GERM 301 - Senior Seminar

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

An examination of selected topics in German literature and culture. May be taken more than once for credit when topic changes.

Topic for 2013/14a: The Politics of German Memory. The collective memories of the Nazi past in the two postwar German states have helped define a new paradigm of memory politics. German Holocaust memory has been taken as a test case in different parts of the world from Europe to South Africa and from Latin America to Iraq. We will study how the two Germanies have responded to the memories of the Nazi past and what role Holocaust memory plays in the construction of a new national identity in the unified Germany. In addition to Holocaust memory, the legacies of the GDR also had to be negotiated and rethought after the Wende in 1989. This course traces the discourse on memory in the Federal Republic of Germany and the development of a new transnational memory in the new millennium. We will work with texts of many different genres and a variety of media, from theoretical texts, to films, websites and fictional texts. Authors and films include Christa Wolf, Heiner Müller, Günter Grass, Herta Müller, Jacob the Liar, Goodbye Lenin, and The Lives of Others. Ms.von der Emde.

Prerequisite(s): GERM 260 or GERM 270 or the equivalent.

Two 75-minute periods.