Volume 46 (2020): Edition 1 (November 2020)

German Studies in Hermannstadt (Sibiu) have always put an increased focus on preserving continuity and consistency in teaching and research. The international anniversary conference (October 2019) that marked 50 years since the establishment of the Chair of German Studies in Hermannstadt (Sibiu) offered ample opportunity for taking a retrospective look in order to reflect on continuities and ruptures. Thus, in the article are mentioned some of the challenges that the chair had to face in its recent history.

Most of the times the tragic mask of the madman has fascinated artistic and literary modernity, inspiring a series of painters and writers through its complex expresivity and semantics. Balancing between lie and truth, covering and revelating, through anarchy and virtuosity, the mask of the tragic clown reflects loneliness, the anxieties and demones of the modern individual in a world of violence and alienation. In Celan’s late poetry, the mask of the tragic clown describes another kafkian metamorphosis which the present paper analyses in a cultural, biographic and intertextual context.

Danubeland scapes have been a recurrent topic in the German-language literature of Southeastern Europe, especially in German literature from Romania, which was the only one to survive the end of the Second World War in the Eastern Bloc. They developed different forms on both-sides of the Iron Curtain. In the West, the Danubeservedas a frame work for the consolidation of a common identity of many disparate groups of former German minorities from Southeastern Europe under the collective name “Danube Swabians”. Additionally, writers from Romania who emigrated to the West recalled in their works bothwonderful and frightening images of the lower Danube. In Romania, Danube landscapes are to be seen as attempts to negotiate the concept of homeland from a contemporary perspective after its appropriation by the patriotic literature of the court literati. They emergedas a stage for projecting new sensitivities: the suffering of isolation, economic misery and environmental pollution. Subversively narrated landscapes also set hidden signs of the memory of the isolated detention camps on the periphery of the country. The transformation of Danube landscapes is analysed by using literary examples after 1945.

The Romanian poet and internationally acclaimed mathematician Ion Barbu (i.e. Dan Barbilian), 1895-1961, practiced in his occasional poetry related to his experience as a doctoral student and later as a visiting professor in interbellic Germany a poetic discourse of immediate, sometimes diary-like reflection. The vitality of his occasional poetry mainly addressed to his close friends and seldom intended for publication is fed by the permanent contrast between the German and the Romanian culture and civilization. The paper analyzes the intercultural dialogue which constitutes the background of Ion Barbu’s Germany-related occasional poetry with special emphasis on his poems written in German.

In “Fern von Aleppo”, the Syrian author Faisal Hamdo, who left his home in 2014 and sought refuge in Germany, tells of his very personal integration experiences. The book represents a kind of intercultural communication. In his book, Faisal Hamdo, who sees himself as a “mediator between the worlds”, tries to give the German reader answers to many questions regarding Syrian culture. From a text linguistic point of view, this book identifies the narrative development that seems to be tailored to the intercultural context. Accordingly, the present article raises the following questions: Does the structure of classic narration differ from the structure of narration in an intercultural context? Which intercultural information units are presented in the text? How are they embedded in the narrative text? Which constituents of the narrative structure are suitable for realizing intercultural communication? Which communicative functions do the constituents of the narrative structure fulfill in an intercultural context?

The contribution sets itself the goal of analyzing the narrative structure to investigate how intercultural communication comes about through narration, how the intercultural information units are integrated into the constituents of the classic narrative structure so that they fulfill their communicative function, and to developa suitable analysis model.

Looking back, my memories seem like distant, made­up stories. These words of the main character are to be found all over Jan Koneffkes novel. A foreigner on the run, Felix Kannmacher is forced to tell stories in order to survive. He is at the mercy of a teenager who is avid for constantly new and different bedtime stories. Felix gives in, as he has no other choice but to be a slaveto this child. The following article analyses the fine line between the stories Felix invents for Virginia and two narratological aspects: the actual plot of the novel on the one hand, and the actual course of history, on the other. The entire novel is built on stories-within-stories that twist and turn the course of Story and History alike. Because each one of us writes their own (hi)story.

