Showing papers in "Seminar-a Journal of Germanic Studies in 2022"
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article , the authors combine approaches from literary studies, cognitive psychology, and psycholinguistics in a corpus-based study to determine whether irony is recognizable from certain textual features, such as genre or style.
Abstract: Abstract:Cognitive approaches are particularly appealing when it comes to phenomena that can be adequately described only when their mental processing is taken into account. The phenomenon of irony is one of them. While there has been a plethora of semantic and structural analytic approaches in literary studies and linguistics that have focused on irony, the question is to what extent irony is already inherent in the texts themselves, to what extent it is only recognizable from contexts, and whether we recognize irony as such equally at all.In this article, we combine approaches from literary studies, cognitive psychology, and psycholinguistics in a corpus-based study. We ask whether irony is recognizable from certain textual features, such as genre or style. To determine this, we undertook a questionnaire study that indeed supports the conclusion that it is. It is the goal of the article to stimulate further contributions of this kind in order to explore the potential of a cognitive approach for the processing of irony in literary texts, providing a sound basis for future neuro-aesthetic investigations.
1 citations
TL;DR: In this article , the authors argue that the emergence of reggae and dancehall music in Germany resulted from multidirectional collaborations among musicians in Germany, Jamaica, and other places.
Abstract: Abstract:Against the backdrop of the global circulation of reggae and dancehall music, the article argues that the emergence of these genres in Germany resulted from multidirectional collaborations among musicians in Germany, Jamaica, and other places. Focusing on Gentleman and Seeed, Germany's two most successful reggae artists, the article examines specific aesthetic forms and cultural practices as sites of multidirectionality and collaborative practice, such as the riddim, the feature song, the use of Jamaican Patois, and the journey to Jamaica. In the German case, the global dissemination and appropriation of Jamaican popular music resulted in the formulation of heterogeneous visions of transnational communities related to collaborative musical practices. At the same time, the article explains Gentleman's and Seeed's appropriation of this Black popular music culture as responses to their experiences in postwall Germany.
TL;DR: In this article , the double-slit experiment that Pollesch refers to in his play ProblemeProblemeprobleme Problemes (2019) is used to understand his non-representational theatre.
Abstract: Abstract:This article looks closely at how the German director René Pollesch incorporates quantum physics into his theatrical practice. I argue that the double-slit experiment that Pollesch refers to in his play Probleme Probleme Probleme (2019) is key to understanding his non-representational theatre. I analyze the deep implications of this experiment for his theatre with respect to two aspects: (1) I highlight the fact that his interest in the writings of feminist and philosopher of science Donna Haraway is connected to a critique of representational theatre with its specific conceptualization of “the Human” as a Cartesian subject; and (2) in line with feminist and physicist Karen Barad, I discuss how the double-slit experiment, understood as a queer phenomenon, helps Pollesch rework central categories of drama and representational theatre. Subsequently, this allows me to conclude that Pollesch continues Bertolt Brecht’s project of a political “theatre for the scientific age” under new conditions. His theatre is a political theatre for the “technoscientific age” where “the Human” as opposed to its “Others” no longer exists. The term diffraction is key for understanding my analysis because it functions as an analytical tool that connects the aforementioned aspects. Moreover, it also describes my method of making visible the pattern that comes into being when Pollesch meets the double-slit experiment, or, more generally speaking, when theatre meets quantum physics.
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TL;DR: The study of the human mind is a beautiful object of study as discussed by the authors , and it has been considered to be best studied by exercises of self-reflection, so much so that the epistemological conundrum implied in this approach was turned on its head by René Descartes by arguing that it provided the only possible certainty.
Abstract: The mind is a beautiful object of study. And the study of the mind is likely as old as human society itself. The origin story in the Abrahamic tradition tells of such first mindreading when Eve uses her ability to guess and kindle Adam’s desires to try the forbidden fruit—an act that bestows the ability for self-awareness, albeit leading to the shameful expulsion from the garden of Eden. Throughout history, the understanding of the human mind—here vaguely defined as an entity that unites faculties such as cognition, imagination, memory, and emotion (see “Mind”)—has taken many different forms. Religion, philosophy, and psychology are disciplines that have traditionally focused on its study, but quantitative and computational approaches have gained new prominence in exploring its properties. In Western thought, there exists a long and complex tradition to account for the mind within a dualistic framework. In this thinking, body and mind are considered two forces in tension with each other, the moral imperative being that the spiritual force ultimately overcomes the materiality of the body, which corrupts its integrity. And for important stretches of Western philosophy, the mind has been considered to be best studied by exercises of self-reflection, so much so that the epistemological conundrum implied in this approach was turned on its head by René Descartes by arguing that it provided the only possible certainty (Discours de la Méthode, 1637). But Descartes’s understanding of the human being as a thinking being still insisted on a split between “animal” machine and “human” mind that had already become problematic for him and contemporary thinkers. While often quoted and condemned for its reductive understanding of humanity, Julien Offray de La Mettrie’s L’Homme Machine (1747), which further explored Descartes’s suggestions, is less an apology for materialism than the expression of a deep uncertainty about how to conceptualize the human mind in the wake of secularization. The fear that approaches such as that of La Mettrie would coincide with a deterministic understanding of the human being—with all its ethical and legal implications—was immense, but the floodgates to rooting the mind in the fleshy matter of the body and its machine-like conception were opened. The attempts to locate the mind not in the soul but in the organ of the brain and its nervous extensions were increasingly accompanied by the conviction that the mind can be studied by methods that rely on sense perception and common experience (see Breidbach). While we know of early attempts to study the materiality of thought in the Western tradition (plates such as the one
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors review the related cognitive-scientific concepts of theory of mind (ToM), embedded mental states, intentionality, and recursive mindreading and conclude that the mental processes involved in discerning others' unstated thoughts and beliefs are essential not only to interacting with other humans in most situations but also to reading and understanding narratives.
