German Content Modules - Birkbeck, University of London

German Content Modules - Birkbeck, University of London

German Content Modules 2016/17
Full Module Title:
Cultural Perspectives on German History
Module Code:
AREL042S4
Credits/Level:
Convenor:
Lecturer(s):
30/4
Eckard Michels
Eckard Michels, Peter Damrau, Anna Richards, John Walker, Alexander
Weber, Joanne Leal
None
Entrance
Requirements:
Day/Time:
Monday, 7.40-9.00 P.M.
(Term 1 and 2)
Module
Description:
This module aims to give you an introduction to the ways in which
different cultural media have responded to some of the most significant
events in German history since the 18th century. You are introduced to
aspects of German history while at the same time learning a variety of
interpretive skills appropriate to the analysis of different cultural
artefacts.
Syllabus:
Term One
Week 1: Historical background – Germany in the late 18th century (EM)
Week 2: Cultural responses: Friedrich Schiller The Robbers (1781) and
Don Carlos (1787) (PD)
Week 3: Cultural responses: Friedrich Schiller The Robbers (1781) and
Don Carlos (1787) (PD)
Week 4: Cultural responses Friedrich Schiller The Robbers (1781) and
Don Carlos (1787) (PD)
Week 5: Historical background – Germany between Restoration and
Revolution (1815-1848) (EM)
Week 6: Reading week
Week 7 to 9: Fictional response: in these three sessions we will look at
Georg Büchner’s Hessian Messenger (1834) and Woyzeck (1836/37)
(AR)
Week 10: Historical background – The Revolution of 1918/19 (EM)
Week 11: Response in drama: Ernst Toller Masse Mensch (JW)
Term Two
Week 1: Fictional response: Alfred Döblin November 1918 and Günter
Grass My Century (JW)
Week 2: Documentary evidence: Adolf Hitler and Rosa Luxemburg (JW)
Week 3: Historical background – “Stunde Null” (Germany in 1945) (EM)
Weeks 4: Oskar Barnack and the invention of modern photography (AW)
Week 5: Visual history: Hermann Claasen’s photography of ruins (AW)
Week 7: Literary responses to cities in ruins (AW)
Week 8: Historical background – The collapse of the GDR and the reunification of Germany (1989/90) (EM)
Weeks 9, 10 and 11: Cultural responses in film: Goodbye Lenin & Das
Leben der Anderen (JL)
Assessment:
Essential Texts:
Other Important
Information:
Assignment
Essay 1
(due 7.11.2016)
Essay 2
(due 16.1.2017)
Essay 3
(due 16.4.2017)
Essay 4
(due 3.5.2017)
See syllabus
Description
500 words
Weighting
10%
500 words
10%
1500 words
40%
1500 words
40%
Preparatory reading:
Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany (Cambridge 1992).
Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation (London 2014).
Joachim Whaley, The German lands before 1815, in: Mary Fulbrook
(ed.), German History since 1800 (London, 1997), pp. 15-37.
Christopher Clarke, ‘Germany 1815-1848: Restoration or pre-March’, in:
Mary Fulbrook (ed.), German History since 1800 (London, 1997), pp. 3860.
Wolfgang Mommsen, ‘The Revolution 1918-1920’, in: Richard Bessel
and E.J. Feuchtwanger (eds), Social Change and Political Development
in Weimar Germany (London, 1981), pp. 21-54, also reprinted in
Wolfgang Mommsen, Imperial Germany 1867-1918 (London, 1995).
Richard Bessel, Germany 1945. From War to Peace, London 2009.
Jonathan Osmond, The end of the GDR: revolution and voluntary
annexation, in: Mary Fulbrook (ed.), German History since 1800
(London, 1997), pp. 454-476.
Full Module Title
Das Dritte Reich
Module Code
AREL090H5 / LNLN002H6
Credits/Level
Convenor:
Lecturer(s):
Entrance
Requirements:
Day/Time:
15 credits / Level 5 and Level 6
Eckard Michels
Eckard Michels
Successful completion of German 3
Module Description:
Dieser Kurs wird auf Deutsch unterrichtet und gibt einen Überblick
über die Geschichte des Dritten Reiches unter politischen,
militärischen, kulturellen und sozialen Aspekten. Wir werden dazu
Text-, Audio- und visuelle Quellen analysieren.
