Anja Dinter – författare

Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, University of Potsdam (Institut fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: How Race Is Lived in America , language: English, abstract: IntroductionThe novel House Made of Dawn, first published in 1968, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1969. With the incorporation of Native materials into the Anglo-American novel Momaday introduced the Native American Renaissance at the end of the 1960s. And, indeed, as one of the first contemporary Native American writers Momaday employs on the one hand traditional oral tales, fragments of poetry and historical documents. On the other hand House Made of Dawn illustrates his Western fascination with structure, a literary device almost absent in oral storytelling or traditional Native American literature. The novel makes use of multiple points of view, stream-of-consciousness techniques, sudden changes of time and chronology, which are primarily achieved by flashbacks and flashforwards. Momaday s delight in imagery, especially of nature, reflect his study of Romantics and Symbolists work. The book s content, as well as that of other works by the author, is a reflection of Momaday s personal identity and the various cultural traditions that shaped it. The following literary analysis will therefore focus on the embedding of aspects of Momaday s identity and try to explain some of the cultural elements interwoven in the story. As the author repeatedly employs autobiographical materials, a short representation of his past seems indispensable. Due to the designated size of this paper, a detailed analysis of all interesting and noteworthy aspects seems impossible. Also, with regard to the interrelatedness of form and content, there won t be subdivisions separated by headlines within the analysis.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Potsdam (Institut fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Great Expectations and Hard Times by Charles Dickens, language: English, abstract: Introduction The following work is an analysis of the female characters in Charles Dickens s Great Expectations especially with regard to Victorian gender constructions and Dickens s image of women. Dickens s biography and the depiction of very diverse female characters in his novels stimulated the idea of a closer analysis. First of all, a short summary of Great Expectations is provided. Then, the Victorian construction of gender will be discussed. As will be shown, a very strict ideology regarding gender roles existed during the Victorian age. Obviously, Dickens must have been influenced by the ideas of his contemporaries which should then be presented in the novel. Another focus will be on how his relationships to women influenced his image of women and also, consequently, the depiction of his female characters in Great Expectations. Finally the female characters, with reference to Victorian gender roles and Dickens s image of women, will be analyzed in greater detail. The focus is on four women who I believe to be the most important female characters in the novel and powerful representatives of the author s image of women and Victorian gender construction.

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject American Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Potsdam (Institut fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: The Structures of English , language: English, abstract: The aim of the following work is mainly to present focus strategies in English sentences. The topic has been of great interest to me since such focus constructions are an important grammatical means of re-arranging the information within a sentence according to one's intention. Being familiar with a wide variety of focus strategies is one possibility of improving one's style, both in written and spoken English. Several university level grammar books provide a great number of different means to assign focus within a sentence. In the following course of this paper I m first going to explain and discuss the term focus as well as its function in English grammar and then show the possible ways of organizing a message. Due to the above mentioned variety of focus strategies not all of them can be itemized here. I decided on presenting those focus constructions which, in my opinion, seem most relevant for the purposes of a foreign language student. The prescribed extent of this work makes a detailed description of each construction, as it can be found in scholarly grammar book, impossible. Therefore, only the most important attributes and particularities of each strategy are named. In most cases examples are added for visualization and a better understanding. In their publications linguists present different ways of classifying focus strategies which makes a clear division of the constructions relatively difficult. Furthermore different notions of which grammatical structure can be considered a focus strategy are existing. Under the respective headline these problems will be discussed in greater detail. Dealing with these focus strategies and the purpose they serve raised the question if these constructions can be found in school-books for German learner s of English as well. As a future English teacher I m especially interested in that and therefore decided to examine several books available. The results of this examination, reasons for a necessary integration of focus strategies into a classroom context and suitable literature are mentioned in the final part of this work. Since focus strategies aren t (yet) generally represented in school books this part is rather short in comparison to the one dealing with the focus constructions itself.

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, University of Potsdam (Institut fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Jewish-American History and Life , language: English, abstract: It is the aim of the following work to analyze the role of sports in Jewish-American life, mainly concentrating on the time until the end of the World War II. Up to the present day the notion of Jewish culture and tradition emphasizing intellectual accomplishments and the life of the mind and not having place for sport and the physical has been prevalent. Due to the traditional emphasis of learning and an appreciation for sophistication during all of Jewish history, the stereotype view of a general rejection of sports by Jews and the image of Jewish physical weakness seems to have evolved as a consequence. This image has even been misrepresented by anti-Semites, as Henry Ford, to show that Jewish-Americans are ill-fit to be true Americans . Previously read books dealing with Jewish sports in Germany and an article on the importance of sports within Jewish religion that contradicted the image mentioned above, let an increased interest in the specific mind-set of Jewish-Americans towards physical activities develop. Due to the complexity of the topic and the extent of this paper only certain aspects can be presented in the discourse, unfortunately excluding other interesting ones. The focus will be on the actual participation and achievements as well as attitudes of Jews towards sports and the effects of this field on the integration of Jewish immigrants. The time frame has been limited to the period between the first large waves of immigration and the end of World War II because of the adjustment of Jewish sports to general developments thereafter. Nevertheless, some general tendencies of the post-World War II decades will be discussed. Background information on the general historical context and the evolution of American Sports will ensure a better and deeper understanding of the issues discussed.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, University of Potsdam (Institut fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: HS: Errors in Second Language Learning, language: English, abstract: The following work discusses a specific type of error in the second language classroom - induced errors. Regarding this category of error a wide range of reasons can elicit their committal. A definition of the term induced errors as well as a description of its distinctive features will be provided before the different types of errors and their sources are going to be discussed in detail. Since the course Errors in Second Language Learning was designed for future teachers, the section on induced errors and their sources will be followed by pedagogical deductions concerning the avoidance or at least reduction of induced errors.