BA Politics and German / Course details

This course unit explores developments in German culture, principally literature and film, in terms of a dynamic of revolution and reaction during the making, unmaking and remaking of the modern German world. Spanning the eighteenth century to the present day, the course highlights moments of radical rupture in the development of German culture alongside persistent continuities. It begins with the German Enlightenment as an intellectual precursor of the French Revolution that challenges established hierarchies of authority. It examines progressive and revolutionary thinking, together with authoritarian reaction, in art and politics during the 19th-century struggle for civil rights, and national and individual self-determination. The birth of psychoanalysis is foregrounded in the early 20th century, as are ideas of radical subjectivity, which are explored in Expressionist art, overthrowing confidence in the rational self. Despite the extreme reactionary destructiveness of National Socialism, the cultural repercussions of early 20^th-century achievements remain tangible today in second wave feminism and beyond. Similarly, the revival of revolutionary thinking and anti-imperialism characterized the Student Movement of 1968, which will be compared with the post-1989 critique of neo-liberal capitalism. The overthrow of the East German state is also viewed as a revolution. However, the renewed growth of populist politics in the light of the triumph of global capital has created its own form of nationalist reaction.  

• To develop knowledge and understanding of modern German culture
• To develop critical thinking and higher order conceptual reasoning and analytical skills
• To develop advanced skills of written and verbal communication

On successful completion of this course unit, students will have a knowledge and understanding of:

• important intellectual and cultural developments in the modern German-speaking world
• the work of key writers, artists and film makers in this period
• basic textual and film-analytical methods

• Critical thinking – capacity to abstract, analyse and make critical judgements
• Synthesis and analysis of data and information
• Critical reflection and evaluation
• Expression – able to make a reasoned argument for a particular point of view
• Decision-Making – able to draw reasoned conclusions

• Using library, electronic and online resources
• Textual analysis, Essay writing

• Information Retrieval – ability independently to gather, sift, synthesise and organise material from various sources (including library, electronic and online resources), and to critically evaluate its significance
• 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 population 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

1. Abel, Marco, The Counter-Cinema of the Berlin School, Rochester NY: Camden House, 2013
2. Allinson, Mark, Germany and Austria 1814-2000 2^nd Ed., London: Bloomsbury, 2014
3. Assmann, Jan, ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Identity’, trans. John Czaplicka, New German Critique, 65 (1995), 125-133
4. Burns, Rob, German Cultural Studies: An Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995
5. Cooke, Paul, Chris Homewood, New Directions in German Cinema, London: I.B.Taurus, 2011
6. Diner, Dan, ‘Restitution and Memory: The Holocaust in European Political Cultures’, New German Critique, 90 (2003), 36-44
7. Petropoulos, Jonathan, Irene Kacandes, Scott D. Denham, A User’s Guide to German Cultural Studies, Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997
8. Taberner, Stuart (ed), Contemporary German Fiction: Writing in the Berlin Republic, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007
9. Taberner, Stuart, Frank Finlay (ed), Recasting German Identity: Culture, Politics and Literature in the Berlin Republic, Rochester NY: Camden House, 2002
10. Wilds, Karl, ‘Identity, Creation and the Culture of Contrition: Recasting “Normality” in the Berlin Republic’, German Politics, 9 (2000), 83-102