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• E-mail:Dana Weber

Dana Weber has obtained her PhD in Germanic Studies and Folklore at Indiana University Bloomington. Her dissertation entitled “Indians” on German Stages: the History and Meaning of Karl May Festivals carries out an original interdisciplinary investigation of German popular festivals that it analyzes from a transcultural, historical, performance, and ethnographic perspective. She argues that these events expressa profound cultural preoccupation with cultural Otherness with which they engage not only by fictionalizing the “Wild West” and its inhabitants, the“Indians” in stereotypical ways, but also by thematizing the cultural transfers that have led to their own appearance in ritual acts. A significant aspect of the argument is devoted to the “German” features of these events, such as their festival form (the Festspiel), and their core narrative of blood-brotherhood, that they share, among others, with Richard Wagner’s festival theories and stage works.
    Apart from the dissertation, this project and others of DanaWeber’s research interests have resulted in a number of published articles. They explore Karl May festivals as vehicles of culture transfer, in comparison to Richard Wagner’s Bayreuth festive theatre, and the story of “Dracula” as a media legend, for which she was awarded the “David Buchan Student Paper Prize” of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research. Dana has been invited to present lectures at the University of Münster and the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth.

• Research interests: 
• Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German literature, especially Romanticism, Realism, and modernity
• Intersections between German literature and folklore
• Märchenand other folklore genres from a transmedial perspective
• Otherness and transculturalism in German theatre and performance
• Performance and media
• German popular festivals
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• Current courses:
  • German Fantasies of America”
  • Performances of Otherness in German-Speaking Cultures”
  • “Variations of Bluebeard in German Literature and Culture since the Nineteenth Century” (cross-listed with Women’s Studies)
  • Advanced German Essay Writing”
  • “Intermediate German Grammar”