German Literature Research Articles

State of scientific development of the concept of "digital competence", both in general and in relation to a specialist translator (Bachelor in Philology in Germanic languages and literature) is highlighted in the article. Main approaches to understanding the essence of the concept of "digital competence", its definition and structure by modern science are highlighted. The lack of terminological stability of the concept is noted, as well as the presence of a clear terminological inconsistency of such consonant, but not identical in content concepts as "information competence", "informatics competence", "information and communication competence", "information and communication technological competence", "digital literacy" and "digital competence". The inaccuracy and insufficient exhaustiveness of individual attempts to formulate definitions of the concept of "digital competence" proposed by researchers in the scientific literature are noted. Own refined definition of the concept of "digital competence" for a specialist translator is proposed. Its content is detailed, and two approaches to determining the structure of digital competence are proposed - functional-professional and personality-oriented, which successfully complement each other. It is emphasized that the successful formation of digital competence in a higher education applicant in any specialty is impossible without the initial awareness of its significance by all participants in the educational process in higher education. It is emphasized that the introduction of digital technologies in education as an initial condition for the formation of appropriate competence will inevitably require higher education institutions to create and implement a fundamentally new model of learning, in which the share of information-search activities of students will have a constant tendency to grow and in the near future may radically change the nature of the organization of the educational process in terms of independent search, comprehension and mastery of information, including its large arrays. Attention is also drawn to potential risks and threats that objectively lie in the plane of the existing "gap" between generations in the awareness of the significance of digital technologies and their active use

The supreme goal of twentieth-century German writers was, of course, to achieve the present-day appearance of German society, a country with a high level of culture, advanced art and literature, and a prosperous, prosperous country. This means that from that time onwards, they knew that it was through literature that the dreams of young people could be realized through the transformation of their minds, and that they were able to accomplish this task to a high degree with their perfect creations.

Abstract German university degrees, at least in some countries, offer students only German literature courses in addition to language courses. Linguistics is often not a core component of German degree programmes. As a result, students who are not familiar with basic linguistic terminology do not kow how languanges work, including their mother tongue, or do not reflect on the differences and similarities between their L1 and L2. This can make learning German more challenging, especially in a university setting where language instruction is often quite explicit. This paper examines students’ perceptions of linguistic instruction and its impact on their language skills, German proficiency, and linguistic reflection. In order to assess these aspects, three groups of students, who attended linguistic modules with different content, completed a feedback questionnaire after their respective courses. The results indicate that most students, regardless of course content differences, viewed metalinguistic instruction positively, finding it beneficial for enhancing their language skills, learning German more effectively, and encouraging language reflection.

The article considers the realization of the memory motif in the stories of two famous masters of war prose – B.L. Vasiliev and E.M. Remarque. The relevance of their works is connected with the formulation of problems of universal human value, for example, the memory of the war and the attitude of post-war generations towards it. The most significant point of contact is the drawing of a line of succession in such important topics for Russian and German literature as «man and war», «war: past – present», since it is precisely such a category as national memory that, in its own way, «cements» both Russian and German literature of the twentieth century in the historical paradigm. The motif of memory is considered by both authors through the opposition «past – present». The component of «past» at E.M. Remarque’s work is associated with the time before the war and the time of the first months of the war: this is the childhood of the characters, their growing up, getting married while on vacation from the front and the death of a young man during the war. The life of a young widow develops in such a way that in the whirlwind of events she seems to forget about the deceased, but, getting married for the second time, she comes to her hometown, where surging memories force her to look at the past in a different way and appreciate the sacrifice made by her husband in the name of the peaceful present. Remarque’s work tells about the return of memory, that the sacrifices for the benefit of humanity are not in vain. In the story of B.L. Vasiliev, the past is also connected with pre-war peaceful life, but for the mother of the deceased young man it is closely connected with the present. With his work, the author warns that an attempt on memory, in any form, is dangerous for the present, because memory must live so that the mistakes of the past do not repeat themselves. The scientific significance of the work lies in the appeal to the motive level of the analysis of the prose works, the practical significance lies in the comparative analysis of works created by humanist writers of the countries whose peoples often opposed each other in military conflicts.

