Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1987, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Literature

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2010, Arts and Sciences: Germanic Languages and Literature

In my dissertation "Atomic Apocalypse – 'Nuclear Fiction' in German Literature and Culture," I investigate the portrayal of the nuclear age and its most dreaded fantasy, the nuclear apocalypse, in German fictionalizations and cultural writings. My selection contains texts of disparate natures and provenance: about fifty plays, novels, audio plays, treatises, narratives, films from 1946 to 2009. I regard these texts as a genre of their own and attempt a description of the various elements that tie them together. The fascination with the end of the world that high and popular culture have developed after 9/11 partially originated from the tradition of nuclear fiction since 1945. The Cold War has produced strong and lasting apocalyptic images in German culture that reject the traditional biblical apocalypse and that draw up a new worldview. In particular, German nuclear fiction sees the atomic apocalypse as another step towards the technical facilitation of genocide, preceded by the Jewish Holocaust with its gas chambers and ovens. This study is primarily a literary one. However, I place the discussion in the vast cultural framework in which the texts of German nuclear fiction were embedded: science, history, philosophy, sociology, and cultural studies. I draw on various secondary sources from a plethora of disciplines to shed light on the nuclear age in German literature and culture. The study is divided into three chapters that analyze the following aspects: the philosophical question of the ultimate evil of the nuclear disaster in an all-encompassing war, traditional apocalyptic imagery versus the modern science-aided apocalypse, the employment of nuclear science in literary accounts and how it is absorbed by fiction, the dynamics of miscommunication and risk communication and why that inevitably sucks fictional characters into the maelstrom of disaster. Finally, the depiction of nuclear war in fiction is in opposition to traditional war literature, turning the th (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sara Friedrichsmeyer PhD (Committee Chair); Harold Herzog PhD (Committee Member); Katharina Gerstenberger PhD (Committee Member); Richard Schade PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: German literature

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1971, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts in Theology, Mount St. Mary's Seminary & School of Theology, 2022, School of Theology

In this thesis, I propose that the synthetic thread of Balthasar's theological trilogy is his understanding of the apocalyptic. The problem that I am trying to tackle is that within such a massive body of work, it is easy to lose hold of Balthasar's project. Many scholars have proposed ways of summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing Balthasar's thought (chapter 1), but none address the specifically biblical and thus eidetic, historical, and noetic way that Balthasar's project concretely comes together. My methodology, then, is aporetic: responding to the gap in scholarship, I propose that it is precisely the apocalyptic that holds image and history in Balthasar in their proper tension with each other and with concept in his thought (chapter 2). The aporetic methodology continues, though, since my examination of Balthasar's apocalyptic synthesis and retrieval raises questions about his definition of the apocalyptic and his relationship with biblical studies. In response to this gap, I articulate Balthasar's specific definition of apocalyptic as imminent expectation of the coming of the kingdom of God while I also point toward Balthasar's own dissatisfaction with the apocalyptic in biblical studies as he reaches out for a more Johannine apocalyptic (chapter 3). I conclude that Balthasar's thought is synthesized by an understanding of the apocalyptic which preserves the horizontal and vertical tension of salvation history as it unites within itself the perennial importance of image and drama, but Balthasar's own understanding of the apocalyptic is more substantially informed by his reading of John's Apocalypse rather than biblical studies. I end by gesturing towards a continued rapprochement between Balthasar and the ‘new perspective on apocalyptic' begun by Christopher Rowland, championed by Crispin Fletcher-Louis, and centered around the open heaven and the Temple: each side could benefit substantially from the other.

Committee: Alan Mostrom Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Bible; Biblical Studies; Philosophy; Religion; Theology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1970, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Literature