Zwischen Utopie und Paranoia existieren erstaunliche Ähnlichkeiten. Diese Verbindungen sollen mit dieser Arbeit genauer untersucht werden.

In my dissertation, “Heavy Load-Bearing Modernity: A Cultural Geology of Albert Speer’s Berlin/Germania,” I unpack the complex material, cultural, and intellectual history of the heavy load-bearing cylinder, a soil mechanical test-load built by the Nazis in Berlin in 1941 to examine the geological profile of the nationalist cosmopolis. The massive ferroconcrete cylinder is 46 feet tall, has a diameter of 69 feet, and weighs 12,650 tons, which is more than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Statue of Liberty in New York, and the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro combined. Underneath it are measurement chambers, which go as deep as 60 feet underground. Hitler's architect Albert Speer ordered the cylinder in order to prepare for the construction of a gigantic Triumphal Arch as part of a projected (but largely unrealized) transformation of Berlin into the monumental neoclassical capital of the world: Germania. Designed to trump the canon of classical architecture in terms of size, Germania was supposed to feature the world’s largest (and heaviest) monuments. These plans capitalized on forced labor, deportation, and large-scale demolition and were deeply tied into the network of concentration camps. Shaped by my training in literary studies, I turned my analytical lens towards a brutalist piece of ferroconcrete to translate abstract construction data into a culturally legible language. I argue that the heavy load-bearing cylinder as an engineering blueprint for both fascist imperial fantasies and the modern metropolis was forged in a crucible of progress, ambition, megalomania, and destruction. As such, it is the dialectical emblem of German fascist modernity. To tell this story, I draw upon my findings from fieldwork, spatial ethnographic research, and archival studies, and I examine an extraordinary trove of documents from the disciplines of soil mechanics, architecture, and urban planning through a philosophical and cultural-historical framework, as well as unseen maps, construction plans, geological measurements, correspondences, transactions, experiment reports, photographs, and more.

Die Blechtrommel and Kindheitsmuster present, comparatively, in relation to their specific authors and societies, fictive counterparts to cultural perspectives on the National Socialist period of German history that have also been developed in the disciplines of history, sociology, and related fields. The explicative methodology is freely adapted from ideas by Edward Said into an analytic modality based on the comparison of multiple critical perspectives. The sense of the works emerges from cultural discourses and narratives of memory involving the relationship between personal subjectivity and German cultural identity. Evaluating claims of history as narrative, also interrogates the roles of individual and collective memory in the construction of those discourses and narratives, as well as analyzing the "legitimizing" narratives of nation states. As such, the relation of these to concepts of modernity is an issue for discussion. That these concepts were viewed differently in the Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic has important consequences for literature produced in those societies, including Grass’s and Wolf's works, in terms of narrative viewpoint and overall communicative strategies.

Current narratives relating to the unification of the German state reveal a desire to become, in the name of 'normalization', finally unencumbered by a past often considered to be one of unique criminality and inhumanity embodied in the Holocaust. I argue that Die Blechtrommel and Kindheitsmuster have continuing relevance to contemporary narratives of these problems and to disputes over the continued importance of the Holocaust to historical memory within German culture.

The Speculative Lyric: Poetic Testimonials of Modern Holocausts explores the moral, political, and aesthetic significance of poetry's response to world catastrophe through the optic of Paul Celan and NourbeSe Philip's oeuvres.

This dissertation investigates Turkish German ethnic humor in contemporary popular culture. It has been repeatedly noted in the relevant literature that ethnic film and television comedies, which have recently emerged as successful and critically-acclaimed alternatives to the often negativistic representation of (post-)migrants in the news media, have the potential to foster an acceptance of German society that is shaped by immigration. My thesis is that this potential is limited. In looking at the corpus and the development of Turkish German ethnic film and television comedies in parts one of my analyses, I argue that these productions rarely present the ethnically and culturally diverse reality of today’s German society to a broader audience: firstly, because their number is still very small, and secondly, because they are most of the times not successful in terms of audience figures. In my close readings of four comparatively successful comedies in parts two, which are at the center of this dissertation, I examine the subversive potential of (mainstream) ethnic humor whose main characteristics is the use of ethnic and cultural stereotypes from a transcultural perspective. I argue that, while these comedies utilize stereotypes to cast Turkish German characters in a positive light by deconstructing negative stereotypes (e.g., macho men), representing positive ones (e.g., good-natured patriarchs), and refuting prejudices (e.g., suppressed Muslim women) as well as to criticize ethnic Germans mostly based on stereotypes that are portrayed as adverse (e.g., feminist women), their humoristic play with stereotypes tends to reinforce traditional notions of cultures as strictly delineated, homogenous, and mutually exclusive. Hence, these comedies often fail to use humor as a subversive tool to negotiate an understanding of cultural boundaries as porous, dynamic, and blurred.

