41 - 50 of 86 results for: GERMAN

Central Europe is not a clearly defined region so much as an idea debated with particular intensity in the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Part reality part fantasy, "Central Europe" refers to a contested space between East and West, between cosmopolitanism and provincial narrowness, a space whose diversity has fostered cultural creativity, political conflict and utopian fantasy. Our survey will focus on fiction, memoires and essayistic commentary from the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. It will comprise the dissolution of the empire, the interwar years, the Cold War decades and the postcommunist era. Attention to the predicament of small nations, "minor" literatures and cultural cross-pollination. Authors include Musil, Kafka, Roth, Kosztolányi, Márai, Hasek, Svevo, Kis, Torberg, Hrabal, Kundera, Esterházy, Magris. Discussion and readings in English.

This seminar offers a survey of medieval and early modern German literature and culture from ca.800 to 1600. This year we will focus primarily on heroic epic and tales of fortune. Most texts are available only in German. Advanced reading knowledge of German required. Discussion in English.

How the literature of the period between 1750 and 1900 gives voice to new conceptions of selfhood and articulates the emergent self understanding of modernity. Responses to unprecedented historical experiences such as the French Revolution and the ensuing wars, changes in the understanding of nature, the crisis of foundations, and the persistence of theological motifs. Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Holderlin, Kleist, Heine, Buchner, Keller, and Fontane. Taught in English, readings in German. (Note: Fulfills DLCL 325 for AY 1415 for the PhD Minor in the Humanities)

Masters of German 20th- and 21st-Century literature and philosophy as they present aesthetic innovation and confront the challenges of modern technology, social alienation, manmade catastrophes, and imagine the future. Readings include Nietzsche, Freud, Rilke, Musil, Brecht, Kafka, Doeblin, Benjamin, Juenger, Arendt, Musil, Mann, Adorno, Celan, Grass, Bachmann, Bernhardt, Wolf, and Kluge. Taught in English. Undergraduates enroll in 222 for 5 units, graduate students enroll in 322 for 8 units.

A consideration of German political culture and its contradictory orientations toward alternative poles: the Russian East and the American West. How historical traditions inform current debates, such as the response to the Ukraine crisis. Conflicts between liberal and populist paradigms, enlightenment and romantic legacies. Germany and its geopolitical imagination. The German image of Russia. Texts such as Th. Mann, ¿The German Republic,¿ Carl Schmitt, Land and Sea, Wolf, Divided Heaven, and documents of contemporary popular culture.

This seminar offers a survey of medieval and early modern German literature and culture from ca.800 to 1600. This year we will focus primarily on heroic epic and tales of fortune. Most texts are available only in German. Advanced reading knowledge of German required. Discussion in English.

How the literature of the period between 1750 and 1900 gives voice to new conceptions of selfhood and articulates the emergent self understanding of modernity. Responses to unprecedented historical experiences such as the French Revolution and the ensuing wars, changes in the understanding of nature, the crisis of foundations, and the persistence of theological motifs. Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Holderlin, Kleist, Heine, Buchner, Keller, and Fontane. Taught in English, readings in German.

Masterpieces of German literature, drama, and film from the first half of the 20th century. Particular focus on modernism and the crisis of language. What urgent truths (whether psychological, political, spiritual, or sexual) cannot be expressed, and how do art and dreams attempt to speak the unspeakable? Readings and viewings include works by Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Freud, Wedekind, Mann, Musil, Kafka, Toller, Höch, Rilke, Schoenberg, Riefensthal, Benjamin, and Brecht. Taught in English.

Do we really need a theory in order to be queer? Queer Theory emerged in response to feminist thought, and the study of the history of sexuality, building on their insights, but also uncovering their blind spots. Without Queer Theory, few of the discourses around desire, power and gender identity that we take for granted on college campuses today would exist. Yet there is also a real risk that reality has left the theory behind. In this course, we will try to answer the question: What do we need queer theory for? Do we still need it? And if so, of what kind? The course is designed to introduce students to core texts of queer theory, and to connect them to current debates, be this around trans rights, the representation of homosexuality or the fight against campus sexual assault.