William Collins Donahue

Illusions of Subtlety: Bernhard Schlink’s Der Vorleser and The Moral Limits of Holocaust Fiction

In presenting the case of SS guard Hanna Schmitz from the perspective of her young lover, Bernhard Schlink’s award-winning Der Vorleser would seem to represent that cutting edge of Holocaust literature interested in depicting per-petrators in a more nuanced fashion. However, this gesture toward complexity – a welcome trend in itself – is not ultimately supported by the text, which insistently obscures Hanna’s role in a series of crimes against humanity. The likeable narrator’s attempt to come to terms with the Holocaust, which is espoused as exemp-lary, proves in the end to rely on a problematic conception of dual victimisation: of Hanna as victim of circumstance, and of himself as victim of Hanna. This essay draws liberally upon reception data in order to discover the manner in which the novel exploits a number of entrenched assumptions on the part of readers. Chief among these are 1) the diffuse sense that confronting the Holocaust presents a demanding burden, rendering present day observers as victims of a sort; and 2) the presupposition that moral sophistication – an attribute with which Der Vorleser has been frequently credited – is tantamount to indecision or undecidability. The real ‘limits’ to Holocaust fiction are thus found to inhere within both the critical climate and the unfulfilled ambitions of the novel.

Creative Writing in the Elementary German Classroom: A Plädoyer for Poetry@@@Creative Writing in the Elementary German Classroom: A Pladoyer for Poetry

When younger students see foreign language learning as mainly rote memorization and endless conjugations, it is no wonder that foreign language study is seldom a favorite pastime. Despite the proficiency movement, which has properly shifted our teaching emphasis from grammar-centered and drill-dominated instruction to more authentic language situations, one still hears the lament that learning a second language is like eating your vegetables: it may not be fun, but its good for you. Perhaps we teachers should admit that there is something to this view: despite our most creative efforts, learning a language is sometimes just a dull contest of cramming and repeating. The trick, however, may be to relinquish some of that creativity to our students. In the spring of 1989 I took a chance and arranged to have my German I students attempt their own poetry. The gamble was well worth it: the students not only learned and consolidated many language lessons but acquired a good many transfer skills as well. More importantly, these poems gave me the chance to get to know my students more intimately by allowing them to voice concerns and issues that had not yet surfaced in any other classroom context.

„Eigentlich bist du eine Frau. Du bestehst aus Sensationen“ Misogyny as Cultural Critique in Elias Canetti’s Die Blendung

ZusammenfassungDer Aufsatz vertieft bestehende feministische Lesarten von Canettis Blendung, indem er zentrale intertextuelle Bezüge offenlegt und den Roman in den Kontext jener Debatten stellt, die nach dem Ende des ersten Weltkriegs in Europa geführt worden sind. Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich insbesondere mit der Rolle der Misogynie, die Canetti als vermeintliche Lösung der notorischen „Krise des Subjekts“ und festen Bestandteil der Hochkultur kritisiert. Das Augenmerk gilt nicht allein den weiblichen Figuren, sondern auch der narrativen Konstruktion des „Weiblichen“; umso schärfere Konturen gewinnen dadurch Canettis Kritik und sein bitterböser Witz. Herkömmliche Lesarten wie diejenige Russell Bermans, der den Roman in den Dienst eines “charismatic modernism” zu stellen versucht, werden sich am Ende als revisionsbedürftig erweisen.AbstractThis essay expands traditional feminist approaches to Canetti’s Die Blendung both by elucidating key intertexts and by placing the novel within the cultural debates salient in post-WWI Europe. In particular, this study elucidates the novel’s critique of misogyny both as a pseudo-solution to the celebrated “crisis of the self”, and as endemic ingredient of the high cultural canon. By attending not just to the female figures, but to the narrative construction of the “feminine” as well, the reader gains a fuller appreciation of Canetti’s wide-ranging critique and acerbic wit. As a result of the foregoing analysis, the essay suggests in conclusion that certain canonical readings (such as Russell Berman’s effort to recruit Die Blendung for “charismatic modernism”) may now require revision.