My dissertation investigates the cinematic representation of forced migration (due to the border changes enacted by the Yalta and Potsdam conferences in 1945) in East Germany, West Germany, and Poland, from 1945–1970. My thesis is that, while the representations of these forced migrations appear infrequently in feature film during this period, they not only exist, but perform an important function in the establishment of foundational national narratives in the audiovisual sphere. Rather than declare the existence of some sort of visual taboo, I determine, firstly, why these images appear infrequently; secondly, how and to what purpose(s) existing representations are mobilized; and, thirdly, their relationship to popular and official discourses. Furthermore, I articulate to what extent and in what way the experiences of “others” (e.g. Jews, Ukrainians, Soviets, etc.) are (or are not) integrated into these narratives of victimhood. To these ends, I conduct close analyses of ten films, focusing on those scenes that depict refugee treks and “repatriate” trains. Both as representations in a filmic narrative and as historical, real-world facts, the refugee trek and the repatriate train are specific subsets of what Mikhail Bakhtin calls the “chronotope of the road,” and function within a text as a representation of that real-world fact—indeed, many of the filmic representations clearly utilize documentary images for their own compositions. It is at the intersection of chronotope and photographic/filmic index, I argue, that the films negotiate between competing myths, politics, and collective memories with regard to the hotly contested topic of forced migration as a socio-political reality. By conducting close readings of the films and by situating the films and their chronotopic representations of forced migration in the historical, political, and social contexts that generated them, I am able to articulate the function of these scenes, find potential explanations for their paucity in pre-1970 cinema, and express to what extent they contribute to what Cornelia Brink calls the “soziales Bildged�chtnis” (“social image memory”) of these forced migrations in German and Polish contexts.

This project is oriented around a comparative analysis of cultural production concerning

the metropolitan regions of Los Angeles and Berlin in the twentieth century. While combining approaches toward the history of science and medicine with film and literary studies, this dissertation analyzes the relationship between the increase in invisible risks within large urban centers, and the emergence of illnesses characterized by having undecidable causes (a confusion as to whether they originate from external causes or internal, potentially psychogenic ones.) The body of literature and film addressed in this project, ranging from the turn-of-the-century poetic prose of Rainer Maria Rilke, into 1920's expressionist film and literature in Weimar Berlin, to film noir and Frankfurt School philosophy during the World War II period in Los Angeles and finally to late twentieth century science fiction, explores the cultural effects and implications of the paradigm shift to bacteriology in modern medicine and disease pathology at the end of the nineteenth century. By tracing the experience of undecidable illness within film and literature, this project demonstrates how the paradigm of positivistic disease causation, which resulted from the discovery of the microbe, may have actually generated a radical insecurity within modern society, characterized by anxieties and fears of infection, to the point where many different kinds of psychosomatic, mimetic and psychogenic illnesses also became more widespread. Narrative accounts of undefined illness that were not yet understood scientifically often portrayed experiences of urban community as a collection of anxious impressions of the larger networks of metropolitan infrastructure and the increasing interconnections between multiple individuals which it facilitates, including an invisible dimension of microbiology. These narratives emphasize how urban infrastructure can convey the ineffable presence of "spectral" dangers.

Cinematic Loss investigates the late Weimar Republic’s film legacy, which survives today in fragmentary form, and raises questions about how film historiography addresses absence. Taking a closer look at the final democratic years before the rise of Nazi rule, this study explores the works of German-speaking Jewish filmmakers in Germany from 1929 to 1933 and proposes systematic searches for their lost films in archives and private collections. The focus of film studies has traditionally been on narrative structure, cinematography, editing techniques, and mise-en-scene. Between 1980 and 1990, the archival turn in film studies redirected attention to broader historical, cultural, and institutional contexts. As a result of this shift and technological advancements, scholars can access archival resources more easily, making it easier to analyze missing films. By drawing on preservation debates, this project explores the challenges posed by ontological realism and proposes alternative approaches that consider the uncanniness and gaps inherent in historical discourse. Studying the dynamics between lost and found films highlights the extent of material decay and the potential for restoration. Examining ephemera, this project emphasizes their aesthetic value and broader perspectives beyond the films themselves. Cinematic Loss challenges the idea that ephemera should be considered a last resort in film analysis and emphasizes the importance of engaging with the medium of film in all its forms. Through a comprehensive research effort, this project contributed to the rediscovery of numerous lost films. An extensive search of international archives and private collections led to the discovery of a substantial number of missing films. Considering paper collections, sound elements, and images, among other crucial components, greatly facilitated the systematic search. A researcher’s ability to recognize and include cinematic absence as an object of study within their own work is essential to finding and recovering long-lost cinematic artifacts. One can only find something when one understands what one is looking for. Therefore, the inclusion of missing films into cultural histories facilitates their rediscovery, preservation and restoration by breaking the silence surrounding their existence. In addition to recovering films from the period, this work contextualizes them within their cultural milieu. Among the topics explored are the transition from silent to sound films, the notions of nationality and belonging, and the emergence of a transnational form of cinema in the early 1930s. Taking a closer look at these topics sheds light on the broader significance and implications of the recovered films. Moreover, the study discusses the efforts made by film archives, German government funding for preservation, and the importance of collaboration between archives and private collectors. Cinematic Loss discusses the challenges and methodologies involved in restoring lost films. It emphasizes the need to preserve ephemera and contextual information for future use by archivists and researchers alike. As a final component, this work contains a digital companion piece, the Weimar Talkies Project, which provides summaries and reviews of feature-length sound films from the Weimar Republic, which serve as a valuable research and educational resource. Through archival searches and critical research efforts, this work contributes to the revitalization of the Weimar Republic’s film legacy by engaging with the absence of historiography in film. Cinematic Loss sheds light on a crucial period in German cinema history and enriches our understanding of cultural artifacts from the past.