Bøger af Katharina Wagner

Master's Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Cologne (Englisches Seminar I), language: English, abstract: The allegation of the vampire¿s metamorphosis and the less frequent academic recognition of newer vampire fiction are what motivates this Thesis to examine the vampire yet once again. With the help of Bram Stoker¿s Dracula (1897) and Stephenie Meyer¿s Twilight Series (2005-2008), this paper will investigate the research question if the vampire of older literary works and the vampire of newer literary works are in fact so different from each other as previous academic works suggest.Throughout the last years, a large number of new vampire fictions, television shows and movies emerged, and the vampire slowly gains a representation in academic works. Most of these works deal with the vampire¿s symbolic nature, his function and what he represents, but it is evident that older works get treated significantly different than newer ones and they almost never include the vampire¿s folkloric or "real¿" background.People of the academic works around the figure of the vampire will agree that a significant change in the vampire¿s nature between the nineteenth and the twenty-first century took place, because while our ancestor¿s vampires, such as human blood-sucking Nosferatu or Dracula, bring terror and evil to its people and are academically recognized far more often, the vampires nowadays seem to be tamed, sympathetic beings that utterly reject human blood.

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Cologne (Englisches Seminar I), course: American Postmodern Literature, language: English, abstract: With his debut novel Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis set a milestone for a generation, who needed a voice. First published in 1985 when he was 21 and still at Bennington College, Ellis is now considered as the 'celebrity author' of the postmodern era, using the minimalist style for which the novel became famous. Writers of postmodern fiction, also called 'Blank Fiction', elegantly use a minimalist plot with flat characters in a simple style and as validated member of the 'Brat Pack', Ellis combines urban life, violence, drugs and consumerism. In the novel we follow Clay, the 18-year-old protagonist and student at Camden College in New Hampshire, coming back to Los Angeles for Christmas break. Experiencing several parties, concerts, affairs and drugs with his old friends, Clay exploresthe apathy, boredom and alienation from his old life. Although criticized for Ellis's straight nihilism, integrating his own celebrity persona into his art and creating a universe of immature characters who seem to grow older but without any growing effect, it is questionable, if Less Than Zero is only just that ¿ a world inhabited by rich and shallow characters without any purpose. With the help of Jean Baudrillard's simulation theory and Sartre's theory of Being and Nothingness, which will be introduced before analyzing the novel, this paper will address Clays world of simulacra and Nothingness and argue for this being the purpose of the novel; creating a meaningless world. Through conversations and media, a Clay becomes visible, who seeks for more beyond the surface and shallowness and although the novel does not seem to follow a red thread, it suggests that Ellis as an author of 'blank fiction' is well aware of what he is doing with Less Than Zero. How can a novel be a how-to-torture, but also a book of serious ambition? (Baelo-Allué 2011)This paper will show that an 'in-between' is possible; an 'in-between' between ¿pornographic gore¿ and ¿serious postmodern literature¿ - and maybe the two phrases do not contradict each other so much as assumed.

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 2,0, University of Cologne (Englisches Seminar I), course: The Mental Lexicon, language: English, abstract: The question of what is stored in the mental lexicon might seem unnecessary at first. ¿Words, of course.¿, one might answer, but: what exactly are ¿words¿? If looked at a little closer, a solution to the problem seems a little more difficult than that. In general, one could differentiate between simple words and complex words. Simple words consisting of only one constituent and complex words having more than one. Sometimes even more than two or three. Furthermore ¿ what are constituents? Linguists all over the world talk about roots and morphemes, differentiating between bound and free morphemes, between prefixes, infixes and affixes and between inflection and derivation. This paper will evaluate how exactly complex words are stored in the mental lexicon and how humans access them. With the help of three major theories, the morpheme lexicon, the strict word-form lexicon and the moderate word-form lexicon, and studies for evidence, this paper finds that one theory, namely the one of the moderate word-form lexicon, might rather apply than any other and that dual-route access is more likely than single-route access. First, this paper estimates how one could understand the mental lexicon in general by then explaining different theories of how complex words are stored in there and how lexical access works. In chapter three, several studies will be listed and explained to be interpreted and combined with the introduced theories in chapter four in order to see which theory goes well with another and which applies more likely. Several examples will be shown to explain certain phenomena, such as regular and irregular past-tense forms. Moreover, this paper will take a look at not just the English language, but also Hebrew, German or Latin to show advantages and disadvantages of the theories.

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Cologne (Englisches Seminar I), course: The Weird and the Fanstastic in the American Gothic, language: English, abstract: One of the most influential horror writers of the early twentieth century is indeed Howard Phillips Lovecraft, born in 1890, who influenced a great number of other writers of his time and after his time. With his seeking for more than the logical everyday life, Lovecraft has become a cult figure in the horror community and for readers of supernatural fiction. Lovecraft created distinct universes filled with mythology and ancient monsters, with protagonists fighting their own demons and inner struggles. With his short story ¿Pickman¿s Model¿, published in 1926, the reader gets a fictional portrayal of the painter Pickman and the narrators report of various weird and strange happenings with the artist. On the base of this short story by Lovecraft, this paper will in the first two chapters examine the theories of Sigmund Freud¿s ¿The Uncanny¿ and Tzvetan Todorov¿s ¿The Fantastic¿, their characteristics and how exactly ¿Pickman¿s Model¿ applies to the theories, since both play a big role in gothic and horror literature genres. In the last chapters, this paper will work out, which literary and aesthetic effects these theories have in a text, regarding ¿Pickman¿s Model¿. With these analyses, this paper will in most terms be able to answer the questions which elements make a horror story effective, how Lovecraft¿s story fits into the context of similar literary genres such as the fantastic, the uncanny and the marvelous and what makes a horror story, that is meant to evoke fear and dread in the reader, so appealing to many people, in the context of Lovecraft¿s techniques.

Katharina Wagner analysiert umfassend die demokratische Qualität Mexikos und deren Entwicklung im Zeitverlauf. Durch den Vergleich der Präsidentschaften von Fox, Calderón und Peña Nieto untersucht sie, wie sich die demokratische Qualität Mexikos seit der Transition zur Demokratie im Jahr 2000 verändert hat und in welchen Bereichen demokratische Defekte zu verorten sind. Ein besonderer Fokus liegt hierbei auf den Auswirkungen des Drogenkrieges und des Gewaltkontextes. Die Autorin setzt sowohl auf nationaler als auch auf subnationaler Ebene (Chiapas, Chihuahua und Michoacán) an und ermöglicht hierdurch eine umfassende und valide Profilzeichnung der Demokratie. Die Demokratiemessung erfolgt anhand einer auf den spezifischen Kontext Mexikos angepassten 15-Felder-Matrix der Demokratie.