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FUBiS Term II: Berlin’s Modernisms
(Kurs # 1.17)
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Typ: |
B Track |
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Dozent(en): |
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Sprache: |
Englisch |
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Veranstaltungsumfang: |
72 (6 Kontaktstunden pro Tag) |
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Bonuspunkte: |
6 Credit Points |
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Anzahl Plätze: |
18 |
Inhalt
Berlin is the perhaps the most modern of metropolises in its perpetual reinvention of itself. It became the capital of the newly unified German Empire in 1871 and the political and cultural center of the Weimar Republic fifty years later. Between 1933 and 1945, the city was refashioned again as the seat of the Third Reich only to become the epicenter of the Cold War in the late 1940s. In its most recent incarnation, Berlin regained its status as the capital of a reunified Germany, becoming a dynamic symbol of Eastern and Western European integration.
In this class, students explore the cultural history of this vibrant city at four critical moments of its reformulation: the Berlin of high modernism (1920s), the Berlin of National Socialism (1930s/40s), the Berlin of Cold War divisions (1945/1949/1961), and the Berlin of Reunification (1990s). At each juncture, students examine the competing and often contradictory means by which cultural media participated in the construction of collective memories and identities as a response to the crisis of modernity.
Examples of course materials include Fritz Lang’s futuristic representation of modern technology in the film Metropolis alongside Walther Ruttmann’s cinematic social critique Berlin: Symphony of a Great City; the cabaret burlesque of Marlene Dietrich’s The Blue Angel together with Christopher Isherwood’s accounts of liberal nightlife in the city; essays on Georg Grosz, Max Beckmann, and Käthe Kollwitz in conjunction with trips to local museums that contextualize their work in the history of modern art; excerpts from the memoirs of Hitler’s architect Albert Speer alongside the propagandistic films of Leni Riefenstahl; writers’ reflections on the effects of the postwar ruins on the cultural imagination and cinematic representations of the moral ruins of Berlin in 1946. The course concludes with current cultural debates about the place of the Holocaust and the Cold War in the cultural memory of reunified Berlin.
Required Materials
All course readings are included in the course reader. Please bring the reader to each class session.
Attendance and Participation
Since this is a seminar, active participation is required. Please come to class prepared to discuss the day’s assigned reading. More than one absence may affect your participation grade.
Reading Response Notebook
You will keep a reading response notebook in which you track key ideas in the texts that you would like to discuss in class. You may also use your entries to raise questions about conceptual issues in the readings. Entry length may vary, but should be about one paragraph in length. Quality is more important than quantity. I may ask you to read aloud from your notebook. Entries may be typed or handwritten, but should be brought to each class session. I’ll collect notebook entries at designated points during the semester.
Presentations
Each student will be assigned a brief presentation (5-10 minutes) designed to generate class discussion on the day’s reading. Topics will be distributed during the first week of class.
Midterm and Final Exam
There will be an in-class midterm and final exam on the course materials. The exam will consist primarily of essay questions on important concepts in the readings, images, and films.
Grading Requirements
Attendance and active participation in discussions: 40%
Reading Response notebook: 10%
Presentation: 10%
Midterm Exam: 20%
Final Exam: 20%
Zielgruppe
This course is open to students of all levels and disciplines, though it may appeal most to students of literary, media, and cultural studies. All of the readings and films will be presented in English translation, so knowledge of German is not required. Class discussions will be led in English.
Weiterführende Links
