Dr. Belinda Kleinhans is associate professor of German at Texas Tech University. She is interested in how discourses of exclusion, discrimination and violence against (animal) others are expressed and countered in literature. Her research interests are in the areas of biopolitics in literature, cultural and literary animal studies, and issues of representation regarding memory, violence, and social justice in graphic novels. She received her Ph.D. in German from the University of Waterloo (ON, Canada) in 2013 with her dissertation Mit Texttieren jenseits der Grenze des Schweigens sprechen. Sprachkrise, Machtdiskurse, und eine Poetologie des Offenen in der deutschsprachigen Nachkriegsliteratur am Beispiel Wolfdietrich Schnurres, Günter Eichs und Ilse Aichingers , supervised by Dr. Alice Kuzniar. She holds a M.A. in German from the University of Waterloo (ON, Canada, 2007) and a Magister Artium in German and Philosophy from the Universität Mannheim (2008).
The othering of whole groups of people in a biopolitical discourse during the Third Reich has cau... more The othering of whole groups of people in a biopolitical discourse during the Third Reich has caused many to reassess ethics that is based on specific categories. Adorno and Horkheimer reckoned with both Enlightenment as well as classical " humanist " discourses to question whether they imply structures that lead to fascism. In the wake of these arguments, classical humanist (or sometimes also called anthropocentric) ethics have also been criticized by philosophers such as Agamben, Derrida, and Wolfe. It is thus time to work on posthuman(ist) ethics that avoids the traps of a narrow human ethics and that is inclusive rather than exclusive. The short stories by postwar German author Wolfdietrich Schnurre, written in the wake of the Holocaust, reckon with a purely human-centered worldview and draw a bleak picture of an anthropocentrically structured and valued world. Under the surface that portrays a speciesist world, Schnurre employs a network of sub-discourses to " cave out " carno-phallogocentric discourses and point towards a different, post-human ethics. This paper examines how anthropocentric discourses of power lead to inhumane violence and how a different approach to the Other, based on empathy and shared vulnerability, might just move us beyond it.
<jats:p> This article examines Barbara Yelin's 2014 graphic novel Irmina in order to in... more <jats:p> This article examines Barbara Yelin's 2014 graphic novel Irmina in order to investigate the visual narrative strategies employed by the cartoonist in revealing her protagonist's path to conformity under National Socialism. Yelin thereby also seeks to raise awareness of social justice and personal responsibilities in the comic's readership. I use Judith Butler's conceptions of framing and precarious life from Frames of War (2009) as an interpretive lens to read the comics medium's convention of panel frames and storytelling through individual panels separated by the space of the gutter. I demonstrate how the interplay of text and image in Irmina reveals the importance of visual framing in developing compassion and recognizing the lives of others as precarious. Through this narrative strategy essential to the comics form, Irmina's decline to a Mitläufer underscores the role of visibility—or lack thereof—in the lives framed and recognized as precarious under the Third Reich. </jats:p>
This article examines Barbara Yelin’s 2014 graphic novel Irmina in order to investigate the visua... more This article examines Barbara Yelin’s 2014 graphic novel Irmina in order to investigate the visual narrative strategies employed by the cartoonist in revealing her protagonist’s path to conformity under National Socialism. Yelin thereby also seeks to raise awareness of social justice and personal responsibilities in the comic’s readership. I use Judith Butler’s conceptions of framing and precarious life from Frames of War (2009) as an interpretive lens to read the comics medium’s convention of panel frames and storytelling through individual panels separated by the space of the gutter. I demonstrate how the interplay of text and image in Irmina reveals the importance of visual framing in developing compassion and recognizing the lives of others as precarious. Through this narrative strategy essential to the comics form, Irmina’s decline to a Mitläufer underscores the role of visibility—or lack thereof—in the lives framed and recognized as precarious under the Third Reich.
Difference, or “Otherness” to the dominant paradigm, has long posed a challenge to societies. Hum... more Difference, or “Otherness” to the dominant paradigm, has long posed a challenge to societies. Human expectations of conformity and preferences for homogeneity frequently result in the marginalization of Others, who are subjected to discriminatory thoughts, speech, and practices. Animal figures are often poster children for Otherness, utilized in philosophical discourse as the ultimate Other through and against which the human species is defined, but also used in political and social discourse to justify the allocation or withdrawal of protections and rights. The concept of the animal shows the clear ethical distinction that determines the binary value and status of life in a society. While Bios – political, discursive life – is reserved for humans and only includes those who meet the requirements for it, Zoē describes bare, bodily life – animal(istic) life – that falls outside of the realm of the qualified Bios, and the legal protection Bios offers. The figure of the animal, especia...
Swiss Jewish author Rahel Hutmacher's short stories investigate the realms of bios and zoe by int... more Swiss Jewish author Rahel Hutmacher's short stories investigate the realms of bios and zoe by introducing a range of animal-like characters that challenge societal structures and reveal the implications of falling into one of the two categories of bios and zoe. In her vignettes, Hutmacher draws attention to the entanglement of Othering, animality, ethnicity, and gender, and she exposes the workings of bios, which adheres to expectations of and conformity to a majority. Her texts demonstrate the violence inherent in the exclusive nature of bios and propose an alternative venue for dealing with Otherness by embracing zoe , which opens up avenues of interrelation and for the coexistence of both realms of bios and zoe. My reading of Hutmacher's animal hybrids shows that the texts offer a posthuman re-conceptualization of life not according to the binary of bios and zoe that structures processes of Othering, but rather with a deep appreciation of zoe as a potent vitalist force that connects humans and animals.
