Ethnicity and Gender in Else Lasker-Schüler's "Oriental" Stories: "Der Amokläufer" ("Tschandragupta") and "Ached Bey"

In her two prose works Die Nächte Tino von Bagdads (The Nights of Tino of Baghdad, 1907) and Der Prinz von Theben (The Prince of Thebes, 1914) Else Lasker-Schüler thematizes the connection of ethnicity, gender, and art in an imaginary Oriental setting. An examination of these two stories shows the sophistication with which she undermines any notion of unambiguous identity, whether ethnic or sexual, and the implications of her challenge to images of Jewish femininity for her conception of art and her position within the avant-garde of classical modernity. Lasker-Schüler's productive intertextual connection to Heine and her critical distance to cultural Zionism (Martin Buber) are analyzed with regard to the German-Jewish history of ideas. (HU)