GERM 427 - Beauty and Terror: Weimar Germany on the Page, Stage, and Screen

FC ARHU CD

4 credits
Weimar Germany (1918-1933) was a time of flourishing creativity and emancipation as well as economic despair and political violence. This course explores the literature, film, music, and visual arts of that turbulent era. We will discuss the artistic reflections of the “New Woman” phenomenon, the sexual liberation, the WWI “shell shock” effect, the role of technology and urbanization, the search for meaning of life and the pursuit of pleasure as a desperate attempt to ignore the approaching catastrophe. Works by Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, Fritz Lang, Walter Benjamin, Hermann Hesse, Hannah Höch, Irmgard Keun, Mascha Kaléko, Else Lasker-Schüler, and others. Taught in German.

Prerequisites: GERM 204 or equivalent proficiency.