{"id":{"repo_id":"cambridge","oai_identifier":"oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/382555"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/cambridge/oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/382555","repository":{"repo_id":"cambridge","name":"Cambridge University","base_url":"https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"New Forms of Kinship in Contemporary Literature and Film from the German-Speaking World","abstract":"This thesis is concerned with the ways in which contemporary German-language literature and film partake in the representation, interrogation, and constitution of kinship as a contested field of social relations in the twenty-first century. In considering kinship, with the philosopher Judith Butler, as the constitutive sphere of the social – and as the site of emergence of the concept of human ‘culture’ itself – I present kinship as the regulating principle of being-in and knowing-of the world. I argue that the socio-historical, material, and discursive transformations of the twenty-first century have had profound implications on hitherto normative conceptualizations of kinship in relation to human and nonhuman others and that they have altered our understanding of who is – and can be – humans’ ‘kin’. The traditional paradigm of kinship-as-family is therefore predicated on binary norms of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. The normative constitution further provokes a discursive marginalization and/or foreclosure of other forms of kinship. By attending to the representation, interrogation, and constitution of ‘forms of kinship’ in and through literature and film, then, I seek to unlock literature and film’s potential to help to imagine or instantiate alternative forms of being-in and knowing-of the world. In doing so, I bring together works by a series of contemporary authors and directors from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. By looking, from the vantage point of queer theory, at the spheres of the family (chapter 1), the non/human (chapter 2), and queer and trans ecologies (chapter 3), I consider the ways in which literary and cinematic aesthetics instantiate non-normative forms of being-in and knowing-of the world. To describe this phenomenon, and to bring into sharper relief my notion of ‘forms of kinship’, I have coined the term ästhetisches Eigenwissen, or aesthetic knowledge in its differential specificity – a concept which alludes to the intrinsically transformative potential, or political function, of aesthetic artefacts in the world.","abstract_html":"This thesis is concerned with the ways in which contemporary German-language literature and film partake in the representation, interrogation, and constitution of kinship as a contested field of social relations in the twenty-first century. In considering kinship, with the philosopher Judith Butler, as the constitutive sphere of the social – and as the site of emergence of the concept of human ‘culture’ itself – I present kinship as the regulating principle of being-in and knowing-of the world. I argue that the socio-historical, material, and discursive transformations of the twenty-first century have had profound implications on hitherto normative conceptualizations of kinship in relation to human and nonhuman others and that they have altered our understanding of who is – and can be – humans’ ‘kin’. The traditional paradigm of kinship-as-family is therefore predicated on binary norms of gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. The normative constitution further provokes a discursive marginalization and/or foreclosure of other forms of kinship. By attending to the representation, interrogation, and constitution of ‘forms of kinship’ in and through literature and film, then, I seek to unlock literature and film’s potential to help to imagine or instantiate alternative forms of being-in and knowing-of the world. In doing so, I bring together works by a series of contemporary authors and directors from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. By looking, from the vantage point of queer theory, at the spheres of the family (chapter 1), the non/human (chapter 2), and queer and trans ecologies (chapter 3), I consider the ways in which literary and cinematic aesthetics instantiate non-normative forms of being-in and knowing-of the world. To describe this phenomenon, and to bring into sharper relief my notion of ‘forms of kinship’, I have coined the term ästhetisches Eigenwissen, or aesthetic knowledge in its differential specificity – a concept which alludes to the intrinsically transformative potential, or political function, of aesthetic artefacts in the world.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Henschel, Denise"],"institution":"University of Cambridge","degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)","degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Mukhida, Leila"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024-06-22","date_published":"2024-06-22","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:24Z","subjects":["Ästhetisches Eigenwissen","Christian Dittloff","Contemporary German Film","Contemporary German Literature","Faraz Shariat","Film Studies","Kim de l'Horizon","Kinship","Marie Gamillscheg","Olga Grjasnowa","Olivia Wenzel","Queer Studies","Uisenma Borchu","Yael Inokai"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/b6cbdacd-f910-4a2d-8f25-34af12a8d2b4/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.117322","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.doi"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Mukhida, Leila"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.sponsor","label":"Sponsor","values":["Cambridge Trust and Tiarks Fund of the German Section"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Henschel, Denise"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2024-06-22"]},{"key":"dc:publisher.institution","label":"Dc Publisher Institution","values":["University of Cambridge"]},{"key":"dc:relation.isreferencedby.uri","label":"Dc Relation Isreferencedby URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/382555"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationlevel","label":"Dc Type Qualificationlevel","values":["Doctoral"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationname","label":"Dc Type Qualificationname","values":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Ästhetisches Eigenwissen","Christian Dittloff","Contemporary German Film","Contemporary German Literature","Faraz Shariat","Film Studies","Kim de l'Horizon","Kinship","Marie Gamillscheg","Olga Grjasnowa","Olivia Wenzel","Queer Studies","Uisenma Borchu","Yael Inokai"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/b6cbdacd-f910-4a2d-8f25-34af12a8d2b4/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargodate","label":"Dc Rights Embargodate","values":["2026-04-09"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargotype","label":"Dc Rights Embargotype","values":["embargo"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.doi","label":"DOI","values":["https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.117322"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/d0712b5c-8900-4cf0-bbb0-f6eba796d75e/download"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This thesis is concerned with the ways in which contemporary German-language literature and film partake in the representation, interrogation, and constitution of kinship as a contested field of social relations in the twenty-first century. 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