen einen kreativen Dialog mit den Urhebertexten, polemisieren gegen eine reduktionistische Wissensproduktion und erzeugen „epistemic frictions“ (Medina). Die postmigrantische Ästhetik wird dabei als widerständige Intervention gegen das eurozentrische Masternarrativ eingesetzt. Die Relektüren von Otoo und Aydemir suchen nach neuen Visionen der Zugehörigkeit für eine plurale und diverse Gesellschaft der Gegenwart.</p>","PeriodicalId":54012,"journal":{"name":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","volume":"79 2","pages":"243-258"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147563524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"KILLJOY POETICS IN ANTJE RÁVIK STRUBEL'S BLAUE FRAU (2021)","authors":"Alrik Daldrup","doi":"10.1111/glal.70024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.70024","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Drawing on Sara Ahmed's concept of killjoy activism, I explore how Antje Rávik Strubel's <i>Blaue Frau</i> employs a killjoy poetics that refuses to brush over violence, asymmetry, injury and force. Instead, the novel intervenes in affective textures of happiness and reconciliation, and forms activist and ecological networks of resistance. I build on Ahmed's thinking, on Sarah Colvin's notion of vitalising aesthetics, on Brigitte Bargetz's engagement with affective politics, and on contemporary ecofeminist ideas to discuss how Strubel's novel as a piece of European writing dwells on microscopic remnants of trauma and resistance. Against a dominant politics of ignoring and forgetting, the novel turns its protagonist's body into a literary archive of political materialisations of power, resonating with Ann Cvetkovich's account of unnoticed traumas and bad feelings. Strubel's novel unites a network of killjoys and complainers who confront structural violence and the failures of the dominant trauma discourse in present-day Europe with ‘klare Ansagen’. The killjoy network never stands still and continuously expands. These structures of increasing interconnectedness are similar to the beautiful intensities that can be found in nature's boundless forms. The glistening on the Baltic Sea or the vastness of mycelial networks perform aesthetic resistance to the stasis of the political sphere.</p>","PeriodicalId":54012,"journal":{"name":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","volume":"79 2","pages":"217-242"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/glal.70024","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147563525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"„IN MEINER LICHTEN BESTRICKENDEN WILDNIS“. INTERVIEW MIT DER DICHTERIN DOROTHEA GRÜNZWEIG ÜBER NATURERLEBEN, LAUTVERWANDSCHAFTEN ZWISCHEN DEN SPRACHEN UND DIE HEILENDE KRAFT DER DICHTUNG","authors":"Hanna Bingel-Jones","doi":"10.1111/glal.70022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.70022","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article presents a written version of a conversation with the poet, essayist and translator Dorothea Grünzweig, conducted in October 2024 at the University of Cork. Known for her melodious word creations and sensually vivid nature imagery, Grünzweig, who lives in Finland, occupies a distinctive place in contemporary German-language poetry. In the interview, the poet gives insight into the creative processes behind her poetics, literary inspirations and her personal relationship with the landscape and wildlife of her chosen homeland. Special attention is paid to her two most recent poetry volumes, <i>Kaamos Kosmos</i> (2014) and <i>Plötzlich alles da</i> (2020, translated into English as <i>All there in a Flash</i>), in which Grünzweig contributes to a poetic reflection on the human relationship with nature, enriching this increasingly urgent dialogue in contemporary literature with new dimensions.</p><p>Der Beitrag ist die verschriftlichte Fassung eines Gesprächs mit der in Finnland lebenden Dichterin, Essayistin und Übersetzerin Dorothea Grünzweig, durchgeführt im Oktober 2024 an der Universität Cork. Mit ihren klangvollen Wortkreationen und sinnlich intensiven Naturbildern nimmt Grünzweigs Dichtung einen besonderen Platz in der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartslyrik ein. Im Interview spricht die Dichterin über kreative Prozesse, die ihrer multilingualen Poetik zugrunde liegen, literarische Inspirationsquellen, sowie ihre persönliche Beziehung zur Landschaft und Tierwelt ihrer Wahlheimat. Besonderes Augenmerk liegt auf den beiden jüngeren Gedichtbänden <i>Kaamos Kosmos</i> (2014) und <i>Plötzlich alles da</i> (2020), mit denen sich Grünzweig in ein gegenwärtig immer dringlicher werdendes poetisches Nachdenken über das menschliche Verhältnis zur Natur einschreibt und dieses um neue Facetten bereichert.