This article examines the origins of modern political life among the Bosniaks of BiH during the Austro-Hungarian era, focusing on the evolution of their political life and the emergence and activities of the first Bosniak political organization. Additionally, this article researches the political panorama of BiH at the time, including the significant political processes, events, and developments that shaped the fate of this country. The article aims to analyze the political structures of the Bosniaks during the 1878-1906 period, focusing on the processes of their political organization facilities and the developmental course of the political organization. Furthermore, this article researches the reasons behind the establishment of this organization, its evolution, programs, and activities, and its role on the political scene of BiH. Moreover, this article specializes on the organization’s influence on developing national consciousness among the Bosniaks. The research draws upon archival sources and literature in Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, German, English, and Turkish, employing methods of analysis and comparison to examine the subject comprehensively.

Carolin Duttlinger. <i>Attention and Distraction in Modern German Literature, Thought, and Culture</i>

The productive value of a literary work depends on its functioning; it is included in the context of social, cultural and literary factors of the world, reflects socio-cultural landmarks. The development of national literatures itself is impossible without interconnection with other literatures, mutual influence and mutual enrichment. The best works of outstanding representatives of German literature - Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Becher, Brecht, Brelyd, and Zweig - were translated into many languages of the world, including Uzbek translators. The genius of the German poet Goethe is vividly embodied in his famous tragedy “Faust”. “Faust” is a deeply philosophical work about man's eternal striving for good, about the bright dream of people about happiness and love. This is the pinnacle of his creativity. There are several options for translating this work. One of the best, in our opinion, should be considered the translation of Erkin Vakhidov (1972 - 1974). In 1975, the Uzbek reader had the opportunity to read the story “The Suffering of Young Werther” in their native language, which was translated by Yanglish Egamova directly from the German original. The undoubted merit of the translators was the development and improvement of the translation business in Uzbekistan

Abstract The contemporary digital environment of children and adolescents highlights the need for media education in schools, including physical education (PE). PE teachers’ attitudes have been identified as an important factor for the implementation of digital media in PE. Research on these attitudes is growing but lacks a comprehensive review. Thus, this systematic review addresses this gap in literature by identifying, summarizing and evaluating evidence on PE teachers’ and PE student teachers’ (preservice teachers) attitudes towards digital media since 2006. A systematic search of German and English literature was conducted across six databases (Web of Science, ERIC, Sportdiskus, FIS-Bildung, PsycInfo, and SURF (BISP)), along with manual searches and reviews of reference lists. Inclusion criteria were: English or German articles published between 2006 and 2023, focusing on (preservice) PE teachers’ attitudes towards digital media, using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods, and including journal articles, collected volumes, dissertations, and monographies. Study quality was assessed with a modified version of the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool version 2018. The review identified 33 articles, predominantly quantitative studies, mainly focusing on secondary school teachers. These studies primarily examined ownership, accessibility, utilization, and integration of digital media in PE, primarily focusing on information and communication technologies. (Preservice) PE teachers generally held positive attitudes, though some negative sentiments were due to feelings of incompetence, lack of knowledge, time constraints, and technical issues. Attitudes were influenced by internal and external factors such as age or school types. This review provides a solid foundation for future research and the development of training programs to enhance (preservice) PE teachers’ skills and improve media education integration in PE classes.

