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This article investigates a public debate in Germany that put a special spotlight on the interaction of standard language ideologies with social dichotomies, centering on the question of whether Kiezdeutsch, a new way of speaking in multilingual urban neighbourhoods, is a legitimate German dialect. Based on a corpus of emails and postings to media websites, I analyse central topoi in this debate and an underlying narrative on language and identity. Central elements of this narrative are claims of cultural elevation and cultural unity for an idealised standard language High German', a view of German dialects as part of a national folk culture, and the construction of an exclusive in-group of German' speakers who own this language and its dialects. The narrative provides a potent conceptual frame for the Othering of Kiezdeutsch and its speakers, and for the projection of social and sometimes racist deliminations onto the linguistic plane.
Das Drama des 17. Jahrhunderts steht nicht in einem ästhetischen, sondern als Argument in einem sozialen, politischen oder, in der Sprache der Zeit, moralphilosophischen Kontext. Ein erster Teil des Aufsatzes zeigt, dass die Poetik in der aristotelischen Schulphilosophie als Teil der Logik, das heißt der Argumentationstheorie im weitesten Sinne galt, und die Dichtung selbst somit als Anwendung einer argumentativen Form. Ein zweiter Teil zeigt an drei Beispielen, dass diese logische, argumentationstheoretische Auffassung des Dramas auch den Poetiken der Zeit zugrunde liegt. Ein dritter Teil führt an einigen Dramen (u.a. Gryphius’ „Catharina von Georgien“, Masens „Androphilus“ und Birkens „Silvia“) kurz vor, in welcher Form sie als Argument zu verstehen sind. Der vierte Teil zeigt, dass die Auffassung des Dramas als Argument ihren sozialhistorischen Kontext im Schultheater hat. Ein letzter Teil widmet sich der Frage, was nach Überzeugung der Frühen Neuzeit die Eigentümlichkeit des Dramas ausmacht, wenn es sich als Argument nicht von anderen Argumentationsformen unterscheidet.
Der Beitrag zeigt in einem ersten Schritt, dass die "Absurda comica" ein theologisches Gleichnis darstellt, in dem der König die Rolle Gottes, Pickelhäring die Rolle des Teufels und die Handwerker die Rolle des Menschen übernehmen. Schlüssel für dieses Gleichnis ist Lk 9.60 und Mt 8.22, wo Christus von seinen Jüngern fordert, "die Toten ihre Toten begraben zu lassen", d.h. sich vom Reich der Welt abzuwenden. Auf die "Absurda comica" übertragen, besagt dies, dass die Handwerker die Rollenhaftigkeit und die Narrheit ihrer Existenz erkennen müssen, wenn sie vor Gott gerechtfertigt werden wollen. In einem zweiten Schritt wird gezeigt, dass die "Absurda comica" als ein solches Gleichnis in der Tradition der Fastnachtspiele steht, deren Funktion eben dieser Aufweis der menschlichen Narrheit war. Das protestantische Schuldrama trat dabei bewusst in die Tradition dieser Fastnachtspiele, wie sich gerade an der "Absurda comica" zeigen lässt. In einem dritten Schritt wird diese These in einem Vergleich mit Jacob Masens "Rusticus imperans" und Christian Weises "Tobias und die Schwalbe" bestätigt.
This essay sets out to theorize the “new” Arctic Ocean as a pivot from
which our standard map of the world is currently being
reconceptualized. Drawing on theories from the fields of Atlantic
and Pacific studies, I argue that the changing Arctic, characterized
by melting ice and increased accessibility, must be understood
both as a space of transit that connects Atlantic and Pacific worlds
in unprecedented ways, and as an oceanic world and contact
zone in its own right. I examine both functions of the Arctic via a
reading of the dispute over the Northwest Passage (which
emphasizes the Arctic as a space of transit) and the contemporary
assessment of new models of sovereignty in the Arctic region
(which concentrates on the circumpolar Arctic as an oceanic
world). However, both of these debates frequently exclude
indigenous positions on the Arctic. By reading Canadian Inuit
theories on the Arctic alongside the more prominent debates, I
argue for a decolonizing reading of the Arctic inspired by Inuit
articulations of the “Inuit Sea.” In such a reading, Inuit conceptions
provide crucial interventions into theorizing the Arctic. They also,
in turn, contribute to discussions on indigeneity, sovereignty, and
archipelagic theory in Atlantic and Pacific studies.
Der Artikel arbeitet an Platons Gastmahl ein semantisches Netz rund um das Konzept des ‚Berührens‘ heraus. Dabei bildet das Verb ἅπτομαι ein zentrales Relais, das zwischen dem vieldiskutierten ‚philosophischen Gehalt‘ des Textes und der in ihrem performativen Beitrag meist unterschätzten Rahmenhandlung vermittelt. Im Nachvollzug der Konstellationen des Berührens zeigt sich, dass dem Berühren, als Berühren, nicht begrifflich beizukommen ist – es entzieht sich dem aneignenden Zugriff. Berühren ist eben nicht Begriff. Deshalb muss sich das Gastmahl der Berührung auf andere Weise nähern, nämlich berührend – wofür die narratologische Konstruktion des Textes von entscheidender Wichtigkeit ist. Er praktiziert Philo-Logie, d.h. nutzt die Macht der Worte, die genau daraus entsteht, dass sie in einer sehr präzisen Weise zwischen den Beteiligten aus einer konstitutiven Distanz heraus wirken.
