Languages, Literatures, & Cultures Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2785
Browse
2 results
Search Results
Item HIDDEN SPIRITUALITY: MARGINALIZED DESIRE IN THE WORKS OF ALBERT COHEN(2023) Blank, Samuel Galen; Frisch, Andrea; Mahalel, Adi; French Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation studies the role of marginalized desire in the works of Swiss-French author Albert Cohen; specifically, marginalized desire within same-sex and Jewish-Christian interfaith relationships, which have historically been deemed socially and religiously corrupt and therefore have been seen to constitute boundaries to spiritual legitimacy. Therefore, this study seeks to understand why Cohen grants such marginalized desires the same spiritual legitimacy as mainstream desire in his novels, and what can be learned from the effects of this decision. Albert Cohen’s relationship to marginalization is explored across the various chapters, which address immigration, oscillations between tradition and modernity, and curiosity towards same-sex and interfaith couplehood. The final chapter of this dissertation presents a pedagogical implementation of this material. Initially perceived as an outsider, Albert Cohen used imaginative literature to compensate for this supposed errant state, as he actively sought to conquer French culture and forge his place in the Francophone Europe of the 20th century. The result is a novel that creates a refraction of pluralistic Judaism with an affirming spirituality, one that showcases the common righteousness in all of humanity. For Cohen, this righteousness exists beyond cultural constructions such as nationality, religion, or sexual orientation. Inspired by his own life experiences, the author depicts same-sex attraction as just beyond his complete ability to conquer, in essence just beyond his world, which is synonymous with the Eternal. Ultimately, this spiritual elevation of marginalized desire conducted by the author reflects a proximity to God that is possible regardless of social and cultural boundaries to spirituality.Item "Schweigen als Herausforderung": Silence as a Generational Challenge in the Post Holocaust Works of East German Jewish Authors Jurek Becker and Barbara Honigmann(2020) McDaniel, Jocelyn; Beicken, Peter; Germanic Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines how two postwar Jewish writers from the former German Democratic Republic, Jurek Becker, a child survivor of the Holocaust, and Barbara Honigmann, a descendent of returned Jewish communist emigres and a second-generation writer, depicted and challenged a culture of silence, “Schweigen,” concerning Holocaust memory and Jewish identity in postwar Germanophone societies. This study emphasizes the unique East German context that influenced both authors. “Schweigen” is defined as a societal phenomenon of binary emotional trauma. Facing the inevitable "Schuldfrage" (Jaspers, 1946), many postwar Germans found it arduous to come to terms with the inhumanity of the Third Reich, while many Jewish victims suffered from the shame of survival. In the GDR, “Schweigen” was compounded by the state’s propagation of antifascism and a prescriptive cultural heritage, Kulturerbe, encompassing the abdication of guilt from the fascist past, the minimization of Jewish victimhood, and misappropriation of Holocaust memory. Becker and Honigmann, whose parents were victimized by the Third Reich, grew up in the GDR, a communist state. Foremost, their family backgrounds, generational attitudes, and perceptions of East German socialism shaped their contrasting writings concerning the cultural silencing of Holocaust memory and complexity of Jewish identity. Literary trauma theory, memory studies, and gender studies bring these (dis)continuities into focus. Five chapters are devoted to the authors’ development in the GDR and their literary responses to “Schweigen” within the limitations of East German cultural heritage. Both oeuvres are therapeutic undertakings impacted by experienced and inherited Holocaust-trauma. The analyses of Becker's life and his novels, Jakob der Lügner, Der Boxer, and Bronsteins Kinder, reveal his adoption of the humanist tradition of socialism that stands against the dangers of fascism, while dissenting from the GDR’s official cultural doctrine. In life and writing, Honigmann forsakes East German Kulturerbe by recreating her own German Jewish identity and cultural heritage. Her autofictive works reject communism and the generational assimilation of her family in favor of Jewish spirituality, feminist assertions, and multiculturalism. The comparison of both authors and their Holocaust-relevant writings likewise endeavors to counter the dual waning of Holocaust memory and East German national memory.