| Object of the thesis is an investigation of the liminal year 1932, situated in-between the crisis of the late Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism, as seen from the perspective of novelists from various political backgrounds. The liminal year 1932 marks a unique point at the end of the first German democracy and on the eve of fascist totalitarianism. Within its limits, many of the most essential aspects and motifs of the Weimar Republic's intellectual and literary discourse are taken to a point of closure as well as to a point of departure.;Chapter one, that is, the first part of this chapter, provides an overview of the literary discourse on the question of "What is German?", which in this dissertation is considered a "reduced discourse" (Townson). On this background, the hypothesis of "Inscribing the other" (as most recently used by Sander Gilman) will be applied to a large selection of novels. In the second part of this chapter, titled "Where is...Germany?" (taken from E. E. Dwinger's Wir rufen Deutschland - We call upon Germany ), national concepts, that is (re-) constructions of the idea of the (German) nation, will be discussed. Chapter two focuses on "male" and "female" perceptions of the Weimar crisis as well as crisis-solving strategies (Krisenlosungs-Konzepte), which will be illustrated on the background of a general anticipation of a totalitarian regime by liberal and leftist authors.;Chapter three looks at representations of the "city", taking into account the postmodern identification of the city as "manifestation of modernity" (von Ankum and applying hypotheses from the modern theoretical context, such as Georg Simmel's hypothesis of the role of the individual inhabitant of the city as an "Unterschiedswesen".;Chapter four discusses concepts of "youth" as represented in 1932 novels by authors from various political backgrounds. |
