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

Set Text

1. Jefferies, Matthew   Imperial Culture in Germany 1871-1918 (Basingstoke, 2003) 901.43/J13 (also available in High Demand)

Recommended Reading

1. Allen, Ann Taylor, Satire and Society in Wilhelmine Germany: Kladderadatsch and Simplicissimus 1890-1914 (Lexington: U.P. of Kentucky, 1984) online access available
2. Bartmann, Dominik, Anton von Werner: zur Kunst und Kunstpolitik im Deutschen Kaiserreich (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1985) 750.92,WE495 1 (high demand)
3. Buddensieg, Tilmann, Industriekultur: Peter Behrens and the AEG, 1907-1914 (Cambridge, Mass. & London: MIT, 1984) 720.92, BE395/6
4. 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
5. Campbell, Joan, The German Werkbund: the Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1978) 745/C8
6. Chapple, Gerald & Schulte, Hans, eds., The Turn of the Century: German Literature and Art, 1890-1915 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1981) 830.9/M88
7. Duncan, Alastair,   Art Nouveau (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994) 745/D214
8. Eksteins, Modris, Rites of Spring: The First World War and the Birth of the Modern Age (London: Bantam, 1989) 940.93/E33
9. Forster-Hahn, Francoise (ed.), Imagining Modern German Culture, 1889-1910 (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1997) 709.43/F87
10. 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.
11. Hepp, Corona, Avantgarde. Moderne Kunst, Kulturkritik und Reformbewegungen nach der Jahrhundertwende  (Munich: dtv, 1987)    709.43/H56
12. Heskett, John, Design in Germany, 1870-1918 (London: Trefoil, 1986) 745/H15
13. Jefferies, Matthew, Politics and Culture in Wilhelmine Germany: The Case of Industrial Architecture (Oxford: Berg, 1995) 725.4/J48
14. Jefferies, Matthew, Contesting the German Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008) 943.08/J2
15. Kerbs, D. & Reulecke, J.  (eds.), Handbuch der deutschen Reformbewegungen, 1880-1933  (Wuppertal: Hammer, 1998)  309.43/K58
16. Kolinsky, Eva & van der Will, Wilfried (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern German Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 1998)    901.43/K72
17. Koshar, Rudy, From Monuments to Traces: Artifacts of German Memory 1870-1990 (Berkeley & London: U. of California Press, 2000)
18. Lenman, Robin, Artists and Society in Germany 1850-1914 (Manchester: M.U.P., 1997) 750.943 L12
19. Lenman, Robin, Die Kunst, die Macht und das Geld: zur Kulturgeschichte des kaiserlichen Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1994) 901.43 L14
20. Makela, Maria, The Munich Secession. Art and Artists in turn-of-the-century Munich (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1990) 709.4336/M1
21. Paret, Peter, The Berlin Secession. Modernism and its Enemies in Imperial Germany (Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard U.P., 1980) 709.43/P4
22. Paret, Peter, Art as History: Episodes in the Culture and Politics of Nineteenth-Century Germany (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1988) 709.43/P16
23. Schorske, Carl, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1981) 943.61/S13
24. Schwartz, Frederic, The Werkbund: Design Theory and Mass Culture before the First World War (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1996) 745/S71
25. West, Shearer, The Visual Arts in Germany 1890-1940: Utopia and Despair (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000) 709.43/W31