Twilight of Modernity: Art and Culture in the Weimar Republic
GRST 275
Spring 2007 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
COL 276, GELT 275 |
This course investigates the cultural and artistic productions of the now legendary Weimar Republic (1918-1933), Germany's first, and ultimately unsuccessful, experience with democracy, imposed by the victors in the First World War, rife with political turmoil, afflicted with the shock of hyper-inflation, and destroyed by the rise of Nazism. Cultural life during this period--which had its magnetic center in the young and chaotic metropolis of Berlin--resembled a dynamic (and explosive) laboratory of modernity that is best studied by looking at both "high" and "low" culture, including literature, journalism, music, cultural theory, and the visual arts. Through the comparison of a variety of documents, we will examine the differing and often conflicting incarnations of modernity characteristic of this period. For example, we will look at the how the artistic technique of montage migrated from Dada and the cinema to the novel (Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz) and other kinds of avant-garde writings (Walter Benjamin's One-Way Street). Other possible topics include: the rapid development of new media technologies and the concomitant revolutionary changes in perception; the aesthetic exploration of the unconscious; the assertion of a previously taboo range of gender identities; the emergence of proletarian mass culture and its theory; the "Frankfurt School" and the critique of modernity. |
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Essential Capabilities:
None |
| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA GRST |
| Course Format: Lecture/Discussion | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (GRST-MN)(GRST) |
Major Readings:
Kaes, Jay, Dimendberg (ed.), THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC SOURCEBOOK
Peter Gay, WEIMAR CULTURE; THE OUTSIDER AS INSIDER
Joseph Roth, Berlin journalism
Walter Benjamin, ONE-WAY STREET
Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill, THE THREEPENNY OPERA
Brecht, "Theory of Radio"
Alfred Döblin, BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: THE STORY OF FRANZ BIBERKOPF
Christopher Isherwood: BERLIN STORIES
Thomas Mann, MARIO AND THE MAGICIAN; DISORDER AND EARLY SORROW
Irmgard Keun, THE ARTIFICIAL SILK GIRL
Siegfried Kracauer, FROM CALIGARI TO HITLER
Theoretical writings by Ernst Bloch, Theodor W. Adorno, Erwin Piscator, Carl Schmitt, Ernst Jünger
FILMS:
Walter Ruttmann, Berlin: Symphony of the Metropolis
Sternberg, The Blue Angel
Pabst, The Threepenny Opera; Pandora's Box
Fritz Lang, Metropolis; Dr.Mabuse the Gambler
Murnau: Faust
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Examinations and Assignments:
Two short papers (4-5 pages), two take-home exams (midterm and final). |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Regular attendance and participation expected. Students who know German are encouraged to do some of the readings in the original. |
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