Welche Funktion können literarische Tiere in einem Diskurs zu Kriegsverbrechen, Traumaaufarbeitun... more Welche Funktion können literarische Tiere in einem Diskurs zu Kriegsverbrechen, Traumaaufarbeitung und Erinnerungskultur, dem sie auf den ersten Blick fremd zu sein scheinen, erfüllen? Was erzählen uns Tiere über die Spuren von Gewalt, die diesen Themen unterliegen? In Juli Zehs Roman Die Stille ist ein Geräusch und ihrer Kurzgeschichte „B-Land“ beschäftigt sich die Autorin mit dem verbleibenden Trauma, das aus den Bosnienkriegen hervorgegangen ist, indem sie gerade nicht explizit auf deren Folgen und Ursachen eingeht, sondern sich statt dessen mit den Tieren, die in diese Kontexte eingebettet sind, auseinandersetzt. Tiere sind dabei sowohl Objekt als auch Medium des Erzählens: Als Medium erzählen die Tiere in Zehs Texten von Animalität und kreatürlichem Dasein, das Mensch und Tier teilen und das insbesondere in Zeiten des Krieges die strukturellen Unterschiede zwischen Tier und Mensch in einem biopolitischen Rahmen verwischt, indem beide, Mensch und Tier, zu „nacktem Leben“ und „Rohmaterial“ werden können. Es wird mit Tieren erzählt, die als Instrument oder Metaphern die ethischen Leerstellen von nacktem Leben aufzeigen. Es wird aber auch von Tieren erzählt, die als diegetische, stumme Begleiter das bleibende Trauma sichtbar machen. Das Tier als stummes Wesen jenseits von Logos scheint dabei besonders geeignet zu sein, von der Sprachlosigkeit des bleibenden Traumas zu erzählen. Das Tier wird der einzige Zeuge, der angemessen von Grausamkeit und Trauma authentisch „erzählen“ kann.
Dieser Artikel analysiert das Hörspiel ,,Sabeth‘‘ von Günter Eich unter dem Aspekt der animal stu... more Dieser Artikel analysiert das Hörspiel ,,Sabeth‘‘ von Günter Eich unter dem Aspekt der animal studies. Im Zentrum der Analyse, entsprechend der Theorie des ,,Tier-Werdens‘‘ von Deleuze und Guattari, steht die Frage, wie Eich den Abgrund zwischen Mensch
und Tier sowie die scheinbar festen Kategorien ,,Mensch‘‘ und ,,Tier‘‘ selbst durch Verfahrensweisen des Werdens dekonstruiert und somit zu einer neuen, posthumanistischen Mensch-Tier- Beziehung gelangt, die zu einem Aussetzen der anthropologischen Maschine a la Agamben führt. Anhand der Unterkategorien Sprache, Selbstbewusstsein, Gedächtnis und Tod wird untersucht, wie die Verwischung dieser Grenzen den Menschen als einziges autonomes Subjekt hinterfragt und das Hörspiel somit zu einer posthumanistischen Neubewertung von Mensch und Tier beiträgt. Gleichzeitig wird Eichs Poetologie des ,,Übersetzens‘‘ mit dem Überschreiten der Grenze zwischen Mensch und Tier um eine Dimension erweitert, welche der litterature engagee eine weitere Dimension, die mit den Forderungen der animal studies übereinstimmt, verleiht.
Dieser Artikel analysiert das Hörspiel „Sabeth“ von Günter Eich unter dem Aspekt der animal studi... more Dieser Artikel analysiert das Hörspiel „Sabeth“ von Günter Eich unter dem Aspekt der animal studies. Im Zentrum der Analyse, entsprechend der Theorie des „Tier-Werdens“ von Deleuze und Guattari, steht die Frage, wie Eich den Abgrund zwischen Mensch und Tier sowie die scheinbar festen Kategorien „Mensch“ und „Tier“ selbst durch Verfahrensweisen des Werdens dekonstruiert und somit zu einer neuen, posthumanistischen Mensch-Tier-Beziehung gelangt, die zu einem Aussetzen der anthropologischen Maschine à la Agamben führt. Anhand der Unterkategorien Sprache, Selbstbewusstsein, Gedächtnis und Tod wird untersucht, wie die Verwischung dieser Grenzen den Menschen als einziges autonomes Subjekt hinterfragt und das Hörspiel somit zu einer posthumanistischen Neubewertung von Mensch und Tier beiträgt. Gleichzeitig wird Eichs Poetologie des „Übersetzens“ mit dem Überschreiten der Grenze zwischen Mensch und Tier um eine Dimension erweitert, welche der littérature engagée eine weitere Dimension, die mit den Forderungen der animal studiesübereinstimmt, verleiht.
Education for Sustainable Development in Foreign Language Learning, 2021
This chapter discusses the design and implementation of curricular reforms to the German program ... more This chapter discusses the design and implementation of curricular reforms to the German program at Texas Tech University (TTU) framed under a department-wide initiative to rethink foreign language curricula: The Global Readiness Through Language and Culture (GRLC) project. This project is grounded in Critical Content-Based Instruction (CCBI) and Project-Based Language Learning (PBLL). After discussing the project’s rationale, goals, and theoretical underpinnings, we explore its impact on the German curriculum by evaluating data collected via an assessment rubric and surveys administered in three German courses (second-to fourth-year). The chapter demonstrates how reconceptualizing language education through CCBI and PBLL creates a space of education for sustainability, defined as an experience that fosters critical awareness of social, environmental, and economic challenges and equips students with transferable skills to address them. Preliminary findings will be of interest to post-secondary German programs seeking models for transforming the curriculum to support sustainability.
The unique symbiotic relationship that animals form with Gunter Eich’s literary texts can deepen ... more The unique symbiotic relationship that animals form with Gunter Eich’s literary texts can deepen our understanding of Eich’s poetology and the general crisis of language in post-World War II German literature, shedding some light on the zoopoetic possibilities of animals in/as texts, their capacity to unsettle hegemonic power discourses, and their potential to expand language beyond the limitations of anthropocentric logic. Focusing on Eich’s later literary animals (specifically the poem “Pigeons” as well as selected Moles), this article explores how Eich’s zoopoetics reveal the role of language as cocomplicit in abusive power systems, as well as how animality in/as text enables a kind of writing that transcends power discourses and offers us a “line of flight” as postulated by Deleuze and Guattari.
