GRMN 387 - Topics in German Studies. (Taught in English)

Fall and Spring (3-4) Staff

Topic will be indicated in the schedule of classes. Students with advanced language skills, with the consent of instructor, may take a 4th credit for reading and discussions (one additional hours per week) in the original language.

Topic for Fall

Media and Modernity: Weimar (Campbell)

Topic for Spring

The Modern City: Japan and Germany 1880-1950 (Leventhal, co-taught with Michael Cronin)

The city has served as the main stage for the interplay of industrial capitalism, modern subjectivity, and national identity, and imaginings of the city have both recorded and helped to constitute the experience of modern life. This interdisciplinary and transnational course will explore major themes, discourses, images, visual and corporeal regimes of the modern city in Germany and Japan from the late 19th century to the immediate postwar years. We will take Berlin and Munich as our case studies for Germany, and Tokyo and Osaka for Japan. We will consider, on the German side, texts by Toller, Benjamin, Kracauer, Simmel, Heym, Brecht, and Benn, and films by Fritz Lang, Joseph von Sternberg, Walter Ruttmann, and Gerhard Lamprecht; and on the Japan side, texts by Ichiyō, Kawabata, Kafū, Tanizaki, Takeda Rintarō, and Oda Sakunosuke, and films by Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Naruse.

Course may be repeated for credit when topics differ.