Syllabus:
Term One
Week 1
Die” Machtergreifung”
EM
1933/34
Week 2
Die Struktur des
EM
“Führerstaates”
Week 3
Recht und Gesetz, Polizei
EM
und Terror
Week 4
Die “Volksgemeinschaft”:
EM
Gesellschaft und Sozialpolitik
1933-1939
Week5
Kultur und Kulturpolitik
EM
Reading Week
Week 7
Aussenpolitk und
EM
Kriegsvorbereitung
Week 8
Kriegführung und
EM
Besatzungspolitik
Week 9
Die Verfolgung der Juden und EM
die “Endlösung”
Wek 10
Die deutsche Heimatfront im
EM
Zweiten Weltkrieg
Week 11
Der deutsche Widerstand
EM
gegen den
Nationalsozialismus
Level 5
One 2500 word essay IN GERMAN from a list of essay questions.
Level 6
One 3500 word essay IN GERMAN on a topic decided by the student
in agreement with the course tutor.
Assessment:
Preparatory
Reading:
Term One, Tuesdays, 7.40-9.00
Hans-Ulrich Thamer, Verführung und Gewalt: Deutschland 19331945 (Berlin 1994); Norbert Frei, National Socialist Rule in Germany:
The Führer State 1933-1945 (London 1993); Ian Kershaw, The Nazi
Dictatorship (London 2000); Jane Caplan (ed.), Nazi Germany
(Oxford 2008).
Full Module Title
Death: A Theme in German Culture
Module Code
ARCL014S5 / AREL046S6
Credits/Level
Convenor:
Lecturer(s):
30 credits; Level 5 / Level 6
Eckard Michels
Nicolette David, Joanne Leal, Eckard Michels, Anna Richards, John
Walker, Alexander Weber
Successful completion of German 3
Entrance
Requirements:
Day/Time:
Module Description:
Syllabus:
Wednesdays, 6.00-7.20 (Term 1 and 2)
This course is intended to study a particular aspect of German culture
throughout the centuries taking an interdisciplinary approach. The
theme of death will be approached through a variety of cultural media
such as literature, poetry or architecture and from a variety of
thematic approaches, including literary criticism, gender studies,
philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis or history. Most texts will be
studied in German.
Term One
Week 1
Changing Attitudes towards
Death in European History
EM
Week 2
EM
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
The Remembrance of Fallen
Soldier of the First World War
in Weimar and Nazi Germany
The Bombing War Against
German Cities in the Second
World War and its Aftermath
Socialist Heroes and Ordinary
Comrades: Cemeteries and
Burials in the GDR
Thomas Mann, Tod in
Venedig
Reading Week
Thomas Mann, Tod in
Venedig
Arthur Schnitzler, Leutnant
Gustl
Arthur Schnitzler, Leutnant
Gustl
Ernst Jünger, In
Stahlgewittern/The Storm of
Steel
Ernst Jünger, In
Stahlgewittern/The Storm of
Steel
Term Two
Week 1
Erich Maria Remarque, Im
Westen nichts Neues/All
Quiet on the Western Front
Week 2
Erich Maria Remarque, Im
EM
EM
ND
ND
ND
ND
JW
JW
JW
JW
Assessment:
Westen nichts Neues/All
Quiet on the Western Front
Week 3
Peter Stramm, Agnes
AR
Week 4
Peter Stramm, Agnes
AR
Week 5
Judith Hermann, Alice
JL
Reading Week
Week 7
Judith Hermann, Alice
JL
Week 8
G.E. Lessing, Wie die Alten
AW
den Tod gebildet
Week 9
J. Grimm, Deutsche
AW
Mythologie Bd. 2, Kapitel 27:
Der Tod
Week 10
H. von Hofmannsthal, der Tor AW
und der Tod
Week 11
H. von Hofmannsthal, der Tor AW
und der Tod
Level 5: 2 essays of ca. 2500 words each from a list of essay
questions, each essay weights 50% of the overall mark.
Level 6: 1 essay of 2500 words (40% of the overall mark) from a list
of essay questions and 1 essay of ca. 4500 words (60% of the overall
mark) on a topic of choice agreed with the respective course tutor
Preparatory
Reading/Essential
Texts:
Alewyn, Richard. 'Hofmannsthals "Tor und Tod"', Monatshefte für den
deutschen Unterricht 36 (1944), 409-424 [JSTOR]
Antonsen, Elmer H., The Grimm Brothers and the Germanic Past
(Amsterdam 1990)
Philippe Aries, Western Attitudes towards Death from the Middle
Ages to the Present (Baltimore 1974).