The unique symbiotic relationship that animals form with Günter Eich’s literary texts can deepen ... more The unique symbiotic relationship that animals form with Günter Eich’s literary texts can deepen our understanding of Eich’s poetology and the general crisis of language in post-World War II German literature, shedding some light on the zoopoetic possibilities of animals in/as texts, their capacity to unsettle hegemonic power discourses, and their potential to expand language beyond the limitations of anthropocentric logic. Focusing on Eich’s later literary animals (specifically the poem “Pigeons” as well as selected Moles), this article explores how Eich’s zoopoetics reveal the role of language as cocomplicit in abusive power systems, as well as how animality in/as text enables a kind of writing that transcends power discourses and offers us a “line of flight” as postulated by Deleuze and Guattari.
This chapter engages in the scholarly conversation about food, power, hospitality, and subjecthoo... more This chapter engages in the scholarly conversation about food, power, hospitality, and subjecthood from the perspective of Cultural and Literary Animal Studies. In Günter Eich’s 1952/59 radio drama “Der Tiger Jussuf”, eating is intricately linked to the mechanisms of sovereign power: The circus tiger Jussuf assumes agency when he attacks his trainer – and tastes “meat” for the first time. In this process, he not only assumes power over his own life and decides over life and death of the humans he encounters, but he also gains new (human) identities. The questions of eating, being, and being eaten are thus interlinked and complicated. In the process, they reveal the cruelty and violence that infuses the question of food and the question of whom we award the status of a subject.
Flucht-Literatur. Texte für den Unterricht. Band 1: Primarstufe und Sekundarstufe I. Eds. Dieter Wrobel & Jana Mikota, 2017
Miriam Katins 2006 Memoir "Allein unter allen" erzählt die Geschichte einer Flucht: Eine jüdische... more Miriam Katins 2006 Memoir "Allein unter allen" erzählt die Geschichte einer Flucht: Eine jüdische Mutter flieht 1944 mit ihrer kleinen Tochter vor der Invasion der Nazis in Budapest. Gezwungen nicht nur die eigene Wohnung und Besitztümer, sondern auch den geliebten Haushund zurückzulassen und sämtliche persönlichen Familienbilder und religiöse Texte zu verbrennen, nehmen die beiden Fliehenden eine andere Identität an. Das Kindheitstrauma, das der Text in Form einer Graphic Novel aufzuarbeiten sucht, dreht sich dabei vor allem um das Gefühl des Alleingelassenseins: Nicht nur der Trost durch das Haustier, sondern auch durch den Glauben werden dem kleinen Mädchen entrissen, ohne dass es verstünde, was passiert. Zentral für die Analyse und Interpretation, aber auch den didaktischen Kommentar sind die Themen der Identität und der symbolischen sowie konkreten Verlassenheit. Die psychologischen Auswirkungen von Flucht auf die Identitätsbildung des jungen Mädchens und der späteren Erwachsenen werden im didaktischen Kommentar im Rahmen der visuellen Darstellung der Graphic Novel sowie der narrativen Konstruktion im Alternieren der Zeitebenen erschlossen. Dabei werden auch Anschlussstellen zum Thema Comic, Konstruktion und narrative Gewalt angeboten.
The othering of whole groups of people in a biopolitical discourse during the Third Reich has cau... more The othering of whole groups of people in a biopolitical discourse during the Third Reich has caused many to reassess ethics that is based on specific categories. Adorno and Horkheimer reckoned with both Enlightenment as well as classical " humanist " discourses to question whether they imply structures that lead to fascism. In the wake of these arguments, classical humanist (or sometimes also called anthropocentric) ethics have also been criticized by philosophers such as Agamben, Derrida, and Wolfe. It is thus time to work on posthuman(ist) ethics that avoids the traps of a narrow human ethics and that is inclusive rather than exclusive. The short stories by postwar German author Wolfdietrich Schnurre, written in the wake of the Holocaust, reckon with a purely human-centered worldview and draw a bleak picture of an anthropocentrically structured and valued world. Under the surface that portrays a speciesist world, Schnurre employs a network of sub-discourses to " cave out " carno-phallogocentric discourses and point towards a different, post-human ethics. This paper examines how anthropocentric discourses of power lead to inhumane violence and how a different approach to the Other, based on empathy and shared vulnerability, might just move us beyond it.
<jats:p> This article examines Barbara Yelin's 2014 graphic novel Irmina in order to in... more <jats:p> This article examines Barbara Yelin's 2014 graphic novel Irmina in order to investigate the visual narrative strategies employed by the cartoonist in revealing her protagonist's path to conformity under National Socialism. Yelin thereby also seeks to raise awareness of social justice and personal responsibilities in the comic's readership. I use Judith Butler's conceptions of framing and precarious life from Frames of War (2009) as an interpretive lens to read the comics medium's convention of panel frames and storytelling through individual panels separated by the space of the gutter. I demonstrate how the interplay of text and image in Irmina reveals the importance of visual framing in developing compassion and recognizing the lives of others as precarious. Through this narrative strategy essential to the comics form, Irmina's decline to a Mitläufer underscores the role of visibility—or lack thereof—in the lives framed and recognized as precarious under the Third Reich. </jats:p>
This article examines Barbara Yelin’s 2014 graphic novel Irmina in order to investigate the visua... more This article examines Barbara Yelin’s 2014 graphic novel Irmina in order to investigate the visual narrative strategies employed by the cartoonist in revealing her protagonist’s path to conformity under National Socialism. Yelin thereby also seeks to raise awareness of social justice and personal responsibilities in the comic’s readership. I use Judith Butler’s conceptions of framing and precarious life from Frames of War (2009) as an interpretive lens to read the comics medium’s convention of panel frames and storytelling through individual panels separated by the space of the gutter. I demonstrate how the interplay of text and image in Irmina reveals the importance of visual framing in developing compassion and recognizing the lives of others as precarious. Through this narrative strategy essential to the comics form, Irmina’s decline to a Mitläufer underscores the role of visibility—or lack thereof—in the lives framed and recognized as precarious under the Third Reich.