Abstract: Abstract:This article begins by reviewing the related cognitive-scientific concepts of theory of mind (ToM), embedded mental states, intentionality, and recursive mindreading. The mental processes involved in discerning others' unstated thoughts and beliefs are essential not only to interacting with other humans in most situations but also to reading and understanding narratives. Literature models real-life situations and prompts us to practise our mindreading skills, generally with no social consequences. Through its simulation properties, literature also facilitates the scientific study of cognitive processes that are difficult to examine in real-life situations. An investigation into the creative use of embedded mental states by two prominent East German writers, Wolfgang Hilbig and Christa Wolf, illustrates both how cognitive studies can support literary analyses and how those analyses can, in turn, further the scientific understanding of the human brain's processing of intentionality and the mental states of others.
TL;DR: In the second half of the nineteenth century, Hermann Lotze, Robert Vischer, and Theodor Lipps pioneered the notion of Einfühlung, a term translated into English empathy by Edward Titchener in 1911 as discussed by the authors .
Abstract: Abstract:In the second half of the nineteenth century, Hermann Lotze, Robert Vischer, and Theodor Lipps pioneered the notion of Einfühlung, a term translated into the English empathy by Edward Titchener in 1911. This article investigates the role of empathy in literary reading by reconnecting it to its origins in the theories of Einfühlung and by revisiting these theories in the light of neuropsychological studies of embodied cognition carried out since the nineties. Contemporary to the coinage of the term empathy and to the broader dissemination of the notion of Einfühlung, Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis (1915) is here used as a test terrain for the hypotheses generated by this investigation. Kafka's novella shows us how literature can use "fantastic cognition" (Kukkonen) to open a space of empathic indetermination in which the reader can resonate with structures of feeling extended beyond "normal" human sensorimotor forms.
TL;DR: Precarious Intimacies as discussed by the authors is an excellent book for Euro-Pean cinema studies, which is available in paperback, hardback, and e-book format and can also be obtained via open access made available through the Northwestern University website in collaboration with a number of institutions.
Abstract: by which to care enough to envision a better future unburdened by the violence of the present. I was particularly moved by the authors’ generous acknowledgement section, in which they expand on their own collaborative research and writing practice that shaped their book. In their own collaboration, care, and indeed intellectual intimacy practice, the authors see a means by which to resist, survive in, and push back against the forces of the neoliberal university. Their scholarly practices, their relation to the academy, and the subject matter to which they turn in their book all take on personal contours by which the authors model affirmative personal-scholarly connections to texts far removed from their own lived experience. To me, it is also very vital that this excellent book not only is available in paperback, hardback, and e-book format suitable for various academic and personal libraries but can also be obtained via open access made available through the Northwestern University website in collaboration with a number of institutions. Precarious Intimacies will become standard reading for scholars of Euro pean cinema studies. Its prose is accessible, its active engagement with scholarly and primary sources is varied and exciting, and its scope is broad. As such, it would also be an excellent text for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses. The book will certainly be part of reading lists for the courses I teach in the future.
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors explored the implications of Keller's doodle for Prinzhorn's thesis along with the re-evaluation of doodling as a legitimate creative gesture.
Abstract: Abstract:In 1922 German art historian and psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn published his groundbreaking monograph Bildnerei der Geisteskranken, which psychologically and aesthetically analyzed the art of the mentally ill. Tucked away in a footnote is reference to an episode in Gottfried Keller's novel Der grüne Heinrich (1855, 1879/80) when the title artist creates a monstrous web of doodles. This essay explores the implications of Keller's doodle for Prinzhorn's thesis along with the re-evaluation of doodling as a legitimate creative gesture. It concludes by following the doodle into the museum through the artworks of Jean Dubuffet, a pioneering force behind outsider art who was influenced by Prinzhorn's Bildnerei and wielded the doodle as critique against traditional notions of art. Doodles' journey from marginalia to museum-worthy artworks reveals their subversive power to give voice to those marginalized by society, while also exposing the weaknesses and paradoxes of an outsider art for effecting true institutional reform.
