Department of German Studieshttps://dspace.mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/302024-03-29T01:26:33Z2024-03-29T01:26:33ZMonströse Romanzen und romantische Monsterhttps://dspace.mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/30282022-04-20T02:00:27Z2022-03-16T00:00:00ZMonströse Romanzen und romantische Monster
This thesis examines German monster mash-up novels as a contemporary form of popular fantastic literature, which has developed as an intricate part of today’s globalised, multimedia world and has to be analysed within this context. The corpus of novels discussed hereafter comprises German mash-ups which focus on monstrous romances and romantic monsters, specifically Wolf G. Heimraths Werther, der Werwolf (2010), Susanne Picards Die Leichen des jungen Werther (2011), Claudia Kerns Sissi, die Vampirjägerin (2011) and Peter H. Geißens Heidi und die Monster (2010). Converging with the hype of paranormal romance narratives both in young adult fiction (such as Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight) and TV series, where monsters such as vampires, werewolves and even zombies are introduced as romantic heroes, mash-up novels echo international trends within popular media production and reception. The romanticising and eroticisation of horror monsters is equally popular in online fanfiction, from which mash-up novels have emerged as a commercialised by-product. Rooted in the present day online culture, literary mash-ups represent the postmodern cultural technique of remixing pre-existing material to an unprecedented extent through pastiche and parody. In doing so, they reflect concerns and problems of the millennial generation.
The novels analysed adapt the stereotypical structures and formula of the paranormal romance genre, while employing re-writing strategies of fanfiction stories. Like paranormal romance and fanfiction, mash-up novels focus thematically on sexual
relationships, gender roles, corporeality and disease, which are negotiated by means of romanticised horror monsters and romance stereotypes, while exploring issues of liminality. Perceptions of love in the digitalised age have become conflicted by dating apps and over-sexualisation of our society, which leads to a sustained segregation of love and sex, and eventually to disappointing relationships that cannot live up to the expectations stoked by the myth of romantic love, propagandised by the media. In order to compensate for the lack of intense emotions and satisfactory relations, the millennial generation indulge themselves in fictitious feelings created by the immersive reception of (paranormal) romance literature and other media that addresses this specific lack. From a perspective of literary and cultural studies, based on an approach that combines elements of interdiscursivity (Jürgen Link), hypertextuality (Gérard Genette) and system theory (Elena Esposito), this thesis outlines how far the millennial zeitgeist and connected generational issues (such as blurring boundaries within society and gender roles) are negotiated by the contemporary mash-up novels
2022-03-16T00:00:00ZElizabeth Shaw (1920-1992): the Irish caricaturist who left her mark on East-German children’s literature (Pre-published)https://dspace.mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/30022022-01-06T13:49:47Z2015-01-01T00:00:00ZElizabeth Shaw (1920-1992): the Irish caricaturist who left her mark on East-German children’s literature (Pre-published)
One of my favourite picture books as a child was Der kleine Angsthase, a present from an aunt who lived in the former German Democratic Republic. It was somewhat exotic, like everything else which arrived in the Christmas parcels from relatives behind the Wall. The book tells the story of a timid, chubby rabbit who overcomes his fear when saving his little friend from being eaten by a fox. It was a simple, moral story, told with an understated sense of humour, even a touch of irony, unusual for German children’s books in the 1960s on either side of the Wall. The style in which the pictures of the little rabbit were drawn was also unusual: simple, clear strokes and bright colours, almost like a cartoon. At the time I was aware that it was a book from the GDR, but did not pay attention to the name, Elizabeth Shaw. It was much later in the 1990s, when stumbling across her autobiography Wie ich nach Berlin kam – Eine Irin in der geteilten Stadt [How I Came to Berlin – An Irishwoman in the Divided City] in a bookshop that I realized she was born in Belfast.
The Irish historian Mac Con Uladh called Elizabeth Shaw the “GDR’s most prominent resident from Northern Ireland”. Shaw was born in Belfast on 4 May 1920. When she was thirteen, the Shaws moved to Bedford, England. After finishing secondary school Elizabeth, who had discovered her talent for drawing at an early age, went to the Chelsea School of Arts in London, where she concentrated on book illustration. With the outbreak of the Second World War the school had to close temporarily. Having had to interrupt her studies, Elizabeth began her own service in 1941, painting signs with directions to bomb shelters, earning herself the nickname “Rembrandt” from her new colleagues. Her first drawings were published in 1940, and in 1943 she exhibited works in the Artists’ International Association in London. She became involved in communist circles and began a relationship with the Geneva-born German émigré artist René Graetz in 1944, who was a convinced communist. They married in 1946 and decided, like many other exiles who had been opposed to National Socialism, to move to the Soviet Zone in Germany to help in the building of a better, socialist Germany.5 Having arrived in East Berlin Shaw became a freelance artist, working as an illustrator and caricaturist in the mainstream GDR press. Eventually she wrote and illustrated her own children’s books, becoming a member of the GDR artistic establishment and winning numerous prizes for her work.
2015-01-01T00:00:00Z(Trans-)nationale zeitgenössische goethe-adaptionen in der online-kultur (Pre-published version)https://dspace.mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/28032019-03-30T03:01:09Z2017-01-01T00:00:00Z(Trans-)nationale zeitgenössische goethe-adaptionen in der online-kultur (Pre-published version)
(Trans-)nationale zeitgenössische goethe-adaptionen in der online-kultur.
2017-01-01T00:00:00ZRepresenting pain in literature and film: reflections on 'Die Brucke' (The Bridge) by Manfred Gregor and Bernhard Wickihttps://dspace.mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/24382019-01-29T15:02:43Z2008-01-01T00:00:00ZRepresenting pain in literature and film: reflections on 'Die Brucke' (The Bridge) by Manfred Gregor and Bernhard Wicki
Representing pain in literature and film: reflections on 'Die Brucke' (The Bridge) by Manfred Gregor and Bernhard Wicki
2008-01-01T00:00:00Z