(Re)Constructions of German Culture: How Folktales (Re)Create the Past through Oral Storytelling, Text and Fan Fiction

This dissertation investigates the effects of oral storytelling on collective memory and the influence of new media on the storytelling process. The inquiry focuses on how retelling and reinterpreting folk stories updates and changes a community's interpretations of the past to fit with current beliefs and expectations. I illustrate this through analyzing a range of retellings of traditional tales from the nineteenth century to the present through the lenses of memory studies, folklore, and performance studies. Through this analysis I unpack some of the ways the stories we tell affect the ways we see the past---whether real or imagined---and conversely, the ways that changing interpretations of the past affect the stories we tell.