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Untitled Document
Aus dem Inhalt:
- Jerzy Welna: A Change Revarsed > Reversed: The estoration of the Nonprevocalic
Sequence [er] in English (abstract) S. 5
- Jost Halfmann: Zentrum und Peripherie: Zur Soziologie des nordamerikanischen
"Exzeptionalismus" (abstract) S. 17
- Ulf Schulenberg: Narrating the Disappearance of Reality - From Textualized
Spatiality to Glamorous Panfictionality in Postmodern American Fiction (abstract) S. 32
- Annegret Maack: "Tragedy, comedy, history"?: Romanversionen des
Hamlet-Stoffes bei John Updike und Damien Broderick (abstract) S. 54
- Frank Schulze-Engler: Transnationale Kultur als Herausforderung für
die Literaturwissenschaft (abstract) S. 65
- Buchbesprechungen
- Konrad Ehlich, Jakob Ossner and Harro Stammerjohann, eds. Hochsprachen
in Europa - Entstehung, Geltung, Zukunft. (Volker Gast) S. 80
- Hildegard L. C. Tristram, ed. The Celtic Englishes II. (Edgar W. Schneider)
S. 82
- Katja Lenz. Die schottische Sprache im modernen Drama. (Clausdirk Pollner)
S. 83
- M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt, eds. The Norton Anthology of English
Literature. (Klaus Peter Müller) S. 85
- Eva Müller-Zettelmann. Lyrik und Metalyrik: Theorie einer Gattung
und ihrer Selbstbespiegelung anhand von Beispielen aus der englisch- und
deutschsprachigen Dichtkunst. (Peter Hühn) S. 87
- Robert Weimann. Zwischen Performanz und Repräsentation: Shakespeare
und die Macht des Theaters. Aufsätze von 1959-1995. Eds. Christian
W.
- Thomsen and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer. (Irmgard Maassen) S. 88
- Tracy C. Davis. The Economics of the British Stage 1800-1914. (Bernhard
Reitz) S. 89
- Elaine Aston and Janelle Reinelt, eds. Modern British Women Playwrights.
- Duncan Wu, ed. Making Plays: Interviews with Contemporary British Dramatists
and Directors. (Stephanie Kramer) S. 91
- Maureen M. McLane. Romanticism and the Human Sciences: Poetry, Population,
and the Discourse of the Species. (Alan Richardson) S. 93
- Ralf Schneider. Grundriß zur kognitiven Theorie der Figurenrezeption
am Beispiel des viktorianischen Romans. (Rudolf Freiburg) S. 94
- Willi Erzgräber. James Joyce: Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit
im Spiegel experimenteller Erzählkunst. (Hans Walter Gabler) S. 95
- Joseph McLaughlin. Writing the Urban Jungle: Reading Empire in London
from Doyle to Eliot. (Barbara Korte) S. 97
- Tony Tanner. The American Mystery: American Literature from Emerson
to DeLillo. (Dirk Padeken) S. 99
- Ursula Wiest-Kellner. Messages from the Threshold: Die You-Erzählform
als Ausdruck liminaler Wesen und Welten. (Monika Fludernik) S. 100
- Susan Arndt. African Women's Literature: Orature and Intertextuality.
Martin Rohmer. Theatre and Performance in Zimbabwe. (Geoffrey Davis) S.
102
Jerzy Welna: A Change Revarsed > Reversed: The
estoration of the Nonprevocalic Sequence [er] in English
On the basis of the OED and the Helsinki Corpus, the paper examines the circumstances
of the Modern English restoration of [er] in the bulk of foreign words, as in
tarm (< term) > term, and in a relatively small number of native words
with [ar] developed from [er]; cf. larn (< lerne) > learn. Although the
traditional theory rightly holds that the reversal of the change in borrowings
was caused by the impact of the written form of the Latin source words, a substantial
number of words with [ar (< er)] in loanwords failed to undergo the reversal
because of the loss of correlation between the loanword and the original Latin/French
form. The paper also examines the sociolinguistic aspects of the reversal of
e-lowering.
Jost Halfmann: Zentrum und Peripherie: Zur Soziologie
des nordamerikanischen "Exzeptionalismus"
"American Exceptionalism" continues to be topical in the social and
cultural sciences. The notion of "American exceptionalism" remains,
however, fused with "mythopoietic" perceptions. To avoid the trap
of folkloristic interpretations, "American Exceptionalism" is reformulated
sociologically. From a comparative sociological point of view "American
Exceptionalism" embodies a specific variant of the relationships between
the social center and the periphery of a society. Established and fringe perceptions
of technological risks in the United States are taken as illustrations of this
sociological approach. The sociological "demystification" of "American
Exceptionalism" applies, however, also to sociology itself as the discussion
of the mythopoietic elements in North America's strongest theoretical tradition
in sociology, Parsonian functionalism, reveals.