Madness and Sense
(2015)
The German Sonderweg thesis has been discarded in most research fields. Yet in regards to the military, things differ: all conflicts before the Second World War are interpreted as prelude to the war of extermination between 1939–1945. This article specifically looks at the Franco-Prussian War 1870–71 and German behaviour vis-à-vis regular combatants, civilians and irregular guerrilla fighters, the so-called francs-tireurs. The author argues that the counter-measures were not exceptional for nineteenth century warfare and also shows how selective reading of the existing secondary literature has distorted our view on the war.
Stuck in the past?
(2018)
After the Civil War the Spanish army functioned as a guardian of domestic order, but suffered from antiquated material and little financial means. These factors have been described as fundamental reasons for the army’s low potential wartime capability. This article draws on British and German sources to demonstrate how Spanish military culture prevented an augmented effectiveness and organisational change. Claiming that the army merely lacked funding and modern equipment, falls considerably short in grasping the complexities of military effectiveness and organisational cultures, and might prove fatal for current attempts to develop foreign armed forces in conflict or post-conflict zones.
On 6 June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to fight the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (PLO). Between August 1982 and February
1984, the US, France, Britain and Italy deployed a Multinational
Force (MNF) to Beirut. Its task was to act as an interposition force to
bolster the government and to bring peace to the people. The
mission is often forgotten or merely remembered in context with
the bombing of US Marines’ barracks. However, an analysis of the
Italian contingent shows that the MNF was not doomed to fail and
could accomplish its task when operational and diplomatic efforts
were coordinated. The Italian commander in Beirut, General Franco
Angioni, followed a successful approach that sustained neutrality,
respectful behaviour and minimal force, which resulted in a
qualified success of the Italian efforts.
Forging an Italian hero?
(2018)
Over the last two decades, Amedeo Guillet (1909–2010) has been turned into a public and military hero. His exploits as a guerrilla leader in Italian East Africa in 1941 have been exaggerated to forge a narrative of an honourable resistance against overwhelming odds. Thereby, Guillet has been showcased as a romanticized colonial explorer who was an apolitical and timeless Italian officer. He has been compared to Lawrence of Arabia in order to raise his international visibility, while his genuine Italian brand is perpetuated domestically. By elevating him to an official role model, the Italian Army has gained a focal point for military heroism that was also acceptable in the public memory as the embodiment of a ‘glorious’ defeat narrative.
Schomburgk’s Chook
(2018)
Focusing on the politics of museums, collections and the untold
stories of the scientific ‘specimens’ that travelled between
Germany and Australia, this article reconstructs the historical,
interpersonal and geopolitical contexts that made it possible for
the stuffed skin of an Australian malleefowl to become part of the
collections of Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde. The author enquires into the kinds of contexts that are habitually considered
irrelevant when a specimen of natural history is treated as an
object of taxonomic information only. In case of this particular
specimen human and non-human history become entangled in ways that link the fate of this one small Australian bird to the German revolutionary generation of 1848, to Germany’s
nineteenth-century colonial aspirations, to settler–Indigenous
relations, to the cruel realities that underpinned the production of
scientific knowledge in colonial Australia, and to a present-day
interest in reconstructing Indigenous knowledges.
The selection of ‘good’ pictures has increasingly become a crucial factor when transmitting news to the recipients. Every day thousands of events are happening and millions of pictures are taken. By choosing photographs for newspapers and magazines, photographic editorial departments want to attract the recipients’ attention, evoke emotions and get them to read their stories. But what exactly is a good picture that meets these expectations? Which criteria are decisive for selecting pictures and what effects of this selection can be measured on the recipients’ side? This article presents the results of a research project carried out at the University of Erfurt in 2008 and conducted in collaboration with the German weekly magazine stern. It deals with the selection and impact of press photography by introducing the concept ‘photo news factors’. Applying the traditional news value theory to pictures, photo news factors are defined as selection criteria that, on the part of the communicator, decide whether the press photos are worth publishing. Furthermore, they are assumed to exert an influence on the intensity of attention that a picture arouses.
