GERM 303
German Studies, 1900-1938
Last Offered Fall 2008
Division I Writing Skills
This course is not offered in the current catalog

This tutorial surveys the major social and literary movements of Germany from the turn of the century to the rise of the Nazis. We will study various phenomena associated with modernism: urban institutions like the department store and the cinema (Hessel, Benjamin), expressionist poetry (Trakl, Lasker-Schüler), generational conflict via Kafka’s alienated sons, Jews in Germany (Klemperer), the patriotic fervor of World War One and its aftermath (Toller, Jünger), Dadaism (Schwitters), the Weimar Republic, inflation and the big crash (Fallada), Nazi ideology and propaganda tactics (Riefenstahl, Speer). Wherever possible, we will read journalism, diary entries, or letters that give us insight into daily life during this highly fractured period of tumultuous political and social changes. Readings in German or English.