My paper will explore the interrelation between past, present and identity, as well as the dynamics of social change in contemporary German and Romanian literature, as exemplified by Jana Hensel’s Zonenkinder (2002) and Ioana Bradea’s Scotch (2010). Both authors belong to a new generation of writers who, having experienced the collapse of the communist regime as adolescents, investigate the traumatic experience of change and adjustment to the social, economic and cultural realities of post-communist societies. While Hensel aims at recreating the lost Heimat (motherland) as an Erinnerungsraum (space of remembrance) and portraying the social tensions of the post-unification decade from an Eastern German perspective, Bradea focuses on depicting the desolate post-communist industrial landscape, as well as the everyday lives of anonymous Romanians caught in the vagaries of transition.

The paperdealswiththe rural environment in Herta Müller’s Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt. In the analysis the stress falls on the semantisation of the walkable space, like the countryside landscape and the built environment. This study also includes the presentation of interpersonal relationships of the village people and thematises the metaphorical spaces of oppression and fear, the metaphorical space of waiting.

The incorporation of Greater Poland [in Polish: Wielkopolska] into the Kingdom of Prussia was the beginning of a direct neighbourhood of Poles and Germans in a relatively small area. This paper shall present the experiences of Prussian / German settlers in the Poznań Province which are based on autobiographical literary texts authored by officials and teachers (with their families) who came to this region. While reading these memoirs one can infer that they made efforts to “familiarise” new and ethnically foreign elements in the annexed territory. They cultivated and promoted their own culture here while concurrently not being too eager to participate in the culture and social life of the Polish locals. They manifest characteristic features typical of the colonist’s attitude. On the one hand, they present the country they colonise as foreign. On the other hand, they depict indigenous people whom they describe as individuals standing on a lower levelcivilisation-wise compared to the German “culture-bearers” who came here [“Kulturträger”].

The key issue in the discussed literary material of the long-term mobility of German families of officials and teachers allows to consider the following issues: How do the authors present migration to the Poznań Province and its effects? What stood in the way of building a sense of belonging and relationship between representatives of different nationalities in a new place? What does the studied autobiographical material say about the phenomenon of transnationality? Can one talk about transnational practices or their elements based on the specificity of the Poznań Province?

The article shows a metaphoric portrayal of the Silesia region. The author analyses metaphors which are being used to describe and characterize this region, namely Silesia as a bridge, a boundary stone, a pear tree, a smaragd and other figures. The analysis shows that the metaphors express the multicultural character of Silesia. They are predominantly very positive assessed.

Furthermore, the author analyses metaphors which are being used to characterize the inhabitants of Silesia. The analysis shows that this metaphors express a positive as well as a critical perception of this population.

The following paper deals with the critical reception of the works of Franz Kafka in Europe and North America. The wide range of existing interpretations, from thevery first attemptsto the later literary reception at the beginning of the 21^st century, is analyzed within four chrono logically ordered segments. The purpose of this analysis, which plays an important role in the basis of my doctoral thesis, is to establish which elements of the “western” literary reception of Kafka have played a role in the assimilation of Kafka’s works in Japan.

The terms gendern (< engl. gender) or gendering in German stand for the attempt to establish equality between men and women in everyday life or in political controversy, in academic life by means of linguistic methods. The representatives (plural feminine) of the feminist language criticism/ Feministische Linguistik call for the dissolution of the “generic masculine” for ex. jeder Lehrer (masculine/feminine) means a gender-mixed group whose gender/sex is neither relevant, nor known. It is criticized that the female teacher is not explicitly mentioned. The question here is whether the desired gender-appropriate treatment of all women germ. das Gendern – the gender-conscious use of language – is guaranteed by diacritical-orthographic procedures such as internal I: LehrerInnen (fem. pl.), slash (/): Leser/innen (masc.sg./pl.;/f.pl.), asterisk shape: Lehrer*innen or gender-gap: ein_e Beamt_er_in (an official, m./f. sg.) or by replacement of pair shapes like die Arbeitnehmenden (employees; instead of the ‘classic form’ Arbeitnehmer/Arbeitnehmerinnen) or the participial construction die Fahrzeugführenden/ the vehicle-carrying/ drivers.