Blue balls is a mundane complaint that generates substantive popular lore but has little coverage in the sexual medicine literature. To draft a first medical history of relevant nosology and etiology. The Latin, French, German, Dutch, Italian, and English literature was mined. As expected from a period of not only widespread scaremongering concerning masturbation and "semen loss" but also "overly rigid continence," scrotal pain reminiscent of blue balls was well covered between the 1820s and 1920s, under variably inclusive nosologic headings: "hernia seminalis," "orchioncus," "simple spermatocele," "epididymis distensa," "irritable testis," "testicular epilepsy," "testicular neuralgia," "spermatic colic," "stone-ache," "epididymitis sympathica," "epididymitis erotica," "epididymitis antiperistaltica," "paradidymitis erotica acuta," and "epididymo-deferential colic." Even an analogical "ovaralgia erotica" was hypothesized. Observations had the radical potential of supporting poena naturalis (natural punishment) arguments against "too strict" continence and even pro masturbation. This historical push toward concepts of normal and habitual sexuality was fortified by equally tendentious concepts of "constitutional" or "temperamental" predisposition in some men. Yet the clear potential of the diagnosis to moderate strong prevailing sentiments against masturbation remained poorly realized until well into the early 20th century. Discomfort of the blue balls variety widely animated clinical sexual discourse from the early 18th century onward. It specifically informed interlocking, gendered ideas about sexual entitlement expressed in normative frames for sexual habits, eroto-sexual constitution, and behavioral health.

Abstract For many people, the Middle Ages were a ‘dark age’ we have fortunately left behind. Of course, today, we live under much better material conditions, at least in the Western world, but this does not mean at all that the insights and perspectives by medieval authors might be irrelevant for us today. Contrary to foolish mythical thinking about the past, we can often realize how much pre-modern thinkers had developed deep insights into the human psyche, social conditions, individual shortcomings and failures, and had also outlined significant strategies for coping in a complex society where many groups and individuals struggled against each other. In fact, as this article will indicate, by way of drawing from a list of seven key C-words (communication, community, compromise, etc.), we can explore medieval literature more deeply and extract from it timeless messages of great relevance for us today. This will be illustrated by way of examining some of the verse narratives by the late medieval German poet Heinrich Kaufringer in which we can discover powerful insights into fundamental conflicts people have always suffered from and how to come to terms with them.

Abstract Highlighting the mobile, transnational, and translingual character of Afrodiasporic literatures in Germany, this article illustrates how contemporary Anglophone literary texts of the African diaspora in Germany not only challenge conventional understandings of what German-ness and ‘German literature’ means but also how their representations of (im)mobilities go beyond narratives of migration. By example of Olumide Popoola’s play Also by Mail (2013) and Musa Okwonga’s novel In the End, It Was All about Love (2021), I analyse how these texts depict Black characters as quotidian mobile subjects, addressing the plurality and relationality of practices and politics of (im)mobility in order to explore how these are intertwined with regimes of belonging and processes of racialisation in modern Europe. From a mobility studies perspective, the article employs the notion of friction to read the primary texts under scrutiny as fictions of everyday mobility that draw attention to the material conditions and embodied experiences of mobility and immobilisation while thinking (im)mobility also in terms of literary form.

This article reveals the structure and components of the content of the Russian-language and German-language linguacultural concept of “Morality”. Morality as a moral category at the present stage of development of society requires analysis and characterization in comparison of the German and Russian languages as holistic conceptual models of linguistic consciousness of representatives of Russian and German linguacultures, which determines the relevance of the study. The theoretical and methodological basis of this study are the achievements of the theory of intercultural communication; linguaconceptology, linguaculturology, comparative linguistics. The aim of the study is to characterize the core elements “good, kind” and “Gute, gutherzig” of the linguacultural Russian-language and German-language concepts of “Morality” based on the analysis of the semantic meaning; etymological meaning; associative meaning; contextual linguacultural meaning; value-marked statements. The scientific problem of the research is the comparison of linguacultural concepts in the Russian and German pictures of the world as integral conceptual models of linguistic consciousness of representatives of Russian and German linguacultures. The material of the research is bilingual, synonymous, explanatory, etymological dictionaries, texts of works of fiction of Russian and German literature; philosophical and religious works of Russian and German scientists. The authors analyze the substantive content of the structures of the Russian-language and German-language linguacultural concepts of “Morality”, in particular the core of the concept. As a result of the analysis of the core elements “good, kind” and “Gute, gutherzig” of the linguacultural Russian-language and German-language concepts of “Morality”, the following was revealed: the core components of the Russian-language concept of “Morality” are represented by lexical units, which in the process of analyzing the semantic meaning; etymological meaning; associative meaning; contextual linguacultural meaning; value-marked statements are revealed as the highest divine value in human life; good corresponds to such concepts as happiness, love and freedom. Accordingly, the core components of the German-language concept “Moral” have an objective, pragmatic content in the form of material values of representatives of the German linguistic culture.

