GERM 301 - Senior Seminar

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

An examination of selected topics in German literature and culture. May be taken more than once for credit when topic changes.

Topic for 2014/15a: Total War: Mobilizing the Sexes for Battle. Powers of Europe unleashed one of the largest and deadliest wars in history. In addition to deaths in the tens of millions, the war drastically altered the European political landscape, bringing an end to the dynastic empires of Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia and the Ottomans while unleashing new and more radical social and political forces. This course explores the cultural climate in Germany leading up to the war as well as the cultural responses to total mobilization and defeat. In particular, we investigate the changing representations of heroism, warfare, and citizenship and the impact of war on aesthetic discourse and Germany’s gender and sexual politics. While Germany and Austria are the main focus, a planned conference on the First World War at West Point will enable us to contextualize German-speaking developments in a larger international framework. Materials include autobiographies, fictional works, films, letters, military manuals, poetry, political tracts, and sexual case studies as well as secondary texts representing a variety of disciplinary approaches. Mr. Schneider.

Prerequisite: GERM 260 or GERM 270 or the equivalent.

Two 75-minute periods.