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- UCAS course code
- VV20
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Course unit details:
Culture and Society in Germany 1871-1918
Unit code | GERM30722 |
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Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 3 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 2 |
Available as a free choice unit? | Yes |
Overview
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.
Pre/co-requisites
Available on which programme(s)? | Programmes with German Studies
|
Aims
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
Knowledge and understanding
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
Intellectual skills
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
Practical skills
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
Transferable skills and personal qualities
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
Employability skills
- Other
- On successful completion of this course unit, students will be able to: - manage time and work to deadlines - participate constructively in group work - assess the relevance and importance of the ideas of others - present information, ideas and arguments, orally and in writing, with due regard to the target audience - demonstrate powers of analysis
Assessment methods
Assessment task | Formative or Summative | Weighting within unit (if summative) |
48 hour open-book examination | Summative | 75% |
Group wiki | Summative | 25% |
Resit Assessment
Examination |
Feedback methods
Feedback method | Formative or Summative |
Comments made during class discussion regarding the relevance and coherence of student responses/participation in discussion | Formative |
Verbal feedback on Wikis throughout the semester | Formative |
Advice on revision and exam preparation given in Week 11 | Formative |
Post-exam feedback if required | Summative |
Recommended reading
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 Grűnderzeit bis zum Expressionismus (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1977) vols. 1-5 (Grűnderzeit; 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
Kolinsky, Eva & van der Will, Wilfried (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern German Culture (Cambridge: CUP, 1998) 901.43/K72
Koshar, Rudy, From Monuments to Traces: Artifacts of German Memory 1870-1990 (Berkeley & London: U. of California Press, 2000)
Lenman, Robin, Artists and Society in Germany 1850-1914 (Manchester: M.U.P., 1997) 750.943 L12
Lenman, Robin, Die Kunst, die Macht und das Geld: zur Kulturgeschichte des kaiserlichen Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1994) 901.43 L14
Makela, Maria, The Munich Secession. Art and Artists in turn-of-the-century Munich (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1990) 709.4336/M1
Paret, Peter, The Berlin Secession. Modernism and its Enemies in Imperial Germany (Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard U.P., 1980) 709.43/P4
Paret, Peter, Art as History: Episodes in the Culture and Politics of Nineteenth-Century Germany (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1988) 709.43/P16
Schorske, Carl, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1981) 943.61/S13
Schwartz, Frederic, The Werkbund: Design Theory and Mass Culture before the First World War (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1996) 745/S71
West, Shearer, The Visual Arts in Germany 1890-1940: Utopia and Despair (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000) 709.43/W31
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
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Seminars | 33 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 160 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Matthew Jefferies | Unit coordinator |