"GRMN 314A Tps:Die Weimarer Republik heute Pollack-Milgate Fall 2024" by Howard Pollack-Milgate
 

Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

Fall 2024

Course Description

Babylon Berlin: The German Netflix series shows us a portrait of Berlin in the 1920's as a society out of balance, teetering between the extremes of Communist and Nazi politics, featuring desperate poverty and dissolute parties, a culture, in the classic phrase, "dancing on the edge of a volcano." In our course, we will discuss the series in dialog with films, novels, and other texts from the period which will not only allow us to assess why many find the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) so fascinating, but also witness the incredibly experimental cultural vibrancy of the Roaring Twenties in Berlin in any number of areas: new forms of media, science, and technology, new notions sexuality, radical politics and social experimentation, new kinds of art and self-expression. We will look closely at the questions posed then about city life, mass culture, gender, democracy and its end, technology and at both bleak and utopian visions of the future, and compare them with our own, not so dissimilar, questions and visions. Weimar was a time with infinite possibilities, where the future was open for the taking -- it could have ended otherwise than in the Nazi regime which took over in 1933... What does this tell us about the dangers and possibilities before us today? Course readings, discussions, and homework in German.

Student Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: 1. Analyze and interpret in spoken and written German central texts in various media from and about the Weimar Republic 2. Describe major aspects of the culture in Weimar Germany in the context of Germany's social and political modernization and the role of film/literature/music in these processes 3. Articulate similarities and differences between events a century ago and current crises: including how these points of comparison affect our representations of the past and vice versa; 4. Begin to identify and formulate incisive and relevant research questions and, as part of the university's General Education learning outcomes, 5. Understand and value artistic, cultural, and scientific achievements and the limits of those achievements, past and present. 6. Understand and appreciate cultures, languages and groups different than their own and regularly reflect on domestic and global issues of power, privilege and diversity.

Download

Share

COinS