The article discusses the supernatural in the autobiographical novel as reported by Stanišić (Herkunft, Luchterhand, Munich, 2019), the outstanding representative of contemporary post-Yugoslav migrant literature in German. The article focuses on the formal and narrative aspects of the representation of the supernatural, which is ultimately connected to magical realism. It analyses its diverse semantics and historical foundations and finally sheds light on its inherent social dimension. The article elucidates Stanišić’s aesthetic goal in using magical realism, represented by the relatives of the protagonist figure Saša, and closely interwoven with diverse metafictional narrative techniques, to place the present and past — with special reference to the post-Yugoslav situation of the 1990s — into a subversive and thus differentiated perspective. In this way, the novel provides future projections of a subtle humanity, marked by traumatisation and fragility. The author lends additional poignancy to the differentiation of the image(s) of society through critique that visualises the Bosnian homeland as a space of toxic‚ bundle of ideologies’ provoking transgenerational traumas, and at the same time reveals the culture of the West in its rationalist delusions and frenetic search for orientation. On the other hand, the author elevates the experience of migration in Germany to the status of a personal pluralistic myth, that, in comparison to the monistic religious and national myths, opens up the historical and memorial space of representation and communication, which is painstakingly making its way in historiography of the war-torn Balkan regions.

The following special issue unites the contributions made by history, German literature, and romance literature researchers from Spain, Germany, and Israel during the inaugural conference of the project Postwar Periods. Spain 1939–Germany 1945: A Comparative Approach, which took place between February 21 and 23, 2024, at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. We would like to thank Laia Arañó Vega and Olívia Gassol Bellet, editors of Dictatorships &amp; Democracies. Journal of History and Culture (published by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and the Fundació Carles Pi i Sunyer), as well as Francesc Vilanova i Vila-Abadal for making it possible to publish the results of our inaugural conference in the form of the following dossier. The project, which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), intends to explore a novel interdisciplinary and transnational approach to the Spanish and German postwar periods, aiming to integrate non-European and Jewish perspectives. The project’s aim is to sound out open questions within four thematic fields.

This study examines how the Japanese writer Furui Yoshikichi engages with Western mystical experiences, particularly through his reading of Martin Buber’s Ecstatic Confessions and his broader engagement with Meister Eckhart and medieval German mysticism. Furui’s literary inquiry revolves around the inherent tension between the ineffability of mystical experiences and their articulation through language. He critically engages with the paradox of verbalization, recognizing that while mystical experiences transcend linguistic and temporal boundaries, they nevertheless achieve resonance through written and spoken expressions. His reflections converge with Buddhist notions of Sūnyatā, underscoring intersections between Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. Drawing upon his background as a translator of German literature, Furui mediates mystical experiences within a comparative framework, navigating cultural and linguistic boundaries. His approach elucidates the concept of the multiplicity of qualities in mystical experiences, demonstrating particularity and universality simultaneously. By analyzing Furui’s interpretation of mystical texts, this study contributes to broader discussions on the limitations of language in conveying transcendence and the role of literary imagination in rendering the ineffable.

The paper first gives a definition of free indirect discourse (FID) and then characterizes the two main directions of its research. The more traditional one, is based on the application of the three modes of speech representation to the representation of characters' minds (direct, indirect, and free indirect discourse). The text interference model is an alternative to the tripartite approach. It goes back to Mixail Baxtin's description of FID as a "hybrid construction" that "contains mixed within it two utterances, two speech manners, two styles, two 'languages', two semantic and axiological belief systems". The following essay examines the development of free indirect discourse (FID) in German and Russian literature.

