BA German and Portuguese / Course details

This course unit seeks to gain a better understanding of Imperial Germany by examining the response of German artists and thinkers to their rapidly changing social and political environment. It looks at ways in which the new Empire sought to legitimise its existence through culture – monuments, buildings, paintings – and asks how successful this was. It then concentrates on a variety of critics and reformers, who pioneered new approaches in music, art and architecture. The course unit reveals an increasingly pluralistic society, in which people were already wrestling with some of the modern world’s most enduring problems. 

• To develop knowledge and understanding of German history, particularly of the imperial era (1871-1918)  

• To analyse and comment on a range of visual sources, including paintings, monuments and buildings 

• To undertake a critical and sophisticated review of the historiography, and to develop an individual perspective 

By the end of the semester, you will have an advanced knowledge and understanding of:  

• the official culture of Imperial Germany; its buildings, monuments, festivals and art 

• a variety of cultural and social reform movements in Imperial Germany 

• historical methods, particularly with regard to cultural history 

By the end of this course students will be able to: 

• Engage in independent reflection and enquiry 

• Engage in the discussion and critical evaluation of cultural products from Germany’s imperial era 

• Use empirical evidence to support synthetic conclusions and interpretations 

• Analyse secondary sources and provide a synthesis of the most relevant findings 

By the end of this course students will be able to: 

• Use library, electronic and online resources 

• Apply skills of analysis and synthesis to practical issues and problems 

• Work in a group to produce a web-based wiki resource 

• Presentation – present information, ideas and arguments, orally and in writing, with due regard to the target audience 

• Literacy – the capacity both to make written presentations using appropriate language for a target audience and to collect and integrate evidence to formulate and test a hypothesis  

• Time Management – ability to schedule tasks in order of importance and work to deadlines 

• Improving own learning – ability to improve one's own learning through planning, monitoring, critical reflection, evaluate and adapt strategies for one's learning  

Written Examination - 75%

Group Wiki - 25%

Set Text 

Jefferies, Matthew,  Imperial Culture in Germany 1871-1918 (Basingstoke, 2003) available as eBook 

Recommended Reading 

Allen, Ann Taylor, Satire and Society in Wilhelmine Germany: Kladderadatsch and Simplicissimus 1890-1914 (Lexington: U.P. of Kentucky, 1984) online access available 

Bartmann, Dominik, Anton von Werner: zur Kunst und Kunstpolitik im Deutschen Kaiserreich (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1985) 750.92,WE495 1 (high demand) 

Buddensieg, Tilmann, Industriekultur: Peter Behrens and the AEG, 1907-1914 (Cambridge, Mass. & London: MIT, 1984) 720.92, BE395/6 

Burns, Rob (ed.), German Cultural Studies. An Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 1995) - especially chapter one by R. Lenman, J. Osborne and E. Sagarra   901.43/B32 

Campbell, Joan, The German Werkbund: the Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1978) 745/C8 

Chapple, Gerald & Schulte, Hans, eds., The Turn of the Century: German Literature and Art, 1890-1915 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1981) 830.9/M88 

Duncan, Alastair,  Art Nouveau (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994) 745/D214 

Eksteins, Modris, Rites of Spring: The First World War and the Birth of the Modern Age (London: Bantam, 1989) 940.93/E33 

Forster-Hahn, Francoise (ed.), Imagining Modern German Culture, 1889-1910 (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1997) 709.43/F87 

Hamann, Richard & Hermand, Jost, Deutsche Kunst und Kultur von der Gr¿nderzeit bis zum Expressionismus (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1977) vols. 1-5 (Gr¿nderzeit; Naturalismus; Impressionismus; Stilkunst um 1900; Expressionismus) 709.43/H31 etc. 

Hepp, Corona, Avantgarde. Moderne Kunst, Kulturkritik und Reformbewegungen nach der Jahrhundertwende  (Munich: dtv, 1987)    709.43/H56 

Heskett, John, Design in Germany, 1870-1918 (London: Trefoil, 1986) 745/H15 

Jefferies, Matthew, Politics and Culture in Wilhelmine Germany: The Case of Industrial Architecture (Oxford: Berg, 1995) 725.4/J48 

Jefferies, Matthew, Contesting the German Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008) 943.08/J2 

Kerbs, D. & Reulecke, J.  (eds.), Handbuch der deutschen Reformbewegungen, 1880-1933  (Wuppertal: Hammer, 1998)  309.43/K58 

Scheduled activity hours Seminars 33

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