Difference, or “Otherness” to the dominant paradigm, has long posed a challenge to societies. Hum... more Difference, or “Otherness” to the dominant paradigm, has long posed a challenge to societies. Human expectations of conformity and preferences for homogeneity frequently result in the marginalization of Others, who are subjected to discriminatory thoughts, speech, and practices. Animal figures are often poster children for Otherness, utilized in philosophical discourse as the ultimate Other through and against which the human species is defined, but also used in political and social discourse to justify the allocation or withdrawal of protections and rights. The concept of the animal shows the clear ethical distinction that determines the binary value and status of life in a society. While Bios – political, discursive life – is reserved for humans and only includes those who meet the requirements for it, Zoē describes bare, bodily life – animal(istic) life – that falls outside of the realm of the qualified Bios, and the legal protection Bios offers. The figure of the animal, especia...
Swiss Jewish author Rahel Hutmacher's short stories investigate the realms of bios and zoe by int... more Swiss Jewish author Rahel Hutmacher's short stories investigate the realms of bios and zoe by introducing a range of animal-like characters that challenge societal structures and reveal the implications of falling into one of the two categories of bios and zoe. In her vignettes, Hutmacher draws attention to the entanglement of Othering, animality, ethnicity, and gender, and she exposes the workings of bios, which adheres to expectations of and conformity to a majority. Her texts demonstrate the violence inherent in the exclusive nature of bios and propose an alternative venue for dealing with Otherness by embracing zoe , which opens up avenues of interrelation and for the coexistence of both realms of bios and zoe. My reading of Hutmacher's animal hybrids shows that the texts offer a posthuman re-conceptualization of life not according to the binary of bios and zoe that structures processes of Othering, but rather with a deep appreciation of zoe as a potent vitalist force that connects humans and animals.
Welche Funktion können literarische Tiere in einem Diskurs zu Kriegsverbrechen, Traumaaufarbeitun... more Welche Funktion können literarische Tiere in einem Diskurs zu Kriegsverbrechen, Traumaaufarbeitung und Erinnerungskultur, dem sie auf den ersten Blick fremd zu sein scheinen, erfüllen? Was erzählen uns Tiere über die Spuren von Gewalt, die diesen Themen unterliegen? In Juli Zehs Roman Die Stille ist ein Geräusch und ihrer Kurzgeschichte „B-Land“ beschäftigt sich die Autorin mit dem verbleibenden Trauma, das aus den Bosnienkriegen hervorgegangen ist, indem sie gerade nicht explizit auf deren Folgen und Ursachen eingeht, sondern sich statt dessen mit den Tieren, die in diese Kontexte eingebettet sind, auseinandersetzt. Tiere sind dabei sowohl Objekt als auch Medium des Erzählens: Als Medium erzählen die Tiere in Zehs Texten von Animalität und kreatürlichem Dasein, das Mensch und Tier teilen und das insbesondere in Zeiten des Krieges die strukturellen Unterschiede zwischen Tier und Mensch in einem biopolitischen Rahmen verwischt, indem beide, Mensch und Tier, zu „nacktem Leben“ und „Rohmaterial“ werden können. Es wird mit Tieren erzählt, die als Instrument oder Metaphern die ethischen Leerstellen von nacktem Leben aufzeigen. Es wird aber auch von Tieren erzählt, die als diegetische, stumme Begleiter das bleibende Trauma sichtbar machen. Das Tier als stummes Wesen jenseits von Logos scheint dabei besonders geeignet zu sein, von der Sprachlosigkeit des bleibenden Traumas zu erzählen. Das Tier wird der einzige Zeuge, der angemessen von Grausamkeit und Trauma authentisch „erzählen“ kann.
Dieser Artikel analysiert das Hörspiel ,,Sabeth‘‘ von Günter Eich unter dem Aspekt der animal stu... more Dieser Artikel analysiert das Hörspiel ,,Sabeth‘‘ von Günter Eich unter dem Aspekt der animal studies. Im Zentrum der Analyse, entsprechend der Theorie des ,,Tier-Werdens‘‘ von Deleuze und Guattari, steht die Frage, wie Eich den Abgrund zwischen Mensch
und Tier sowie die scheinbar festen Kategorien ,,Mensch‘‘ und ,,Tier‘‘ selbst durch Verfahrensweisen des Werdens dekonstruiert und somit zu einer neuen, posthumanistischen Mensch-Tier- Beziehung gelangt, die zu einem Aussetzen der anthropologischen Maschine a la Agamben führt. Anhand der Unterkategorien Sprache, Selbstbewusstsein, Gedächtnis und Tod wird untersucht, wie die Verwischung dieser Grenzen den Menschen als einziges autonomes Subjekt hinterfragt und das Hörspiel somit zu einer posthumanistischen Neubewertung von Mensch und Tier beiträgt. Gleichzeitig wird Eichs Poetologie des ,,Übersetzens‘‘ mit dem Überschreiten der Grenze zwischen Mensch und Tier um eine Dimension erweitert, welche der litterature engagee eine weitere Dimension, die mit den Forderungen der animal studies übereinstimmt, verleiht.
Dieser Artikel analysiert das Hörspiel „Sabeth“ von Günter Eich unter dem Aspekt der animal studi... more Dieser Artikel analysiert das Hörspiel „Sabeth“ von Günter Eich unter dem Aspekt der animal studies. Im Zentrum der Analyse, entsprechend der Theorie des „Tier-Werdens“ von Deleuze und Guattari, steht die Frage, wie Eich den Abgrund zwischen Mensch und Tier sowie die scheinbar festen Kategorien „Mensch“ und „Tier“ selbst durch Verfahrensweisen des Werdens dekonstruiert und somit zu einer neuen, posthumanistischen Mensch-Tier-Beziehung gelangt, die zu einem Aussetzen der anthropologischen Maschine à la Agamben führt. Anhand der Unterkategorien Sprache, Selbstbewusstsein, Gedächtnis und Tod wird untersucht, wie die Verwischung dieser Grenzen den Menschen als einziges autonomes Subjekt hinterfragt und das Hörspiel somit zu einer posthumanistischen Neubewertung von Mensch und Tier beiträgt. Gleichzeitig wird Eichs Poetologie des „Übersetzens“ mit dem Überschreiten der Grenze zwischen Mensch und Tier um eine Dimension erweitert, welche der littérature engagée eine weitere Dimension, die mit den Forderungen der animal studiesübereinstimmt, verleiht.
