In English. No prerequisites.
An interdisciplinary inquiry into seminal literary, artistic, social, political, and intellectual movements in the history of Germanic cultures and thought from the 20th century to the present. Taught by Prof. Levine, the course includes guest lectures by professors and advanced graduate students from Art History, Music, Philosophy, Jewish Studies, Political Science, History, Cinema Studies, and German Languages and Literatures. In addition to the particular topics covered, the course is meant to be a way for students to meet German-related faculty at Rutgers and develop a sense of the conversations in which we, and our respective disciplines, are engaged.
Open to first-year students and, more generally, to those who might not necessarily wish to become a German major or minor but who seek, as part of a well-rounded liberal arts education, basic familiarity with the rich and often vexed history of things German and their impact on Europe and the world.
Topics include: turn-of-the-century Vienna; the Weimar Republic; Kafka, Prague and Minor Literature; Yiddish language and culture; urban cultures and counter-cultures; Freud and the Unconscious; Nazism and the Holocaust; the two Germanies and (re)unification; Germany and the European Union; refugee crises past and present. Short readings of texts by Kafka, Freud, Adorno, Deleuze and Guattari, Bernhard, Wolf, and others; films by Petzold, von Trotta, Haneke, and Gerster; music by Weil, Hollaender, Rammstein, and Hagen. No prerequisites. Readings and discussions in English. Course fulfills the Core requirements AHp, WCD.
