Going Too Far: Transgressive Texts (Seminar in German Studies)
GRST 299
Fall 2011 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
COL 299, GELT 299 |
| Certificates: International Relations |
The annual Seminar in German Studies serves as an introduction to the increasingly diverse and interdisciplinary field of German studies. The goal of the seminar is to help students critically examine significant themes in the culture of the German-speaking countries through a variety of media and genres (literature, music, the visual arts, philosophy, and historiography). The course will emphasize the improvement of analytic and interpretive skills and the expression of complex problems in a concise and lucid fashion. Can a text go "too far"? Excess, violation, and transgression are frequent topics in literature, and in this course we will study (in translation) a number of German and Austrian texts that either present stories of transgression or are transgressive in their particular narrative or textual form. Themes to be studied include war and the dissolution of social and political order; madness and the disintegration of a unified ego; crime and punishment; the crisis of political legitimacy and the terrorist response; the transgression of taboos and social conventions; the crisis of communicative language and the artistic response; and repression and sexual transgression. |
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Essential Capabilities:
Intercultural Literacy, Writing
Intercultural literacy: interrogation of the connection between language and culture and of cultural distinctions within German-language regions.
Writing: frequent response papers with rewrites.
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA GRST |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
Tacitus, DE GERMANIA
Wolfram von Eschenbach, PARZIVAL
Martin Luther, 95 THESES
H.J.C. von Grimmelshausen, SIMPLICISSIMUS
Immanuel Kant, Selected Writings
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, EMILIA GALOTTI, Selected Essays
Goethe-Schiller Correspondence
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Lectures
Heinrich von Kleist, PRINCE FRIEDRICH OF HOMBURG
Karl Marx, "The Communist Manifesto"
Otto von Bismarck, Selected Writings
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, "Letter of Lord Chandos"
Arthur Schnitzler, Plays
Thomas Mann, "Disorder and Early Sorrow"
Alfred Döblin, Excerpts from ALEXANDERPLATZ BERLIN
Readings on WWII and the Holocaust
Friedrich Dürrenmatt, THE VISIT
Günter Grass, MEETING AT TELGTE; PEELING THE ONION
Selected documents
MOVIES:
Volker Schlöndorff, THE TIN DRUM
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN
Wolfgang Becker, GOOD-BYE LENIN
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Examinations and Assignments:
There will be brief weekly response papers, oral reports and a final research paper (8 - 10 pages). |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course is required for all German Studies majors. |
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