Wilfried Barner (ed.), Lessing. Epoche Werk Wirkung (Munich: Beck)
Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the
Aesthetic (Manchester UP, 1992).
Alon Confino et al (eds.), Between Mass Death and Individual Loss:
The Place of the Dead in 20th-Century Germany (Oxford: 2008)
Douglas J. Davies, A Brief History of Death (Oxford: Blackwell 2007).
Anna Richards, The Wasting Heroine in German Fiction by Women
1770-1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004).
Nicholas Saul ( ed.): Philosophy and German Literature 1700-1990
(Cambridge: 2010) ( first published 2002).
Shippey, Tom, ed. 2005. The Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm's
Mythology of the Monstrous [Medieval and Renaissance Texts and
Studies 291].
J.P.Stern, Ernst Jünger (Cambridge: Bowes and Bowes, 1952).
J.P.Stern, The Dear Purchase. A Theme in German Modernism
(Cambridge: CUP, 1952).
Theodor Ziolkowski, Modes of Faith: Secular Surrogates for Lost
Religious Belief (Chicago:2007).
Erich Heller, The Disinherited Mind: Essays in Modern German
Literature and Thought (London: Bowes and Bowes:1971).
Full Module Title
Fascism in German Film
Module Code
Tbc
Credits/Level
Convenor:
Lecturer(s):
Entrance
Requirements:
Day/Time:
15 credits / Level 5 and Level 6
Joanne Leal
Joanne Leal
No language requirement other than English
Module Description:
In this module we will explore the ways in which the Nazi era has
been represented in the post-war period in films produced in the three
different German states - East, West and reunified Germany. We will
examine the ways in which these films reflect the memory discourses
prevalent at the time of their making and how they also work to shape
what is remembered and how it is remembered at particular historical
moments in very different cultural and political contexts.
Term One
Week 1
Introduction
JL
Week 2
Wolfgang Staudte, Die
JL
Mörder sind unter uns / The
Murderers are Among Us
(1946)
Week 3
Bernhard Wicki, Die Brücke /
JL
The Bridge (1959)
Week 4
Frank Beyer, Nackt unter
JL
Wölfen / Naked Among
Wolves (1963)
Week5
Konrad Wolf, Ich war
JL
neunzehn / I was Nineteen
(1968)
Reading Week
Week 7
Volker Schlöndorff, Die
JL
Blechtrommel / The Tin Drum
(1979)
Week 8
Marc Rothermund, Sophie
JL
Scholl. Die letzten Tage /
Syllabus:
Term One, Tuesdays 6.00-7.20
Week 9
Wek 10
Week 11
Assessment:
Sophie Scholl. The Last Days
(2005)
Stefan Ruzowitsky, Die
Fälscher / The Counterfeiters
(2007)
Cate Shortland, Lore (2012)
Conclusion and essay writing
tips
JL
JL
JL
Level 5
One 2500 word essay from a list of essay questions, due on Tuesday
17 January 2017.
Level 6
One 3500 word essay on a topic decided by the student in agreement
with the course tutor, due on Tuesday 17 January 2017.
Essential
Texts/Preparatory
Reading:
All films are available with English sub-titles and should be watched
before class.
Preparatory reading:
Axel Bangert, The Nazi Past in Contemporary German Film. Viewing
Experiences of Intimacy and Immersion, Rochester, New York:
Camden House, 2014
Stephan Brockmann, A Critical History of German Film, Rochester,
New York: Camden House, 2010
Paul Cooke and Chris Homewood (eds), New Directions in German
Cinema, London-New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011
Full Module Title
Literature and Society since 1945
Module Code
LNLN001H5 / AREL088H6
Credits/Level
Convenor/Lecturers
15 / Level 5 and Level 6
Convenor: Alexander Weber
Lecturer(s): Alexander Weber, John Walker
Entrance
Requirements
Day
No language requirements
Time
7.40-9.00
Module Description
We will read a selection of the most popular and influential texts of
West-German and Swiss literature since 1945 and examine them in the
light of the post-war society from which they emerged. Editions in
English will be available, but students are encouraged to read texts in
the original language as far as possible.
