Introduces central texts, schools, and debates of German cultural studies and their relationship to literature and film. Issues addressed may include nationalism, gender studies, psychoanalysis, postmodernism, pop culture, and critiques of industrial/capitalist society. Required of all German majors; open to all students. Taught in English.
Athena Title
Intro German Culture Studies
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
Students will identify main turning points in 20th/21st century German history.
Students will explain select, major artistic movements in 20th century Germany.
Students will classify select literary, filmic, and fine arts pieces from 20th/21st century German culture.
Students will examine select artistic pieces as examples of German cultural history of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Students will compare and contrast changing representations of gender/sex, ethnicity, and historical moments in select 20th/21st century German literature, film, and media.
Topical Outline
MODUL 1 – German Culture in the late Kaiserreich
The Last years of the Kaisserreich and the early 20th Century
• History: The first two decades in the 20th century
• Sigmund Freud: Totem und Taboo (Totem and Taboo, 1913) (excerpts)
• Poetry: Rainer Maria Rilke, “Der Panther” (“The Panther,” 1902) (pdf)
• Play/drama: Franz Wedekind, “Frühlingserwachen” (Spring Awakening, 1890/91; [Berlin Premier, 1906])
• Drama/Play: Franz Wedekind, Spring Awakening,”
MODUL II -- German Culture in the Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (1919-1933)
• History: Weimar Republic
• Paintings/Advertisement/Visual Culture: Neue Sachlichkeit /New Objectivity vs. Expressionism
• Women, Machines, and the modern city & life in Paintings and the Art World
• Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) (excerpts)
• Novel: Irmgard Keun, The Artificial Silk Girl (1933)
• Fritz Lang’s M (1931)
Modul III -- German Culture in the Third Reich
Third Reich & WWII (1933-1945)
• History: The Third Reich (1933-1945)
• The Third Reich and Cinema
• Film: Douglas Sirk, La Habanera (1937)
• Cinema: Entertainment vs. Propaganda
• Film: Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1935) (short clips, tba)
MODUL IV -- German Culture in Post-War and Cold War Germany
Post-War and Cold-War Germany (1945-1989)
• Topic: Rubble literature and Rubble film
• Film: Wolfgang Staudte, Die Mörder sind unter uns (Murderers Among
Us, 1946) (excerpts in class)
Guestworkers, social concerns, and art cinema in the FRG (1970s-80)
• Film: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Angst essen Seele auf (Ali Fear Eats the Soul, 1974)
MODUL V -- German Culture in Post-Cold War Germany
• Nouvelle Vague, Art Cinema
Reunification, the New Millennium (1990-today) & Précis Writing
• History: The Berlin Republic and Post-1990 Culture
• Writing: What is a précis? How to write a précis (PDF)
Transnational Germany: Discourses in Cinema & Literature
• Fatima El Tayeb, “Introduction,” European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe (2011) (PDF)
• Moshtari Hilal, Hässlichkeit (Ugliness, 2023/2025) or Olga Grjasnowa, Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt (All Russians love Birch Trees, 2012)
Optional: Dealing with the Past/ Vergangenheitsbewältigung in the 21st century
• Post-1990s cinema. Especially dealing with the German past (WWII and German-German division)
• Film, e.g.: Christian Petzold, Transit (2019), Barbara (2012), or Phoenix (2014)
