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CS92PROD
Creativity and Crisis: Germany 1918-1933
GRST 275
Fall 2020 not offered
Crosslisting: 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).
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA GRST
Course Format: DiscussionGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (GRST-MN)(GRST)

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
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