</p>","PeriodicalId":54012,"journal":{"name":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","volume":"79 2","pages":"203-216"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147564082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘DIE WISSEN ALLE NOCH NICHT, WER DU BIST’: BODY NARRATIVE AND TRANS EMBODIMENT IN SABINE BERNARDI'S ROMEOS (2011)","authors":"Mingyuan Wan","doi":"10.1111/glal.70021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.70021","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines the narrative structure of <i>Romeos</i> (Sabine Bernardi, 2011) through the lens of body narrative. While traditional body narrative emphasises the felt discomfort of being trapped in the ‘wrong body’, <i>Romeos</i> challenges this essentialist framework by foregrounding Lukas's trans identification and trans masculinities through an alternative form of body narrative. I contend that the film's rendition of Lukas's body narrative contrasts with the conventional ‘wrong-body’ narrative and highlights the social dimension of transitioning, positioning Lukas's body as a site of negotiation rather than mere correction. The film portrays Lukas's trans experience by showing his identification with both cis and trans men, and incorporates his embodiment of different masculinities. Reframing trans experiences beyond surgical transition, <i>Romeos</i> offers an alternative body narrative that affirms self-determination while acknowledging the societal constraints that shape trans embodiments. This article argues that <i>Romeos</i> contributes to a broader, more inclusive discourse on trans embodiments in contemporary media.</p>","PeriodicalId":54012,"journal":{"name":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","volume":"79 2","pages":"184-202"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/glal.70021","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147563239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"DAS HANDWERK DES ERZÄHLENS. POETOLOGISCHE ENTWÜRFE IN UWE TIMMS ALLE MEINE GEISTER","authors":"Christoph Seifener","doi":"10.1111/glal.70025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.70025","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Uwe Timm's autobiographical story <i>Alle meine Geister</i>, published in 2023, describes how Timm became an author. The story unfolds through explicit and implicit reflections on the nature and art of oral and written storytelling, against the backdrop of the author's apprenticeship and self-employment as a furrier in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Timm develops central points of his poetics by reference to two important texts in German-language cultural and literary history. The first is Walter Benjamin's essay ‘Der Erzähler’ (1936), in which Benjamin deals with oral narration in everyday life from the perspective of narrative theory and locates the origin of narration in the artisanal environment. In his memoirs, Timm repeatedly emphasises the interconnections between craftsmanship and storytelling by depicting the craft workshop as a social place of storytelling and the craftsperson as an artist. Second, Timm refers implicitly to E. T. A. Hoffmann's story ‘Des Vetters Eckfenster’ (1822), in which Hoffmann connects narrative productivity and visual perception. In this context, Timm engages with the topos of the window view, which stimulates the viewer's imagination, and with the genesis of narrative from a remembered, imagined or actual image.</p>","PeriodicalId":54012,"journal":{"name":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","volume":"79 2","pages":"259-280"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/glal.70025","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147564081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘WER ICH BIN, ERFÄHRST DU NICHT!’: TRANSFORMATIONS OF DON JUAN AND DON GIOVANNI IN EAST GERMAN MEDIA","authors":"Seán Allan","doi":"10.1111/glal.70020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.70020","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The figure of Don Juan/Don Giovanni provided directors working across a range of media in the GDR with an opportunity to appropriate canonical literary models and shape them in accordance with the needs of the fledgling socialist state. The Berliner Ensemble's 1952/54 adaptation of Molière's <i>Dom Juan</i> and Walter Felsenstein's 1966 production of Mozart's <i>Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni</i> for the Komische Oper reflect two diametrically opposed dramaturgical approaches to the problems of class and gender embodied in the material. The challenges inherent in bringing opera to a wider audience and the attempt to reimagine the female protagonists for contemporary East German audiences lie at the heart of Siegfried Kühn's 1980 film <i>Don Juan — Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 78</i>.