Ulf Schulenberg: Narrating the Disappearance
of Reality - From Textualized Spatiality to Glamorous Panfictionality in Postmodern
American Fiction
As far as postmodern American literature is concerned, it has repeatedly been
pointed out that the textualization or semiotization of reality, a textualization
which could also be interpreted as a form of essential spatialization, is a
central aspect of this kind of writing. Many articles dealing with postmodern
American novels, however, are still structured by the binary opposition of reality
vs. text/fiction. This essay tries to show what happens if this textualization
of reality is radicalized in some postmodern American novels and should therefore
rather be seen as a fictionalization of fictions, so that there is no longer
any 'reality' whose loss we can mourn. It is this process of fictionalizing
the fictions, this radicalized fictionalization in postmodern American writing
which this essay tries to elucidate. The following texts are discussed: Thomas
Pynchon's Vineland, Paul Auster's Leviathan and City of Glass, Don DeLillo's
Libra, and Bret Easton Ellis's Glamorama. Developing the concepts of 'textualized
spatiality' and '(glamorous) panfictionality', it is argued that the act of
covering/writing on fictions (in a Barthesian sense), instead of the attempt
to discover the real (as truth, totality, history, or presence), is a typical
gesture of this radicalized postmodernism. The essay also underlines the importance
of the question whether problems such as self-referentiality, metafictionality,
epistemological uncertainty, ontological instability, endless doublings and
mirrorings in a polyphonic and polysemic text, and the play with the surface
of signs, typically associated with postmodern literature, do not ask for a
rethinking of the concept of mimesis. A postmodern mimesis, that is, as a new
kind of mapping of/for the postmodern which differs from the Jamesonian notion
of 'cognitive mapping.'
Annegret Maack: "Tragedy, comedy, history"?:
Romanversionen des Hamlet-Stoffes bei John Updike und Damien Broderick
Probably Hamlet is the literary text which has produced the largest number of
critical interpretations as well as creative adaptations which themselves have
become the object of literary criticism. The following essay concentrates on
variations of Hamlet in novels which - different from discussions of Shakespeare's
drama in well-known novels like Joyce's Ulysses - choose to situate the plot
either in history or in the future. In his Gertrude and Claudius the American
author John Updike uses different sources (from Saxo Grammaticus and Belleforest)
and is thus able to write a novel situated in historic times. Though he ends
his novel where Shakespeare's drama begins, Updike presents an interpretation
of the central characters of Shakespeare's play. The Australian author Damien
Broderick situates the Hamlet-plot in space, where his main character Telmah
is accompanied by a robot named Ratio (i.e. Horatio). Broderick retains the
essential elements of Shakespeare's plot, but decides on a different ending.
He structures his novel according to Harold Bloom's terminology of literary
tropes in "The Map of Misprision". While he adapts Shakespeare's conflict
of father and son, his structure refers to the conflict of predecessor and successor
formulated in Bloom's Anxiety of Influence. His novel thus is an example of
the postmodern conviction that we live in a huge library in which we rearrange
old texts. Both novels represent appropriations of Shakespeare by fitting the
original text into their own parameters.
Frank Schulze-Engler: Transnationale Kultur
als Herausforderung für die Literaturwissenschaft
The article argues that the emergence of "transnational culture" presents
a major challenge to contemporary literary studies. It starts with an overview
of recent globalisation theories that have focussed on "transnational"
issues in disciplines such as political science, sociology, anthropology and
media studies and then moves on to discuss recent theories of transnational
culture developed in disciplines such as cultural anthropology. A common feature
of these theories, it is argued, lies in their rejection of "territorialized"
concepts of "cultures" as self-enclosed, homogeneous entities and
in their emphasis on the interconnectedness of culture in a world of globalized
modernity. Following a discussion of concepts of "inter"-, "multi"-,
and "trans"national culture, the final part of the article argues
that contemporary literature is increasingly produced in transcultural contexts
and that literary studies need to develop new theoretical and methodological
approaches to respond to this challenge. Exploring the contours of the "transcultural
imaginary" will not only enable literary studies to stay in touch with
the dynamics of contemporary literature, but will also allow literary studies
to make an original contribution towards an understanding of a world of globalized
modernity.
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