Liselotte M. Davis

Liselotte M. Davis (born March 11, 1935 in Schartau / Altmark ) is a German-American Germanist and translator.

Life

Liselotte M. Davis grew up in Brettin (Elbhavelwinkel) as the daughter of the innkeeper Ewald Mielau, who died in Russia in 1941. She spent the first seven years of elementary school in the two-class Brettin village school, switched to the eighth grade at the Dürerschule Genthin, attended the Oberschule Genthin from 1949 to 1953 (today again Bismarck-Gymnasium), where she passed her Abitur in 1953. She was not admitted to study in what was then the GDR . In 1955, after completing an additional Western Abitur, her East German Abitur was recognized and she began studying German and English at the Free University in West Berlin. There she met Franklin G. Davis, who was doing his military service as a German translator. In April 1957 she married him and emigrated with him to the USA.

Although a continuation of the studies was planned there, there was initially no possibility because of the birth of three children (Frederick 1958, Susan 1961, Andrea 1964) and the establishment of a secure existence. In 1965 she began working in evening classes at Southern Connecticut State University on her bachelor's degree, which was awarded to her in 1971. After the divorce in 1973, she initially wanted to become a German teacher at a high school, but could not find a job.

Through the mediation of a friend, she became a reader of Professor Hermann J. Weigand , who had become blind in old age and who had developed the German department of Yale University into one of the most important in the USA. He was a specialist for Thomas Mann . The twelve years of working with him have been exciting private seminars for her. On his recommendation, she found a job at Yale University, initially as an administrative clerk in the doctoral department of comparative literature, where Paul de Man and Jacques Derrida caused a stir with their literary interpretation of "deconstructionism" at the time . From the first semester of her activity, she received permission to take part as a guest auditor in her and other seminars that interest her.

In 1981 Liselotte M. Davis became a "Graduate Student", d. that is, she began to work towards her doctorate in German studies. She had to complete 16 graduate seminars: with Professor Ingeborg Glier (Medieval Studies), Professor Peter Demetz (Enlightenment, literature of the 20th century), Professor George C. Schoolfield (Baroque literature, Rilke) and Professor Jeffrey L. Sammons (literature of the 19th century) . Century). In December 1984 she passed her doctoral examination ("Orals") and after her dissertation topic was approved in March 1985, she began her research work. With Fritz Reuter as well as with Uwe Johnson , she noticed how dependent the lives of their characters in the novel are on the course of contemporary history. She tried to fathom which philosophy of history the two poets led the pen and what resulted from this for the structuring of their novels. The work was submitted in October 1986. In December 1986 she was awarded the "Philosophiae Doctor (Ph. D.)". Uwe Johnson's part of the dissertation was supervised by Peter Demetz, Fritz Reuter's part by Jeffrey Sammons. When Sammons was later asked if he knew Lise Davis, he is said to have replied, looking at Reuter: "She is an expert in an author whom nobody can read but who is still extremely important." She then worked in the German studies department at Yale University as a senior lecturer until she retired in 2000.

The Fritz Reuter Society soon heard of their work and made the Reuter-Johnson connection the subject of the Reuter Days in Lüneburg in 1989. Since then, Liselotte M. Davis has given lectures on a wide variety of topics at the annual meetings. In November 1990, during the Schwerin Culture Days, she was awarded the Mecklenburg Foundation Prize for her work. On this occasion she met Christian Ludwig Herzog zu Mecklenburg , who asked her to help him write his autobiography as a "ghostwriter". She immediately agreed, because during her visits to Mecklenburg she was deeply impressed by how much they were consciously preoccupied with its unique history.

Liselotte M. Davis translated the novel by Joachim Walther Risse im Eis , Hamburg 1989, under the title Cracks in the Ice into English. However, no Anglo-American publisher has yet been found for the publication.

In the summer semesters 1992 and 1993 it was arranged that Liselotte M. Davis taught one seminar each at the University of Rostock . In 1992 it was about "Investigations into Uwe Johnson's Anniversaries", 1993 about "History-philosophical tendencies in the work of Fritz Reuters". She still has connections with her students from those years. Yale University passed her off in 2000 with its Award for Exceptional Teaching. Since then she has divided her life between Germany and the USA, continues to conduct literature research and publishes the results in various publications. Since 2001 she has had a permanent apartment in Berlin, where she stays for about five months every summer.

Liselotte M. Davis is a member of the Fritz Reuter Society and the Friends of Reuter Museums , both in Neubrandenburg, and the Uwe Johnson Society in Rostock.

Honors

• 1990: Sponsorship award from the Mecklenburg Foundation .
• 2000: Prize for Excellence in Teaching from Yale University.

Works (selection)

• History and Narrative Structure: Ut mine Stromtid by Fritz Reuter and Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson . Diss.Phil., Yale University 1987.
• Dictionary of Literary Biography, Joseph von Eichendorff . Detroit: Gale Research Inc, 1989
• Diachrony and Synchrony. The Faulknersche element in the prologue to Uwe Johnson's "Anniversaries" . In: Internationales Uwe-Johnson Forum, Frankfurt am Main 3 (1993) pp. 105-120.
• Fritz Reuter: Lived and written history. A previously unpublished manuscript by Fritz Reuters with explanations by the publisher . (Mecklenburg Profile, 4). Hamburg 1998. ISBN 3-932696-16-6
• “Seedtime and Harvest”. In search of traces of the author of the English “Stromtid” translation . In: Annual edition of the Klaus Groth Society . 47 (2005) pp. 71-83. ISBN 3-8042-0968-8
• The first illustrated edition of the "Stromtid". The collaboration between poet and illustrator . In: Quickborn 98 (2008) issue 2, pp. 14-25.
• Your own experiences play a role everywhere. Uwe Johnson's statements in his correspondence with Siegfried Unseld . In: Uwe-Johnson-Jahrbuch , 17 (2010). ISBN 978-3-8353-0906-7
• Make captivity legible. Fritz Reuters Ut mine fortress stid and Walter Kempowskis Im Block . In: Walter Kempowski: bourgeois representation - culture of remembrance - coping with the present , Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-021473-4

Web links

• Literature on Liselotte M. Davis in the Landesbibliographie MV
• Works by Liselotte M. Davis in the state bibliography MV