Simone Broders

Publications

• "Too Fast, Too Curious? Curiosity and the Female Traveler in Ann Radcliffe’s A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794"

  Simone Broders

  Prose Studies. 01/2012;

  Well into the eighteenth century, curiosity in the male traveler is regarded as basically undesirable motivation, as mere surrender to idle wanderlust and a distraction from the educational purposes of traveling. For the female traveler in Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic novels, by contrast, it is a positive... [more] Well into the eighteenth century, curiosity in the male traveler is regarded as basically undesirable motivation, as mere surrender to idle wanderlust and a distraction from the educational purposes of traveling. For the female traveler in Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic novels, by contrast, it is a positive side-effect of her ‘mobility’. The concept of curiosity as the dynamic impulse required to successfully conclude both the adventure and the metamorphosis of the heroine’s character can also be traced in Radcliffe’s travelogue A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794. The narrator passes through the foreign landscapes, whose mountains, monasteries and ruined castles are reminiscent of those in Radcliffe’s novels. However, the couple eventually have to return down the Rhine to escape the advancing war. The journey is no longer a form of pastime characterized by ‘detached observation’ (Chard 1999, 17), but requires the traveler to question beliefs, cross boundaries, and overcome obstacles.

• "The Fast and the Curious – Curiosity in Motion in the Female Gothic of Ann Radcliffe and in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey".

  Simone Broders

  tba. 01/2012;

  Curiosity and the Gothic novel share the fate of being scorned as useless, even detrimental to the character of those exposed to their influence. However, the curious Gothic heroines are anything but idle. Traversing sublime landscapes and exploring labyrinthine dungeons, they are constantly in moti... [more] Curiosity and the Gothic novel share the fate of being scorned as useless, even detrimental to the character of those exposed to their influence. However, the curious Gothic heroines are anything but idle. Traversing sublime landscapes and exploring labyrinthine dungeons, they are constantly in motion. The travel undertaken adds a peripatetic quality to the heroine, who learns while she both physically and mentally meanders. The ‘virtual reader’ of adventures which take their heroines (e.g. Udolpho’s Emily, Julia in A Sicilian Romance) to the wilds of the Pyrenees or to Sicily, Austen’s Catherine Moreland can look forward to no more exotic destination than Bath, which makes Northanger Abbey the perfect place on which to project her curious fantasies. For the female Gothic traveller, curiosity is an integral part of her character, regardless of whether her state of being in motion is the result of invitation, flight, or abduction. Radcliffe’s novels regard the curiosity of the heroine as a positive side-effect of her ‘mobility’. It provides her with the dynamic impulse she needs in order to successfully conclude the metamorphosis into an experienced, self-assured adult heroine independent from patriarchal authority. Thus curiosity and movement possess the power to transform by dispensing knowledge either forbidden or unavailable at the beginning of the journey.

• 'Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going' - Der Reisende als Fremder in der englischen Gegenwartsliteratur"

  Simone Broders

  01/2011: pages tba;

• "Identitätskonstruktion und Ethik im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Die narrative Anerkennung der Erinnerung in Adam Thorpes The Rules of Perspective"

  Simone Broders

  01/2011: pages tba;

  ISBN: 9783770550531

• "'Bitten Is the New Black' – Images of Women in Canadian and US American Vampire Chick Lit".

  Simone Broders

  The Centennial Reader. Current Readings - Reading Currents. Mount Royal University, Canada. 01/2011; 2001.

• "'I must live, or the universe will die' – Holocaust und Erinnerung in Adam Thorpes The Rules of Perspective".

  Simone Broders

  01/2008: pages 159-74;

• "As if a building was being constructed" - Studien zur Rolle der Geschichte in den Romanen Adam Thorpes.

  Simone Broders

  01/2007

  Degree: Dr. phil.

  Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Rudolf Freiburg

• "'A True Poet, and of the Devil's Party' - Theodicy and Paradox in John Milton's Paradise Lost"

  Simone Broders

  01/2005: pages 73-84;