The first Conference for the Yiddish Language of 1908 was a highly significant event in the history of Yiddish language and culture, which became known in the literature as the Czernowitz Language Conference [Yidd. „di konferents far der yidisher shprakh“]. This conference was held in the city of Czernowitz from August 30 to September 3 and united prominent representatives of the worldwide Yiddish movement and, thus, triggered a significant impulse to the development of an energetic Yiddish-speaking constellation. The conference manifested awareness of the importance of Yiddish language and culture as a breeding ground for the survival of traditional “(Eastern) Jewish” values. Within this framework the debates regarding the cultivation of the Yiddish language have been intensified through reflective and resolute actions with the aim of releasing it from the stigma of jargon.

The present study plans on highlighting aspects of completing the 4-year middle school term, which was in German, by the poet, writer, philosopher and playwright Lucian Blaga; more specifically aspects on following German schools in Blaga’s family, his early school days, stories about the educator Roth and the teacher Hans Wolf, on the location of the building and the atmosphere in the school, on the contact with the German culture and language which subsequently marked his personality and his work. At the heart of this presentation lies the autobiographical writing “The chronicle and the song of the ages”, published posthumously by “Editura Tineretului din Bucureşti” (“The Youth’s Publishing House from Bucureşti”) in 1965.

This article covers midwives as such and their designations in the Transylvanian-Saxon vernaculars in detail with emphasis on the early documentary evidence in the first half of the 16th century as well as from the 18th century. The lexemes correlate their respective categories of word formation and show descriptive series of synonyms depicting at the same time the composition of the Transylvanian-Saxon vocabulary. Comments on the etymology of the word formations as well as on the midwife‘s profession are also included. The terms are taken from the Transylvanian­Saxon Dictionary and the NorthTransyl vanian Saxon Dictionary as well as the specialist literature on vernacular.

In my contribution it’s about testaments made by german citizen of Cracow. The material is based on texts of last wills of people representing a minority of citizen of Cracow, the patrician families. The tastators where drawn dealer and trademans, which also pushing the development of the region. The texttype testament often marginalized by linguistics. I aske in opposite of this from the perspective of ontology and pragmatism: What is the deeper linguistic structure of this relative formalized text-type. I show in my analysis the texts of a last will include not only declarative (resp. indirect declarative) acts of speech but also a variety of assertive and directive elements. I don’t want to decide the justice of an act of speech but I have a catalogue of repetitive facultative phrases and combine this with particular narrations of certain paragraphs of testaments. This element not only refers to the private sphere of the tastators (conflicts or emotions) but uncover the social, educational and in part religious attitude of the testators. And so at least fully developed testaments let understood as selfreports.

Considering the recent criticism of the competence-oriented concern of the PISA study, the present paper proposes a practical teaching concept that opposes the isolated practice of reading skills. In the era of Post-truth, this contribution presents a lesson plan for Robert Musils’s novel “The Man without Qualities”, which aims at promoting aesthetic sensibility in the universityGerman courses for advanced levels.

This article is about creative writing in GFL-Lecture in Egypt. Writing as a skill is rarely considered in GFL- Lecture. Teachers pay attention to other skills such as reading, listening, or speaking, whereby writing is only considered receptively to promote speaking or grammar. This article is about trying to promote creative writing in GFL-Lecture and to offer new suggestions and tips. In a further step, this article deals with the presentation of some creative writing tasks that were carried out among the students of the third year at the language faculty (Al-Alsun) in Sohag. Finally, the conclusions are drawn, and results of creative writing shown.

The paper presents the applicability within literature classes of some concepts borrowed from theater pedagogy. It highlights a few teaching and learning strategies, which facilitate a better text comprehension and most of all inspire fun by learning and by working with texts, and it is based on precise examples, respectively projects of students from Transilvania University in Brasov.

German in space and time is a central aspect both from a scientific perspective and from the perspective of one´s own identity preservation within the language island situation. MsGerhild Rudolf’s thesis offers an analysis of the choice of languages within the Evangelical Church A.B. in Romania (ECR) and at the same time a general overview of language change processes within the ECR. There is an irreversible paradigm shift that is taking place along with the ongoing transition from a monolingual to a bilingual linguistic culture in worship. The status of German in the public use of language is also reflected, the efforts of preserving the German language and culture are presented from a current perspective, and the importance of the German minority is discussed historically and in a forward-looking manner. The thesis offers sufficient reason as well to think about future research on the role of the church and of German from different perspectives, to also emphasize the relevance of interdisciplinarity.