Education for Sustainable Development in Foreign Language Learning, 2021
This chapter discusses the design and implementation of curricular reforms to the German program ... more This chapter discusses the design and implementation of curricular reforms to the German program at Texas Tech University (TTU) framed under a department-wide initiative to rethink foreign language curricula: The Global Readiness Through Language and Culture (GRLC) project. This project is grounded in Critical Content-Based Instruction (CCBI) and Project-Based Language Learning (PBLL). After discussing the project’s rationale, goals, and theoretical underpinnings, we explore its impact on the German curriculum by evaluating data collected via an assessment rubric and surveys administered in three German courses (second-to fourth-year). The chapter demonstrates how reconceptualizing language education through CCBI and PBLL creates a space of education for sustainability, defined as an experience that fosters critical awareness of social, environmental, and economic challenges and equips students with transferable skills to address them. Preliminary findings will be of interest to post-secondary German programs seeking models for transforming the curriculum to support sustainability.
The unique symbiotic relationship that animals form with Gunter Eich’s literary texts can deepen ... more The unique symbiotic relationship that animals form with Gunter Eich’s literary texts can deepen our understanding of Eich’s poetology and the general crisis of language in post-World War II German literature, shedding some light on the zoopoetic possibilities of animals in/as texts, their capacity to unsettle hegemonic power discourses, and their potential to expand language beyond the limitations of anthropocentric logic. Focusing on Eich’s later literary animals (specifically the poem “Pigeons” as well as selected Moles), this article explores how Eich’s zoopoetics reveal the role of language as cocomplicit in abusive power systems, as well as how animality in/as text enables a kind of writing that transcends power discourses and offers us a “line of flight” as postulated by Deleuze and Guattari.
The unique symbiotic relationship that animals form with Günter Eich’s literary texts can deepen ... more The unique symbiotic relationship that animals form with Günter Eich’s literary texts can deepen our understanding of Eich’s poetology and the general crisis of language in post-World War II German literature, shedding some light on the zoopoetic possibilities of animals in/as texts, their capacity to unsettle hegemonic power discourses, and their potential to expand language beyond the limitations of anthropocentric logic. Focusing on Eich’s later literary animals (specifically the poem “Pigeons” as well as selected Moles), this article explores how Eich’s zoopoetics reveal the role of language as cocomplicit in abusive power systems, as well as how animality in/as text enables a kind of writing that transcends power discourses and offers us a “line of flight” as postulated by Deleuze and Guattari.
This chapter engages in the scholarly conversation about food, power, hospitality, and subjecthoo... more This chapter engages in the scholarly conversation about food, power, hospitality, and subjecthood from the perspective of Cultural and Literary Animal Studies. In Günter Eich’s 1952/59 radio drama “Der Tiger Jussuf”, eating is intricately linked to the mechanisms of sovereign power: The circus tiger Jussuf assumes agency when he attacks his trainer – and tastes “meat” for the first time. In this process, he not only assumes power over his own life and decides over life and death of the humans he encounters, but he also gains new (human) identities. The questions of eating, being, and being eaten are thus interlinked and complicated. In the process, they reveal the cruelty and violence that infuses the question of food and the question of whom we award the status of a subject.
Flucht-Literatur. Texte für den Unterricht. Band 1: Primarstufe und Sekundarstufe I. Eds. Dieter Wrobel & Jana Mikota, 2017
Miriam Katins 2006 Memoir "Allein unter allen" erzählt die Geschichte einer Flucht: Eine jüdische... more Miriam Katins 2006 Memoir "Allein unter allen" erzählt die Geschichte einer Flucht: Eine jüdische Mutter flieht 1944 mit ihrer kleinen Tochter vor der Invasion der Nazis in Budapest. Gezwungen nicht nur die eigene Wohnung und Besitztümer, sondern auch den geliebten Haushund zurückzulassen und sämtliche persönlichen Familienbilder und religiöse Texte zu verbrennen, nehmen die beiden Fliehenden eine andere Identität an. Das Kindheitstrauma, das der Text in Form einer Graphic Novel aufzuarbeiten sucht, dreht sich dabei vor allem um das Gefühl des Alleingelassenseins: Nicht nur der Trost durch das Haustier, sondern auch durch den Glauben werden dem kleinen Mädchen entrissen, ohne dass es verstünde, was passiert. Zentral für die Analyse und Interpretation, aber auch den didaktischen Kommentar sind die Themen der Identität und der symbolischen sowie konkreten Verlassenheit. Die psychologischen Auswirkungen von Flucht auf die Identitätsbildung des jungen Mädchens und der späteren Erwachsenen werden im didaktischen Kommentar im Rahmen der visuellen Darstellung der Graphic Novel sowie der narrativen Konstruktion im Alternieren der Zeitebenen erschlossen. Dabei werden auch Anschlussstellen zum Thema Comic, Konstruktion und narrative Gewalt angeboten.
In this dissertation I analyze how the postwar German writers Wolfdietrich Schnurre, Gunter Eich,... more In this dissertation I analyze how the postwar German writers Wolfdietrich Schnurre, Gunter Eich, and Ilse Aichinger negotiate anthropocentric and speciesist discourses via animal figures by drawing on such posthumanist thinkers as Derrida, Agamben, and Deleuze & Guattari. The literary texts question a world view and discourse organized around the establishment of power that utilizes animal metaphors to turn living beings into objects (and could thus be called “carno-phallogocentric”). They thus react to the strict hierarchy of (gendered) man over animal and respond - in the aftermath of the Second World War – by highlighting instead the similarities between man and animal, such as creaturely existence and shared trauma. The analysis is guided by questions such as: How do the literary texts reflect and subvert the power discourses which surround man and animal? What is the role of language in this context? How does the animal, which is usually assumed to be mute, relate to the categ...
