GERM 301 - Senior Seminar

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2018/19a: Total War: Mobilizing the Sexes for Battle. From 1914 to 1918, the Great Powers of Europe fought 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 of militarism and peace activism 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 Germany’s gender, sexual, and aesthetic politics. 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. Jeffrey Schneider.

Prerequisite(s): GERM 260 or GERM 270, or the equivalent.

One 3-hour period.