</p><p>Die Figur des Don Juan/Don Giovanni bot DDR-Regisseuren, die in verschiedenen Medien arbeiteten, die Möglichkeit einer Orientierung an kanonischen literarischen Vorlagen, sowie diese entsprechend den Bedürfnissen des jungen sozialistischen Staates neu zu gestalten. Die Adaption von Molières <i>Dom Juan</i> durch das Berliner Ensemble in den Jahren 1952/54 und Walter Felsensteins Inszenierung von Mozarts <i>Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni</i> für die Komische Oper im Jahr 1966 spiegeln zwei diametral entgegengesetzte dramaturgische Herangehensweisen im Hinblick auf die Klassen- und Geschlechterproblematiken wider, die dem Don-Juan-Stoff zugrunde liegen. Das Vorhaben, das Operngenre einem breiteren Publikum zugänglich zu machen, und der Versuch, die weiblichen Figuren für das zeitgenössische ostdeutsche Publikum neu zu interpretieren, stehen im Mittelpunkt von Siegfried Kühns Film <i>Don Juan — Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 78</i> aus dem Jahre 1980.</p>","PeriodicalId":54012,"journal":{"name":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","volume":"79 2","pages":"166-183"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147563240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"NOSFERATU (1922) AND THE AFTERLIVES OF PROPERTY","authors":"ADRIENNE N. MERRITT","doi":"10.1111/glal.70013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.70013","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Der vorliegende Aufsatz analysiert F. W. Murnaus <i>Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens</i> (1922) in Bezug auf die im Film thematisierten Motive von Eigentum und Besitz und deren gespenstische Manifestationen. Die folgenden Lektüren schließen theoretisch an die kritischen Erkenntnisse der „Black Studies“ an. Vor dem Hintergrund der Zwischenkriegszeit in Deutschland und insbesondere den zu dieser Zeit grassierenden Ängsten vor der „Schwarzen Schmach“ zeige ich, dass die Szene, in der Nosferatu aus dem Bauch des Schiffes erscheint, auf das Trauma verlorener kolonialer Besitztümer in Afrika anspielt. Damit thematisiert der Film die auf rassistischen Merkmalen basierenden Identitätszuweisungen schwarzer Personen ebenso wie die Schwierigkeiten nach dem ersten Weltkrieg zu einer stabilen, weißen deutschen Identität zu gelangen. Der Laderaum wird hier als ein Zwischenraum lesbar, der Identitäten sowohl auflöst als auch neu konfiguriert. Wichtig ist mir hier vor allem das Zusammenspiel der Worte „Besitz“, „Eigentum“, „Besetzung“, „Besatzung“ und „besessen“, durch das die deutsche koloniale Vergangenheit die Identitätskrisen der Weimarer Republik heimsucht und dadurch verkompliziert.</p>","PeriodicalId":54012,"journal":{"name":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","volume":"79 1","pages":"91-113"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146256528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"PERIPHERY TO CENTRE STAGE: THE SARRASANI CIRCUS IN WEIMAR GERMANY","authors":"Sabine Hanke","doi":"10.1111/glal.70016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.70016","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The modern European circus was more than just entertainment: it was a powerful platform where fantasies of empire, ideas of national identity, and notions of racial difference came together and were put on public display. In interwar Germany, the Sarrasani Circus — the largest circus enterprise in the country at the time — built on the legacy of nineteenth-century ethnographic shows and used modern advertising to draw massive audiences to its vivid spectacles. Yet, behind the dazzling performances were complex negotiations of race, identity and power: while the circus perpetuated imperialist ideologies and exoticised ‘racial others’, it also enabled performers from the periphery to navigate and shape their own political and professional roles. Therefore, by examining the circus through a postcolonial lens, this article situates the German provincial stage within a broader transnational context of empire and popular culture, revealing how shows featuring, for example, Lakota performers both catered to and shaped regional German identities, sometimes reinforcing unity, sometimes highlighting division. In doing so, it offers fresh insights into how imperial legacies lived on in Weimar-era mass entertainment, blurring the lines between centre and periphery, spectacle and ideology, and re-situates our understanding of Weimar culture within the wider global currents of imperialism and popular spectacle.</p>","PeriodicalId":54012,"journal":{"name":"GERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS","volume":"79 1","pages":"16-36"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/glal.70016","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146256548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}