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CS92PROD
Going Too Far: Transgressive Texts (Seminar in German Studies)

GRST 299
Fall 2009 not offered
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. The topic for 2009 is "Going Too Far: Transgressive Texts." 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; repression and sexual transgression.

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.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA GRST
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: None

Last Updated on DEC-14-2024
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