UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
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Item All about alles: The syntax of wh-quantifier float in German(2021) Doliana, Aaron Gianmaria Gabriel; Lasnik, Howard; Hornstein, Norbert; Linguistics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis offers an in-depth investigation of “wh-quantifier float” of the quantifying particle ‘alles’ in German. 'Alles' (etymologically, ‘all’) appears in wh-questions like 'Wen alles hat die Mare eingeladen?' (‘Who-all did Mare invite?’). The thesis focuses on the syntactic distribution of 'alles'. 'Alles' enjoys a wide distribution in the clause. It can occur both ‘adjacent’ to its ‘associate’ wh-phrase, and ‘distant’ from it, in various positions of the clause. I address three questions: What determines the distribution of 'alles'? Are adjacent 'alles' and ‘distal alles’ the same category? What licenses distal 'alles'? I answer these questions by arguing for a stranding analysis of distal 'alles': 'alles' and its associate form a first-Merge constituent, which is optionally separated in the course of the derivation through a process that involves movement ([WH alles] ⇒ [WH. . . [[WH alles]. . . ]]). The conclusion is compatible with prior analyses that argued for or assumed (a) constituency, and (b) a movement dependency in overt syntax. The conclusion is at odds with adverbial analyses, which assume that distal 'alles' is an adverbial. I provide two main empirical arguments. First, I argue against the idea that distal 'alles' and adjacent 'alles' are separate lexical items, or have different lexical content. Second, I argue that the “Chain Link Generalization” is the most accurate generalization for the distribution of 'alles': Given a derivation involving 'alles' and a licit associate, 'alles' may appear in any position which hosts an Abar-chain link of the associate, and in no other position. I show that 'alles' has “no distribution of its own in the clause”. Rather, the distribution of 'alles' depends on the potential distribution of its associate and can be predicted by the associate’s category, the associate’s base-position, the derivation that the associate undergoes in a given sentence. Conceptually, I argue that a stranding analysis is favored by simplicity as most generalizations established in this dissertation are directly entailed by it.Item The "Europa-Gedanke" and the Transformation of German Conservatism, 1930-1955(2019) Klein, Joshua Derren; Herf, Jeffrey; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The following dissertation is a political-intellectual history of German conservatism and national identity from the 1930s to the 1950s. It explores the published and private documents of prominent conservative intellectuals, propagandists, journalists, and military elites who before, during, and after the Second World War developed a new concept of European nationalism which they called the “Europa-Gedanke,” or “Europe-concept.” This dissertation traces the evolution of this political ideology by assessing what Europe meant for these thinkers, how this meaning changed over the course of a volatile historical time period, how it differed from other concepts of Europe, and how it informed the transformation of German conservatism. The figures analyzed in this dissertation had in common a professional and intellectual trajectory that began in the Conservative Revolution of the Weimar period. Part 1 of this dissertation dissects their path to intellectual complicity in National Socialism and the propaganda apparatus behind Hitler’s “New Order of Europe.” Part II traces their postwar professional rebirth as widely publicized journalists and influential military reformers in the first decade of West Germany. Surprisingly, after 1945 these figures were able to bridge their European ideology with the postwar Christian Democratic politics of European integration and anti-Communism. This alliance opened the door for liberals in West Germany and the American intelligence community to accommodate a previously hostile milieu into their postwar liberal politics. The primary thesis of this dissertation is three-fold: a) the conservative Europe-concept is a hitherto neglected and dismissed ideology which was highly influential across all three examined time periods of German history; b) this influence was a result of the Europe-concept’s explicit reformulation of the enduring German völkisch tradition in such a way that expanded the definition of the historical ethnic community (from Germany to Europe) and thereby addressed the perceived political inadequacy of nationalism during and after the Second World War; and c) the Europe-concept contributed to the de-radicalization of German conservatism by assisting a transition from the anti-democratic Conservative Revolutionary impulse to the postwar West German politics of liberal democracy – a convergence that moderated the instinctive illiberalism of German conservatism.Item Representations of "female" madness in German-language literature of the 20th and 21st centuries(2015) Volkhausen, Petra; Frederiksen, Elke P.; Germanic Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Using an interdisciplinary approach, my dissertation examines the intersection of “womanhood” and madness in German-language literature and culture. While scholars have studied the “madwoman” of the previous centuries extensively, my dissertation presents the first comprehensive study of representations of “female” madness from 1894 onward. Since the late 19th century, female authors from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have been appropriating discourses of madness in order to critique the contradictory ramifications of mandatory adherence to the construct of “femininity”. Employing theories of Judith Butler and Michel Foucault, I argue that the madness discourse represents a key site where writers negotiate the ongoing hegemony of societal ideologies defining the special status of the female psyche, body and sexuality as entities which need to be monitored, shaped or optimized. My research thus redeploys “female” madness as a research category. While previously applied almost exclusively to the realities of white middle-class women, I argue for an intersectional conception of critical madness studies which takes account of gender, race, and religion to offer culturally specific insights into the lives of German women from diverse backgrounds. My study addresses texts by well-known authors, such as Hedwig Dohm, Christa Wolf, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Elfriede Jelinek, as well as lesser known writers, such as May Ayim and Christine Lavant.Item American Blackness and Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Twenty-First Century German Literature and Film(2014) Wall, Christina Noelle; Frederiksen, Elke P; Germanic Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study represents a unique examination of the convergence of constructs of Blackness and racism in twenty-first century novels and films by white Germans and Austrians in order to demonstrate how these texts broaden discourses of Vergangenheitsbewältigung. The increased prominence of minority voices demanding recognition of their national identity within Nazi successor states has transformed white German perceptions of "Germanness" and of these nations' relationships to their turbulent pasts. I analyze how authors and directors employ constructs of Blackness within fictional texts to interrogate the dynamics of historical and contemporary racisms. Acknowledging that discourses of `race' are taboo, I analyze how authors and directors avoid this forbidden discourse by drawing comparisons between constructs of American Blackness and German and Austrian historical encounters with `race'. This study employs cultural studies' understanding of `race' and Blackness as constructs created across discourses. Following the example of Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark (1992), my textual analyses show how these constructs create a "playground for the imagination" in which authors confront modern German racism. My study begins with a brief history of German-African American encounters, emphasizing the role American Blackness played during pivotal moments of German national identity formation. The subsequent chapters are divided thematically, each one comprised of textual analyses that explore discourses integral to Vergangenheitsbewältigung. The third chapter examines articulations of violence and racism in two films, Oskar Roehler's Lulu & Jimi (2008) and Michael Schorr's Schultze gets the blues (2008), to explore possibilities of familial reconciliation despite historical guilt. The fourth chapter compares the Besatzungskinder protagonists of two novels, Peter Henisch's Schwarzer Peter (2000) and Larissa Boehning's Lichte Stoffe (2007), with the (auto)biographies of actual Besatzungskinder Ika Hügel-Marshall and Bärbel Kampmann, exposing the modern discursive taboo of `race' as a silence stemming from historical guilt. The final chapter demonstrates the evolution of German conceptualizations of historical guilt through the analyses of Christa Wolf's novel Stadt der Engel (2010) and Armin Völckers's film Leroy (2007).Item The Brandstetter Tunebook: Shape-Note Dissemination and the Germans of Western Maryland(2012) Barnett, Joshua Rush; Warfield, Patrick; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The newly discovered personal tunebook of Maria Brandstetter (1820) reveals that shape-note hymnody was alive in the mountains of Western Maryland in the early nineteenth century. The tunebook's presence in the region fills in a gap left by the usual dissemination story of shape-note hymnody, which emphasizes an exchange between Eastern Pennsylvania and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The tunebook is also connected to the German community that migrated from Pennsylvania into Maryland and Virginia in the early 1800s, and thus sheds light on the musical culture of the German-American immigrants of Western Maryland. Finally, the contents of the Brandstetter tunebook suggest that pivotal Virginia shape-note composer and compiler of the Kentucky Harmony, Ananias Davisson, may have first been exposed to shape-note music by migrating Germans like the Brandstetter family.Item FROM SELLING RAGS TO WEARING RICHES: GERMAN JEWS' ECONOMIC PROGRESS IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY(2010) Revzin, Naomi Tischler; Rozenblit, Marsha L.; Jewish Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study investigates how mainstream German Jews in the first half of the nineteenth century moved from the edges of society into the German economic middle class, as