Across currents
(2017)
The nature of the links between speech production and perception has been the subject of longstanding debate. The present study investigated the articulatory parameter of tongue height and the acoustic F1–F0 difference for the phonological distinction of vowel height in American English front vowels. Multiple repetitions of /i, ɪ, e, ɛ, æ/ in [(h)Vd] sequences were recorded in seven adult speakers. Articulatory (ultrasound) and acoustic data were collected simultaneously to provide a direct comparison of variability in vowel production in both domains. Results showed idiosyncratic patterns of articulation for contrasting the three front vowel pairs /i-ɪ/, /e-ɛ/, and /ɛ-æ/ across subjects, with the degree of variability in vowel articulation comparable to that observed in the acoustics for all seven participants. However, contrary to what was expected, some speakers showed reversals for tongue height for /ɪ/-/e/ that were also reflected in acoustics, with F1 higher for /ɪ/ than for /e/. The data suggest the phonological distinction of height is conveyed via speaker-specific articulatory-acoustic patterns that do not strictly match features descriptions. However, the acoustic signal is faithful to the articulatory configuration that generated it, carrying the crucial information for perceptual contrast.
The focus in this article, through a reading of the German-Australian
newspaper Der Kosmopolit, is on the legacies of entangled imperial
identities in the period of the nineteenth-century German
Enlightenment. Attention is drawn to members of the liberal
nationalist generation of 1848 who emigrated to the Australian
colonies and became involved in intellectual activities there. The
idea of entanglement is applied to the philosophical orientation
of the German-language newspaper that this group formed, Der
Kosmopolit, which was published between 1856 and 1957. Against
simplistic notions that would view cosmopolitanism as the
opposite of nationalism, it is argued that individuals like Gustav
Droege and Carl Muecke deployed an entangled ‘cosmo-
nationalism’ in ways that both advanced German nationalism and
facilitated their own engagement with and investment in
Australian colonial society.
In October 2016, following a campaign led by Labour Peer Lord
Alfred Dubs, the first child asylum-seekers allowed entry to the UK
under new legislation (the ‘Dubs amendment’) arrived in England.
Their arrival was captured by a heavy media presence, and very
quickly doubts were raised by right-wing tabloids and politicians
about their age. In this article, I explore the arguments
underpinning the Dubs campaign and the media coverage of
the children’s arrival as a starting point for interrogating
representational practices around children who seek asylum. I
illustrate how the campaign was premised on a universal politics
of childhood that inadvertently laid down the terms on which
these children would be given protection, namely their innocence.
The universality of childhood fuels public sympathy for child
asylum-seekers, underlies the ‘child first, migrant second’
approach advocated by humanitarian organisations, and it was a
key argument in the ‘Dubs amendment’. Yet the campaign
highlights how representations of child asylum-seekers rely on
codes that operate to identify ‘unchildlike’ children. As I show, in
the context of the criminalisation of undocumented migrants‘,
childhood is no longer a stable category which guarantees
protection, but is subject to scrutiny and suspicion and can,
ultimately, be disproved.
This paper offers an exploratory Interactional Linguistic account of the role that inferences play in episodes of ordinary conversational interaction. To this end, it systematically reconsiders the conversational practice of using the lexico-syntactic format oh that's right to implicitly claim "just-now" recollection of something previously known, but momentarily confused or forgotten. The analyses reveal that this practice typically occurs as part of a larger sequential pattern that the participants orient to and which serves as a procedure for dealing with, and generating an account for, one participant's production of an inapposite action. As will be shown, the instantiation and progressive realization of this sequential procedure requires local inferential work from the participants. While some facets of this inferential work appear to be shaped by the particular context of the ongoing interaction, others are integral to the workings of the sequence as such. Moreover, the analyses suggest that participants' understanding of oh that's right as embodying an implicit memory claim rests on an inference which is based on a kind of semantic-pragmatic compositionality. The paper thus illustrates how inferences in conversational interaction can be systematically studied and points to the merits of combining an interactional and a linguistic perspective.
Speaking the unspeakable
(2019)
This article discusses the filmic representation of the infamous Wannsee Conference, when fifteen senior German officials met at a villa on the shore of a Berlin lake to discuss and co-ordinate the implementation of the so-called final solution to the Jewish question. The understanding reached during the course of the ninety-minute meeting cleared the way for the Europe-wide killing of six million Jews. The article sets out to answer the principal challenge facing anyone attempting to recreate the Wannsee Conference on film: what was the atmosphere of this conference and the attitude of the participants? Moreover, it discusses various ethical aspects related to the portrayal of evil, not in actions but in words, using the medium of film. In doing so, it focuses on the BBC/HBO television film Conspiracy (2001), directed by Frank Pierson, probing its historical accuracy and discussing its artistic credibility.
West German anticommunism and the SED’s Westarbeit were to some extentinterrelated. From the beginning, each German state had attemted to stabilise itsown social system while trying to discredit its political opponent. The claim tosole representation and the refusal to acknowledge each other delineated governmentalaction on both sides. Anticommunism inWest Germany re-developed under theconditions of the Cold War, which allowed it to become virtually the reason ofstate and to serve as a tool for the exclusion of KPD supporters. In its turn, theSED branded the West German State as‘revanchist’and instrumentalised itsanticommunism to persecute and eliminate opponents within the GDR. Bothphenomena had an integrative and exclusionary element.