In this dissertation I analyze how the postwar German writers Wolfdietrich Schnurre, Günter Eich,... more In this dissertation I analyze how the postwar German writers Wolfdietrich Schnurre, Günter Eich, and Ilse Aichinger negotiate anthropocentric and speciesist discourses via animal figures by drawing on such posthumanist thinkers as Derrida, Agamben, and Deleuze & Guattari. The literary texts question a world view and discourse organized around the establishment of power that utilizes animal metaphors to turn living beings into objects (and could thus be called “carno-phallogocentric”). They thus react to the strict hierarchy of (gendered) man over animal and respond - in the aftermath of the Second World War – by highlighting instead the similarities between man and animal, such as creaturely existence and shared trauma. The analysis is guided by questions such as: How do the literary texts reflect and subvert the power discourses which surround man and animal? What is the role of language in this context? How does the animal, which is usually assumed to be mute, relate to the categories that are established in language? Does its place outside of language grant it capabilities the human cannot realize? Can the literary encounter between man and animal establish a space of the “Open” in which language can be re-evaluated and, after World War II, be saved? Is there a unique “animal poetology” which correlates to post-anthropocentric conceptions of the human? Because these writers disorient the reader’s perception of reality via figures of the animal, i.e., animals as both metaphors and as subjects, I develop what I would like to call an “animal poetology” that is unique to them. This animal poetology, which redefines Agamben’s concept of the open by giving it a postwar, language-critical dimension, includes a thorough critique of human language with regard to power structures and a speciesist language which, during the early 20th century, was a vehicle for ideology and discrimination. The encounter with the animal leads the human being to reflect on the limits of language and thus enables the establishment of a mode of being in which the encounter with the other – beyond a space of judgement and hierarchies –is once again possible.
The following thesis deals with the problem of self-identity in Ingeborg Bachmann’s narrative cyc... more The following thesis deals with the problem of self-identity in Ingeborg Bachmann’s narrative cycle Das dreißigste Jahr (The Thirtieth Year) and discusses the terms and conditions of developing one’s own, authentic identity. Until now, this early cycle has been analysed with an emphasis on either gender studies or philosophical perspectives. These analyses mainly address the utopian concept of language or the boundary between that which can be said, and ‘the mystical’ beyond this border. To give the question of identity a new perspective, this thesis applies existentialist theories from the field of philosophy to the narratives and determines the connection between self-identity, world, society and language. Gender theories, as well as philosophical-mystical speculations, are mainly excluded in the search for a new answer to the old question: How is a person’s identity formed? The main questions that are addressed in the thesis include: Is it possible to be oneself and how? How can we create our own identity despite the image of ourselves presented to us by others? And are we capable of constructing our own identity with the language available to us? In the first part of the thesis, I will provide a theoretical foundation, the philosophical background that underpins my analysis. After clarifying the direction of my study, the questions it will address and describing the method I will use in my analysis, I include a definition section that gives clear explanations about the key concepts of identity and existentialism which pertain to my analysis. This is followed by a basic philosophical introduction that explains the main concepts used in this work, including: Being thrown into the world, the quest for self-identity, the relationship between the “self” and the “other” and the meaning of language. These concepts are taken from the existentialist philosophy of Heidegger and Sartre. The next section gives an overview of the research to date concerning the most important works on the topics of “identity” and “language” in Ingeborg Bachmann’s prose, with a focus on the cycle Das dreißigste Jahr and positions the thesis in the context of this current research. The main analysis of the primary work applies the philosophical theories to a close analysis of the narratives, focussing not just on single narratives, but on aspects of them all. After a short overview of the contents of each narrative it analyses these aspects under five main topics: The condition of the self as being “thrown into the world”; the relation between self and society; the problem of language; the attempt to break free from society and language; and finally the “reconciliation” between society and a person’s self-identity within the framework of world, language and society. The main emphasis in the results focuses on the alienating effect that society as well as language has on the self, and the struggle of the self to achieve an independent and authentic self-identity. This thesis goes beyond the existing research on the narratives by addressing aspects of the self within a given framework other than gender theories, role-specific arguments or philosophical-mystical explanations. Its analysis of the works from an existentialist point of view, i. e. Sartre and Heidegger, provides a new perspective on what are essentially philosophical texts.
The boundaries and complementarities relating animals and language have always captured the human... more The boundaries and complementarities relating animals and language have always captured the human imagination. Animal/Language: An Interdisciplinary Conference engages with a central feature of what is becoming known as the "animal turn" in the humanities: the recognition that animals and language have a complicated relationship with one another in human understanding. What it means to be "human" has often been thought through and against the figure of the "animal", with "language" traditionally seen as constitutive of human identity. However, the desire for-and the realities of-communication between animals and humans and among animals themselves put pressure on these mechanisms of distinction in ways that can be both exciting and unsettling.
The "Animal" in the Humanities Research Group was founded in 2017 with the support of the Humanities Center at Texas Tech in order to foster interdisciplinary, collaborative inquiry into the role played by both "the animal" and real animals in human intellectual landscapes, historical and contemporary. To that end, this international conference brings together scholars from a range of disciplines, including literature, history, anthropology, philosophy, religious studies, the visual arts, the psychological sciences, and companion animal science in order to share their research, investigate the networks of relationships connecting animals, humans, and language in diverse historical, cultural, social, and philosophical contexts, and explore what particular perspectives on these questions reveal about the groups that hold them.
Animal/Language aims to create an interdisciplinary dialogue on the relationship between “animals... more Animal/Language aims to create an interdisciplinary dialogue on the relationship between “animals” and “language” that considers both what connects and what separates these two key terms. The conference hopes to generate new scientific inquires and creative synergies by initiating conversation and exchange among scholars in the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. We therefore invite researchers from all fields, periods, and geographical areas to propose contributions engaging questions such as: • What are the real, imagined, or potential relationships between animals and language(s)? • What are animal languages? • What spaces or functions does the animal occupy within human language and cultural representation? • What is the role of animals in aesthetic or artistic meaning-making processes? • How do our interactions with animals shape our conceptions of animals and language? • How and why do we communicate with animals? • How and why do animals communicate with us? • How and why do animals communicate with one another? • What philosophical, ethical, and political questions are raised by different ways of affirming and denying connections between animals and language? • How should any of the above questions be historicized?
Proposal Submission Deadline: September 30, 2018 Proposals for 20-minute papers should be no more than 300 words long and include 3-5 keywords identifying your discipline and topic(s). All abstracts will be reviewed anonymously; please provide author name(s) and affiliations in your submission email, but omit them from your abstract itself. Please submit all proposals (in .docx or .pdf form) and questions to animallanguage2019@gmail.com. We plan to inform participants in early November.