their marginal occupations, especially petty commerce and peddling, inadvertently positioned them to be at the forefront of German industrialization. The narratives of Jewish businessmen, combined with articles in two Jewish newspapers, indicate that Jewish entrepreneurs of that period continued to focus on commerce and were well positioned to take advantage of niche opportunities that the German gentile population overlooked. The study also showed how these Jewish businessmen publicly supported artisanry and the German guild system, as they simultaneously used their master certifications to start their own businesses. It reveals how Jewish businessmen's thinking changed, as they moved from marginal to mainstream and impacted the way they conducted business, as they moved from selling rags to wearing riches.Item The Phenomenal Lives of Movable Christ Sculptures(2006-06-05) Jung, Tanya Ann; Gill, Meredith; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation deals with a fascinating and understudied group of free-standing Christ sculptures that were moved in imitation of Christ during the dramatic observances of late medieval Holy Week. They adhere to general iconographic formulas, but stand apart from other depictions of Christ in one important respect--they were elaborately kinetic. Congregations animated these images in a variety of ways, from basic manual operation in processions and elevations to the manipulation of fitted joints, wheels, hand cranks, and elevation apparatuses. Scholars who study movable Christ sculptures use them as evidence for liturgical and para-liturgical observances recorded in written texts, they approach them as aesthetic objects or as objects of folk tradition, and they discuss their place in the development of medieval sculpture and architectural space. I argue, however, that these images have more meanings to offer. Accordingly, these meanings are available when we consider not only their material and symbolic forms and their performative functions, but also their shifting cultural locations in medieval and modern Europe. Movable Christ sculptures were edifying and sacred images, disconcerting idols, homely folk objects, and works of art. My aim in this dissertation is to write a cultural biography of the lives of these images--in other words, a history that can account for the varied connotations of movable Christ sculptures in different instances of practice, reception, and response. It is my contention that these images, because of their performative function, experiential qualities, mimetic form, relatively anonymity, and "thingness," present an ideal opportunity to exercise cultural biography from an art historical perspective. Such an exercise elucidates the history of movable Christ sculptures after the moment of production and artistic intent has passed. It describes how these images have remained fixed in human imagination and in life regardless of changing cultural, social and political circumstances, yet it also accounts for the ways in their meanings have changed over time. In short, it provides a more complete account of the lives of these unique and understudied objects and reveals the ways in which movable Christ sculptures create transcendental moments and social realities.Item NATIONAL CHARACTER AS EXPRESSED IN PIANO LITERATURE(2005-12-01) Park, Yong S; Gowen, Bradford; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the middle of the 19th century, many composers living outside of mainstream musical countries such as Germany and France attempted to establish their own musical identity. A typical way of distinguishing themselves from German, French, and Italian composers was to employ the use of folk elements from their native lands. This resulted in a vast amount of piano literature that was rich in national idioms derived from folk traditions. The repertoire reflected many different national styles and trends. Due to the many beautiful, brilliant, virtuosic, and profound ideas that composers infused into these nationalistic works, they took their rightful place in the standard piano repertoire. Depending on the compositional background or style of the individual composers, folk elements were presented in a wide variety of ways. For example, Bartók recorded many short examples collected from the Hungarian countryside and used these melodies to influence his compositional style. Many composers enhanced and expanded piano technique. Liszt, in his Hungarian Rhapsodies, emphasized rhythmic vitality and virtuosic technique in extracting the essence of Hungarian folk themes. Chopin and Szymanowski also made use of rhythmic figurations in their polonaises and mazurkas, often making use of double-dotted rhythms. Obviously, composers made use of nationalistic elements to add to the piano literature and to expand the technique of the piano. This dissertation comprises three piano recitals presenting works of: Isaac Albeniz, Bela Bartók, Frédéric Chopin, Enrique Granados, Edvard Grieg, Franz Liszt, Frederic Rzewski, Alexander Scriabin, Karol Szymanowski, and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. The recitals were performed in the Gildenhorn Recital Hall at the University of Maryland. They were recorded in 2002-2004 and are available on line through the website of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center of the University of Maryland.