Taught by Siavash Talaeizadeh
Taught in English. NO Prerequisites or knowledge of German necessary. Credits may be applied toward the German major or minor.
What anxieties haunt the act of creation? What kinds of mental processes does a creator undergo in the moment of creation? And how do creatures exceed the intentions of their creators and go rogue? This mini-course explores scenes of creation: the ambitions, dreams, concerns, and even the tortures experienced by creators, as well as the fleeting, elusive, and fluid dimensions of creatures themselves. Our focus will be on beings and structures originally designed to serve, protect, or improve human life, yet which ultimately become monstrous—exerting control and domination, and even threatening their creators’ survival.
Moving across myth, literature, psychoanalysis, political theory, and contemporary technology, the course traces a recurring pattern of creation gone awry. From Goethe’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, from the Golem to Pinocchio, we examine figures that blur the line between care and violence, autonomy and obedience. The course and readings are in English.
Learning Goals:
At the end of this course, students should be able to analyze scenes of creation and their consequences as a central literary motif; apply the techniques of close reading to works of literature and film while critically engaging their historical context and the medium in which they are told; and apply a variety of theoretical reflections, such as psychoanalysis, gender studies and political theory in both written and oral form.
This course is a 1.5-credit mini-course starting on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 and running for seven weeks. The meetings of the course are conducted face-to-face.