The unique symbiotic relationship that animals form with Gunter Eich’s literary texts can deepen ... more The unique symbiotic relationship that animals form with Gunter Eich’s literary texts can deepen our understanding of Eich’s poetology and the general crisis of language in post-World War II German literature, shedding some light on the zoopoetic possibilities of animals in/as texts, their capacity to unsettle hegemonic power discourses, and their potential to expand language beyond the limitations of anthropocentric logic. Focusing on Eich’s later literary animals (specifically the poem “Pigeons” as well as selected Moles), this article explores how Eich’s zoopoetics reveal the role of language as cocomplicit in abusive power systems, as well as how animality in/as text enables a kind of writing that transcends power discourses and offers us a “line of flight” as postulated by Deleuze and Guattari.
Seminar-a Journal of Germanic Studies, Nov 1, 2020
This article examines Barbara Yelin’s 2014 graphic novel Irmina in order to investigate the visua... more This article examines Barbara Yelin’s 2014 graphic novel Irmina in order to investigate the visual narrative strategies employed by the cartoonist in revealing her protagonist’s path to conformity under National Socialism. Yelin thereby also seeks to raise awareness of social justice and personal responsibilities in the comic’s readership. I use Judith Butler’s conceptions of framing and precarious life from Frames of War (2009) as an interpretive lens to read the comics medium’s convention of panel frames and storytelling through individual panels separated by the space of the gutter. I demonstrate how the interplay of text and image in Irmina reveals the importance of visual framing in developing compassion and recognizing the lives of others as precarious. Through this narrative strategy essential to the comics form, Irmina’s decline to a Mitläufer underscores the role of visibility—or lack thereof—in the lives framed and recognized as precarious under the Third Reich.
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Tiere sind dabei sowohl Objekt als auch Medium des Erzählens: Als Medium erzählen die Tiere in Zehs Texten von Animalität und kreatürlichem Dasein, das Mensch und Tier teilen und das insbesondere in Zeiten des Krieges die strukturellen Unterschiede zwischen Tier und Mensch in einem biopolitischen Rahmen verwischt, indem beide, Mensch und Tier, zu „nacktem Leben“ und „Rohmaterial“ werden können. Es wird mit Tieren erzählt, die als Instrument oder Metaphern die ethischen Leerstellen von nacktem Leben aufzeigen. Es wird aber auch von Tieren erzählt, die als diegetische, stumme Begleiter das bleibende Trauma sichtbar machen. Das Tier als stummes Wesen jenseits von Logos scheint dabei besonders geeignet zu sein, von der Sprachlosigkeit des bleibenden Traumas zu erzählen. Das Tier wird der einzige Zeuge, der angemessen von Grausamkeit und Trauma authentisch „erzählen“ kann.
und Tier sowie die scheinbar festen Kategorien ,,Mensch‘‘ und ,,Tier‘‘ selbst durch Verfahrensweisen des Werdens dekonstruiert und somit zu einer neuen, posthumanistischen Mensch-Tier- Beziehung gelangt, die zu einem Aussetzen der anthropologischen Maschine a la Agamben führt. Anhand der Unterkategorien Sprache, Selbstbewusstsein, Gedächtnis und Tod wird untersucht, wie die Verwischung dieser Grenzen den Menschen als einziges autonomes Subjekt hinterfragt und das Hörspiel somit zu einer posthumanistischen Neubewertung von Mensch und Tier beiträgt. Gleichzeitig wird Eichs Poetologie des ,,Übersetzens‘‘ mit dem Überschreiten der Grenze zwischen Mensch und Tier um eine Dimension erweitert, welche der litterature engagee eine weitere Dimension, die mit den Forderungen der animal studies übereinstimmt, verleiht.
Zentral für die Analyse und Interpretation, aber auch den didaktischen Kommentar sind die Themen der Identität und der symbolischen sowie konkreten Verlassenheit. Die psychologischen Auswirkungen von Flucht auf die Identitätsbildung des jungen Mädchens und der späteren Erwachsenen werden im didaktischen Kommentar im Rahmen der visuellen Darstellung der Graphic Novel sowie der narrativen Konstruktion im Alternieren der Zeitebenen erschlossen. Dabei werden auch Anschlussstellen zum Thema Comic, Konstruktion und narrative Gewalt angeboten.
Tiere sind dabei sowohl Objekt als auch Medium des Erzählens: Als Medium erzählen die Tiere in Zehs Texten von Animalität und kreatürlichem Dasein, das Mensch und Tier teilen und das insbesondere in Zeiten des Krieges die strukturellen Unterschiede zwischen Tier und Mensch in einem biopolitischen Rahmen verwischt, indem beide, Mensch und Tier, zu „nacktem Leben“ und „Rohmaterial“ werden können. Es wird mit Tieren erzählt, die als Instrument oder Metaphern die ethischen Leerstellen von nacktem Leben aufzeigen. Es wird aber auch von Tieren erzählt, die als diegetische, stumme Begleiter das bleibende Trauma sichtbar machen. Das Tier als stummes Wesen jenseits von Logos scheint dabei besonders geeignet zu sein, von der Sprachlosigkeit des bleibenden Traumas zu erzählen. Das Tier wird der einzige Zeuge, der angemessen von Grausamkeit und Trauma authentisch „erzählen“ kann.
und Tier sowie die scheinbar festen Kategorien ,,Mensch‘‘ und ,,Tier‘‘ selbst durch Verfahrensweisen des Werdens dekonstruiert und somit zu einer neuen, posthumanistischen Mensch-Tier- Beziehung gelangt, die zu einem Aussetzen der anthropologischen Maschine a la Agamben führt. Anhand der Unterkategorien Sprache, Selbstbewusstsein, Gedächtnis und Tod wird untersucht, wie die Verwischung dieser Grenzen den Menschen als einziges autonomes Subjekt hinterfragt und das Hörspiel somit zu einer posthumanistischen Neubewertung von Mensch und Tier beiträgt. Gleichzeitig wird Eichs Poetologie des ,,Übersetzens‘‘ mit dem Überschreiten der Grenze zwischen Mensch und Tier um eine Dimension erweitert, welche der litterature engagee eine weitere Dimension, die mit den Forderungen der animal studies übereinstimmt, verleiht.
