Creativity and Crisis: Germany 1918-1933
GRST 275
Fall 2019 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
COL 276, GELT 275 |
This course investigates the fascinating culture of the Weimar Republic, Germany's first, heady, and ultimately unsuccessful experience with democracy between the end of the First World War and the Nazis' rise to power. We will focus particularly on Berlin, coming into its own as Germany's first true metropolis, but will also look at Munich, another hub of cultural activity and the site of Hitler's early organizing activities. Among the topics to be studied may be the increasing influence of film, radio, and the press; modernism in literature; new impulses in art; the economic and social impact of hyperinflation and the Great Depression; changes in the roles of women; assertion of previously taboo gender identities; competing political ideologies; reactions to the immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe; the emergence of proletarian mass culture; and the observations of cultural critics such as Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer on the world taking shape before their eyes. We will also read works set in Berlin but written by outsiders (Isherwood and Porter). |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA GRST |
| Course Format: Discussion | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (GRST-MN)(GRST) |
Major Readings:
Anton Kaes et al., THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC SOURCE BOOK
Thomas Mann, DISORDER AND EARLY SORROW
Irmgard Keun, THE ARTIFICIAL SILK GIRL & GILGI, ONE OF US
Erich Kästner, FABIAN
Hans Fallada, LITTLE MAN, WHAT NOW?
Walter Benjamin, Selected essays
Siegfried Kracauer, THE SALARIED MASSES
Bertolt Brecht, A REPECTABLE WEDDING
Ödön von Horváth, TALES OF THE VIENNA WOODS
Christopher Isherwood, BERLIN STORIES
Katherine Ann Porter, THE LEANING TOWER
Art works by George Grosz, John Heartfield, August Sander, Kaethe Kollwitz, Lotte Jacobi, and others
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Examinations and Assignments:
Leading class discussion
Four short papers, with revisions
Midsemester examination
Final project that may be expository or creative in nature |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Regular attendance and participation in class discussion required. Students who know German and wish to do some of the readings in the original are welcome to do so. |
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