Introduction. The article deals with the lexical aspect as a linguistic prerequisite for the formation of intercultural foreign language communicative competence of pre-service German teachers. The attention is focused on the lexical and semantic diversity that constitutes the spiritual and material experience of German-speaking countries. Methods.The professional literature on the topic is analyzed in order to obtain an answer about the national and cultural labeling of lexical units. The regulatory concepts of German-speaking peoples are clarified. Purpose.The article emphasizes the grammatically correct use of lexical units in the discourse process. The article defines the identity of the people, primarily reflected in language at the level of lexis and phraseology. The author emphasizes the intercultural nature of the use of words, which appears where there are differences in its reproduction of the real-world picture by representatives of two foreign language cultures. The author emphasizes the importance of verbal and semantic means, enabling pre-service German teachers to develop their intercultural communication skills. The article introduces the verbal and semantic tools of German-speaking countries, whose national variants are the basis for the formation of intercultural communication. Results. Lexical and phraseological units are the first means of acquiring cultural knowledge about countries and forming linguistic and sociocultural competence. A number of examples of lexical units are given in accordance with the national variants of Austrian, Swiss and German. The author focuses on the use of normative literary German, which constitutes the educational and methodological basis for the formation of intercultural foreign language communicative competence, but recognizes the significance and spiritual heritage in the form of words. The article emphasizes the use of commonly used vocabulary, as it constitutes the lion’s share of the linguistic heritage of each nation. Examples of untranslated vocabulary and realia-words, realia-phrases that characterize the everyday life of German-speaking peoples are given. Conclusion. Thus, Teutonisms, Austricisms and Helvetisms as nationally labeled lexical units are described. The paremiological units of the German language, characterized by reproductivity and defining the traditions and customs of the everyday culture of the peoples of the language being taught, are singled out.

Abstract Although considerable attempts have been made to decolonize German Studies curricula in UK universities through an inclusion of German‐language cultural artifacts of authors and artists from ethno‐racially marginalized backgrounds, this kind of expansionist method––the endeavor to merely expand the canon of German Studies––does not suffice. While the decolonization of the canon of German Studies immensely increases visibility and representations of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) writers and artists who create in German, the theoretical methods through which these cultural artifacts are examined remain predominantly within the Euro‐American academe. The combination of decolonized German reading lists with Eurocentric theoretical tools, I argue, create theoretical and pedagogical barriers in German Studies, which risks resuscitating the kind of power imbalance between German/European cultures and other cultures, against which initiatives for decolonizing German Studies seek to counteract. Focusing on pedagogical practices of Yōko Tawada's work in an advanced‐level German literature course, I propose to address the issue of diversity and inclusivity both from the outside––the continuous effort to foreground German‐language cultural artifacts created by BIPOC writers and artists––and from within––the re‐evaluation and decolonization of theoretical tools by engaging with an integrative translingual approach that brings together resources of Western and non‐Western languages.

Representing Social Precarity in German Literature and Film By Sophie Duvernoy, KarstenOlson, and UlrichPlass (Eds.), Bloomsbury. 2023. 332 pp. $108 (hardback), $35.95 (paperback), $86.40 (ebook)

This article aims to demonstrate that colonial discourses on ‘racial mixing’ and their taxonomic intricacies were by no means limited to the Western colonial powers. By focusing on literary representations of racial mixing, it offers an analytical overview of this motif in the Czech context, while emphasising its function as a projection surface for colonial fantasies, aspirations of Europeanness and concerns about the integrity and homogeneity of the ‘national body’, principally fears of the subaltern position associated with ‘blackness’. Attention is paid to translations of French and German literature (e.g. Eugène Sue, Wilhelm Bauberger) from the first half of the nineteenth century, to Czech patriotic productions (Matěj Karas) and especially to representations of modernists and avant-gardists and their critical perspective (e.g. Jaroslav Hašek, Vítězslav Nezval, Vladimír Raffel). Considering a longer period of time allows the author to point out some tendencies characteristic of the Czech cultural context, especially its oscillation between mixophobic and mixophilic approaches.