TL;DR: In this article , the metaphors of "mirror" and "light" in medieval vernacular literature are examined to examine the influence of their semantics on the conceptualization of cognition.
Abstract: Abstract:In this article, we look at the metaphors of "mirror" and "light" in medieval vernacular literature to examine the influence of their semantics on the conceptualization of cognition. We argue that "mirror" and "light" are traditional means to express and to reflect cognitive processes. Speaking metaphorically is thus intimately related to understanding concepts in general but also allows the shaping as well as the transmission of concepts. In support of our argument, we will, in the second part of this paper, carefully consider David von Augsburg's Spiegel der Tugend (Mirror of Virtue), which blends the metaphors "mirror" and "light" conceptually.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors explored social cognition and emotion regulation involved in watching the popular German television series Babylon Berlin and found that it is related to our work in cognitive television and media studies.
Abstract: Abstract:Working within cognitive television and media studies, this essay explores social cognition and emotion regulation involved in watching the popular German television series Babylon Berlin.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors focus on Grjasnowa's Der verlorene Sohn, in which a Muslim child is taken from his family and brought to St. Petersburg.
Abstract: Abstract:The worldliness that characterizes the literary fiction of the self-identified Jewish writer Olga Grjasnowa can be understood as an expression of "Jewish purpose" (Adam Sutcliffe), entailing solidarity with other persecuted minorities rooted in the Jewish experience, and especially Jewish suffering. This article focuses on Grjasnowa's Der verlorene Sohn, in which a Muslim child is taken from his family and brought to St. Petersburg. The article explores the depiction of Islamophobia in Imperial Russia and how seemingly extraneous allusions to anti-Semitism in fact underpin a broader critique of the Enlightenment's unfulfilled promise. Subsequently, it is argued that the narrator can be construed as a "non-Jewish Jew" (Isaac Deutscher), with a Jewish identity that is expressed through social and ethical commitment rather than belief. Finally, the article explores tensions inherent in Jewish purpose—including the perennial worry that Jews may be required to elide their particularity for the sake of universal values.
TL;DR: The University of Toronto Press (UTP) is Canada's leading academic publisher and one of the largest university presses in North America, with particular strengths in the social sciences, humanities, and business as discussed by the authors .
Abstract: Find information about UTP Journals. University of Toronto Press is Canada’s leading academic publisher and one of the largest university presses in North America, with particular strengths in the social sciences, humanities, and business. The Book Publishing Division is widely recognized in Canada for its strength in history, political science, sociology, Indigenous studies, and cultural studies. Internationally, UTP is a leading publisher of medieval, Renaissance, Italian, Iberian, Slavic, and urban studies, as well as studies in book and print culture.
TL;DR: The University of Toronto Press (UTP) is Canada's leading academic publisher and one of the largest university presses in North America, with particular strengths in the social sciences, humanities, and business as mentioned in this paper .
Abstract: Find information about UTP Journals. University of Toronto Press is Canada’s leading academic publisher and one of the largest university presses in North America, with particular strengths in the social sciences, humanities, and business. The Book Publishing Division is widely recognized in Canada for its strength in history, political science, sociology, Indigenous studies, and cultural studies. Internationally, UTP is a leading publisher of medieval, Renaissance, Italian, Iberian, Slavic, and urban studies, as well as studies in book and print culture.
TL;DR: In 2019, the prestigious Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, paired productions of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan the Wise and Wajdi Mouawad's Birds of a Kind to explore intersections of cultural identity and politics as mentioned in this paper .
Abstract: In 2019, the prestigious Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, paired productions of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan the Wise and Wajdi Mouawad’s Birds of a Kind to explore intersections of cultural identity and politics. In this article, we analyze the productions and their reception through the theoretical lens of multiculturalism, referencing conceptions grouped along a continuum between liberal universalism and hard pluralism. We argue that the productions and their reception by artists, critics, and audiences provide evidence for, and contribute to, a Canadian multiculturalism that, far from a homogeneous ideology, constitutes a complex, shifting discursive field and politics.
TL;DR: In this paper , the importance of the radio work Monolog in the German writer's oeuvre is reassessed by studying its manifold and complex thematization of old age, where the protagonist's self-imposed solitude and yearning for disembodiment are interpreted in the light of theories of aging that are based on both chronometric and "lived" time.
Abstract: Abstract:This essay proposes to reassess the importance of Wolfgang Hildesheimer's radio work Monolog (first broadcast in 1964) in the German writer's oeuvre by studying its manifold and complex thematization of old age. The protagonist's self-imposed solitude and yearning for disembodiment are interpreted in the light of theories of aging that are based on both chronometric and "lived" time. This close reading of old age in Monolog duly takes into account the medium for which it was written and is informed by both Hildesheimer's previous radio art and his evolving world view.