Zentral für die Analyse und Interpretation, aber auch den didaktischen Kommentar sind die Themen der Identität und der symbolischen sowie konkreten Verlassenheit. Die psychologischen Auswirkungen von Flucht auf die Identitätsbildung des jungen Mädchens und der späteren Erwachsenen werden im didaktischen Kommentar im Rahmen der visuellen Darstellung der Graphic Novel sowie der narrativen Konstruktion im Alternieren der Zeitebenen erschlossen. Dabei werden auch Anschlussstellen zum Thema Comic, Konstruktion und narrative Gewalt angeboten.
figures by drawing on such posthumanist thinkers as Derrida, Agamben, and Deleuze & Guattari.
The literary texts question a world view and discourse organized around the establishment of power that utilizes animal metaphors to turn living beings into objects (and could thus be called “carno-phallogocentric”). They thus react to the strict hierarchy of (gendered) man over animal and respond - in the aftermath of the Second World War – by highlighting instead the similarities between man and animal, such as creaturely existence and shared trauma.
The analysis is guided by questions such as: How do the literary texts reflect and subvert the power discourses which surround man and animal? What is the role of language in this context? How does the animal, which is usually assumed to be mute, relate to the categories that are established in language? Does its place outside of language grant it capabilities the human
cannot realize? Can the literary encounter between man and animal establish a space of the “Open” in which language can be re-evaluated and, after World War II, be saved? Is there a
unique “animal poetology” which correlates to post-anthropocentric conceptions of the human?
Because these writers disorient the reader’s perception of reality via figures of the animal, i.e., animals as both metaphors and as subjects, I develop what I would like to call an “animal
poetology” that is unique to them. This animal poetology, which redefines Agamben’s concept of the open by giving it a postwar, language-critical dimension, includes a thorough critique of
human language with regard to power structures and a speciesist language which, during the early 20th century, was a vehicle for ideology and discrimination. The encounter with the animal leads the human being to reflect on the limits of language and thus enables the establishment of a mode of being in which the encounter with the other – beyond a space of judgement and hierarchies –is once again possible.
Until now, this early cycle has been analysed with an emphasis on either gender studies or philosophical perspectives. These analyses mainly address the utopian concept of language or the boundary between that which can be said, and ‘the mystical’ beyond this border.
To give the question of identity a new perspective, this thesis applies existentialist theories from the field of philosophy to the narratives and determines the connection between self-identity, world, society and language. Gender theories, as well as philosophical-mystical speculations, are mainly excluded in the search for a new answer to the old question: How is a person’s identity formed? The main questions that are addressed in the thesis include: Is it possible to be oneself and how? How can we create our own identity despite the image of ourselves presented to us by others? And are we capable of constructing our own identity with the language available to us?
In the first part of the thesis, I will provide a theoretical foundation, the philosophical background that underpins my analysis. After clarifying the direction of my study, the questions it will address and describing the method I will use in my analysis, I include a definition section that gives clear explanations about the key concepts of identity and existentialism which pertain to my analysis. This is followed by a basic philosophical introduction that explains the main concepts used in this work, including: Being thrown into the world, the quest for self-identity, the relationship between the “self” and the “other” and the meaning of language. These concepts are taken from the existentialist philosophy of Heidegger and Sartre. The next section gives an overview of the research to date concerning the most important works on the topics of “identity” and “language” in Ingeborg Bachmann’s prose, with a focus on the cycle Das dreißigste Jahr and positions the thesis in the context of this current research.
The main analysis of the primary work applies the philosophical theories to a close analysis of the narratives, focussing not just on single narratives, but on aspects of them all. After a short overview of the contents of each narrative it analyses these aspects under five main topics: The condition of the self as being “thrown into the world”; the relation between self and society; the problem of language; the attempt to break free from society and language; and finally the “reconciliation” between society and a person’s self-identity within the framework of world, language and society. The main emphasis in the results focuses on the alienating effect that society as well as language has on the self, and the struggle of the self to achieve an independent and authentic self-identity.
This thesis goes beyond the existing research on the narratives by addressing aspects of the self within a given framework other than gender theories, role-specific arguments or philosophical-mystical explanations. Its analysis of the works from an existentialist point of view, i. e. Sartre and Heidegger, provides a new perspective on what are essentially philosophical texts.
The "Animal" in the Humanities Research Group was founded in 2017 with the support of the Humanities Center at Texas Tech in order to foster interdisciplinary, collaborative inquiry into the role played by both "the animal" and real animals in human intellectual landscapes, historical and contemporary. To that end, this international conference brings together scholars from a range of disciplines, including literature, history, anthropology, philosophy, religious studies, the visual arts, the psychological sciences, and companion animal science in order to share their research, investigate the networks of relationships connecting animals, humans, and language in diverse historical, cultural, social, and philosophical contexts, and explore what particular perspectives on these questions reveal about the groups that hold them.
from all fields, periods, and geographical areas to propose contributions engaging questions such as:
• What are the real, imagined, or potential relationships between animals and language(s)?
• What are animal languages?
• What spaces or functions does the animal occupy within human language and cultural representation?
• What is the role of animals in aesthetic or artistic meaning-making processes?
• How do our interactions with animals shape our conceptions of animals and language?
• How and why do we communicate with animals?
• How and why do animals communicate with us?
• How and why do animals communicate with one another?
• What philosophical, ethical, and political questions are raised by different ways of affirming and denying connections between animals and language?
• How should any of the above questions be historicized?
Proposal Submission Deadline: September 30, 2018
Proposals for 20-minute papers should be no more than 300 words long and include 3-5 keywords identifying your discipline and topic(s). All abstracts will be reviewed anonymously; please provide author name(s) and affiliations in your submission email, but omit them from your abstract itself.
Please submit all proposals (in .docx or .pdf form) and questions to animallanguage2019@gmail.com.
We plan to inform participants in early November.