Syllabus
Term Two
Tuesday (Term 2 only)
Week 1 Günter Grass, The Meeting at Telgte(AW)
Week 2 Günter Grass, The Meeting at Teglte (AW)
Week 3 Enzensberger, The Sinking of the Titanic (AW)
Week 4 Enzensberger, The Sinking of the Titanic (AW)
Week 5 Wolfgang Koeppen, Das Treibhaus, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch,
ISBN 978-3518365786(JW)
Week 6 Reading week
Week 7 Wolfgang Koeppen, Das Treibhaus(JW)
Week 8 Christa Wolf, Der geteilte Himmel, DTV, isbn 978
34230009157(JW)
Week 9 Christa Wolf, Der geteilte Himmel(JW)
Week 10 Heinrich Böll, Gruppenbild mit Dame, DTV ISBN 978
3423009591(JW)
Week 11 Heinrich Böll, Gruppenbild mit Dame(JW)
Assessment Table
Level 5: one essay of 2500 words from a list of topics.
Level 6: one independently researched essay of 3500 words with
tutorial support
Assignment
Description
Weighting
Essay (level 5)
2,500 words
100%
Essay (level 6)
3,500 words
100%
Essential Texts
Wolfgang Beutin et. al.,
Deutsche Literaturgeschichte
Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart
(Stuttgart: Metzler 2008), pp. 427-612.
Keith Bullivant, The Modern German Novel (1987: Berg Publishers)
The Future of German Literature (1994: Berg Publishers)
Michael Butler (ed.) The Narrative Fiction of Heinrich Böll (1995:
Cambridge University Press)
Full Module Title
The German Novelle
Module Code
AREL104H5 / AREL044H6
Credits/Level
Convenor/Lecturers
15 / Level 5 and Level 6
Convenor: John Walker
Lecturer(s): John Walker, Alexander Walker
Entrance
Requirements
Day
Successful completion of at least German language 3.
Time
6.00–7.20 pm
Module Description
This half-module addresses a key form in German literature which
has no direct equivalent elsewhere in Europe: the Novelle. This short
narrative form differs sharply from the short story, because it
Tuesday (term 2 only)
presupposes a tightly controlled thematic and narrative structure and
usually has a central ethical message. It has aptly been described as
‘a brief compass’. The module will focus on several of the best known
writers of Novellen in German such as Goethe, Eichendorff, de la
Motte Fouque, Stifter, Keller or Thomas Mann. We will examine the
changing significance of this form in the history of German, Austrian
and Swiss literature. All the texts chosen are short but very rich in
content. They can therefore easily be read in advance of the sessions
and studied in depth. Students should read the texts in German, as
we will study them in narrative and linguistic detail.
Syllabus
Term Two
Week 1: Tieck: Der Runenberg (AW)
Week 2: Fouqué: Das Galgenmännlein (AW)
Week 3: Arnim: Isabella von Ägypten (AW)
Week 4: Chamisso: Peter Schlemihl (AW)
Week 5: Chamisso: Peter Schlemihl (AW)
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: Stifter: Bunte Steine (Vorrede; Turmalin) (JW)
Week 8: Stifter: Bunte Steine (Vorrede; Turmalin) (JW)
Week 9: Keller: Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe (JW)
Week 10: Storm: Aquis Submersus (JW)
Week 11: Thomas Mann:Tristan (JW)
Assessment Table
Essential Texts
Level 5: one assessed essay of approximately 2,500 words from a
list of topics.
Level 6: one independently researched essay of approximately 3,500
words with tutorial support.
All German primary texts are available in several German paperback
editions (Reclam; dtv; Goldmann Taschenbuch etc.)
Links to online sources such as Gutenberg.de and Zeno.org will be
provided on Moodle.
Secondary Reading:
Roger Paulin: The Brief Compass. The Ninetenth Century German
Novelle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985)
John Ellis: Narration in the German Novelle (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1974)
J.P.Stern: Reinterpretations. Seven Studies in Nineteenth-Century
German Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964)
Full Module Title:
Extended Essay
Module Code:
LNLN016S6
Credits/Level:
Convenor:
Entrance
Requirements:
30/6
Anna Richards
Normally intended for students in their final year.
Module Description:
Assessment:
The Extended Essay is usually taken in the last year of your studies
at Birkbeck. It consists of an independently researched essay of c.
7000 words. You need to agree a title with a potential supervisor by
the end of October 2016 and register your title by that date with the
module convenor Anna Richards. Once you have agreed a title you
are entitled to three further supervisions with your topic supervisor.
The essay has to be submitted by 1 May 2017.
Assignment
Essay 1
Description
7000 words
Weighting
100%