Institut für Germanistik

This article proposes that the eighteenth-century novel Siebenkäs contains the formulation of an aesthetic theory that embraces same-sex desire. The novel's author, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, still relatively unknown among literary scholars today, uses the myth of Narcissus as an aesthetic blueprint for the novel. In doing so, he appears to comply with the aesthetic conventions espoused by his German Romantic peers, many of whom considered self-contemplation to be a prerequisite for gaining access to the Absolute, a term that designates an unconditioned totality that was dear to authors, artists and philosophers at the time. However, the article suggests that Jean Paul's true purpose is to employ the myth to subversive ends. In particular, the author builds upon the myth's homoerotic underpinnings-largely (but not entirely) forgotten in the eighteenth century-to articulate a theory of aesthetics that no longer seeks to efface homosexual desire. The aesthetic worldview that emerges from this process is one that foregrounds imitation as a fundamental building-block of queer aesthetics and that, in contraposition to some of the dominant aesthetic thinking of the age, advocates the legitimacy of an aesthetics that celebrates desire rather than suppressing it. In diesem Artikel wird vorgeschlagen, dass der im achtzehnten Jahrhundert erschienene Roman Siebenkäs eine ästhetische Theorie darstellt, die gleichgeschlechtliches Begehren einbezieht. Der Autor Jean Paul-der in der Literaturwissenschaft bis heute relativ unbekannt ist-, verwendet den Mythos von Narziss als ästhetischen Entwurf für den Roman. Damit scheint er den ästhetischen Konventionen zu entsprechen, die von seinen Zeitgenossen*innen aus der deutschen Romantik vertreten wurden, von denen viele die Selbstbesinnung als Voraussetzung für den Zugang zum Absoluten betrachteten-d. h. zu jener unbedingten Totalität, die den Literatur-und Kunstschaffenden der damaligen Zeit am Herzen lag. Dieser Artikel legt jedoch nahe, dass Jean Pauls wahre Absicht darin besteht, den Mythos für subversive Zwecke einzusetzen. Insbesondere baut der Autor auf den homoerotischen Hintergrund des Mythos auf, der im achtzehnten Jahrhundert weitgehend (aber nicht vollständig) vergessen war, um eine Theorie der Ästhetik zu formulieren, die nicht mehr versucht, homosexuelles Begehren auszulöschen. Die ästhetische Weltanschauung, die aus diesem Prozess hervorgeht, ist eine, die die Nachahmung als grundlegenden Baustein einer queeren Ästhetik in den Vordergrund stellt und die-im Gegensatz zu einem Teil des vorherrschenden ästhetischen Denkens der Zeit-für die Legitimität einer Ästhetik eintritt, die das Begehren feiert, anstatt es zu unterdrücken.

In recent years, narratology has yielded innovative views on how certain narratives create and convey meaning through embodied processes. Such 'embodied narratives' have increasingly been considered to reflect the way human perception itself functions: by drawing upon corporeal impressions before mental cognition, and physical sensation before language. This article suggests that Kim de l'Horizon's Blutbuch offers further productive insight regarding the nature and function of the embodied narrative. The novelan auto-fictional tale that deals with non-binary identityshot to fame in the winter of 2022 after winning prestigious literary awards in the Germanspeaking world; and it has been lauded, in particular, for the pride of place it offers to the author-narrator's embodied perspectives on gender identity. As this article will argue, however, Blutbuch also foregrounds a biopolitical worldview in which all boundariesand not just those of genderare seen as superfluous. In doing so, not only does the novel allows its author-narrator to create a narrative body that reappropriates for itself the agency that cisnormative discourse would traditionally deny it, but it also proposes an expanded understanding of the embodied narrative: one that conceives of such forms of writing as metaphors for the body itself.

Over the last several years, cultural studies scholars in Germany have closely examined the subject of refugees in recent German literature, focusing largely on aspects of spatial theory, the causes of migration and the figure of the refugee. However, while the migrant as cultural Other has received extensive attention, gender issues remain largely un-derrepresented. This contribution explores the ways in which forced migration, due mostly to war and violence, affects the gender identities and roles of characters in the novels of Olga Grjasnowa (Gott ist nicht schüchtern) and Shida Bazyar (Nachts ist es leise in Teheran).

Over the last several years, cultural studies scholars in Germany have closely examined the subject of refugees in recent German literature, focusing largely on aspects of spatial theory, the causes of migration and the figure of the refugee. However, while the migrant as cultural Other has received extensive attention, gender issues remain largely underrepresented. This contribution explores the ways in which forced migration, due mostly to war and violence, affects the gender identities and roles of characters in the novels of Olga Grjasnowa (Gott ist nicht schüchtern) and Shida Bazyar (Nachts ist es leise in Teheran).

This article presents computer supported “language production experiments” (LPEs) as a method for the investigation of syntactic variation. It describes the setup for the investigation of numerous syntactic phenomena and provides a sample study of the German GET passive across Austria. It also suggests that LPEs offer possibilities for the targeted investigation of linguistic variation in various ways. They may be used to explore speakers’ individual linguistic repertoires and an according corpus setup can be used to examine e.g., interspeaker patterns of variation. LPEs also enable researchers to investigate which linguistic factors control or influence syntactic variation.