Courses Taught:
Germ305s: Pop Culture and Identity in Germany.
This course introduces students to the history and politics of youth and pop culture in post-war Germany through the immersion in authentic material. With a special interest in the intersection of pop and politics, we will circle our topic by examining the following aspects: History, Politics, City Life, and Rural Life. The class asks students to interpret songs and movies, as well as literary and discursive texts. Two main questions will guide classroom discussion: Is there a specific German tradition of popular culture? And if so, what is the relationship between pop and contemporary political debates?
Learning Objectives. After taking this class, students will be able to …
… navigate the diverse pop cultural discourses in German speaking cultures.
… express their thoughts about complex issues in both speaking and writing.
… write a variety of different texts, e. g. formal correspondences, film reviews, or autobiographical essays.
… orally discuss a variety of material in shorter and longer presentations..
… confidently use grammar they learned before, and to master advanced grammatical
structures.
… read literary as well as discursive texts with minimal help.
Future Courses:
Posthuman Nightmares: German Avant-Gardes After the Great War
Introducing students to the central avant-garde movements of the Weimar Republic, this class analyzes visual artworks, film, and literature against the backdrop of World War I. The class will pay specific attention to the dehumanizing effects of the Great War and its reflection in the arts. Considering how the mechanization of warfare overturned earlier conceptions of the benefits of war, students will trace tropes of posthumanism in late Expressionism, Dada, New Objectivity, and other avant-garde movements. During the 1920s, disfigured bodies and minds of war survivors began to appear in a variety of texts, artworks, and films. Whether it was the soldiers who turned into machines of steel in Ernst Jünger’s Storms of Steel, the patients of a military hospital who had their limbs replaced with mechanical prostheses in Ernst Toller’s Transfiguration, the bio-mechanical hand-replacement in Robert Wiene’s The Hands of Orlac, or the chopped-up images of human bodies in Dada collages: In the avant-gardes after the Great War, future technologies do not invoke hopes of a peaceful society, but rather manifest the atrocities of history through the mechanization of human bodies.
Learning Objectives. After taking this class, students will be able to …
… identify the major avant-garde movements of the Weimar Republic.
… interpret artworks by paying particular attention to the role of technologies. compare different artistic and poetic approaches to post-war society.
… discuss and evaluate their own interpretation in constructive dialogue with their peers.
Are the Kids Alright? Diversity and Cultural Appropriation in German Pop
This course offers students a comprehensive introduction to the history and politics of German popular culture. Analyzing songs, texts, and films from the 1950s to today, this course pays particular attention to questions of diversity and cultural appropriation by interpreting course readings from two different perspectives. First, we ask about pop culture’s role in confronting mainstream German society with the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany. Secondly, the class also evaluates German pop culture’s inclination to appropriate other traditions, such as African-American or Turkish culture. Students will read poems by Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, essays by Hubert Fichte, and short stories by Feridun Zaimoglu and Sharon Dodua Otoo. Films discussed in this class include Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Fatih Akin’s Head-On, and Frauke Finsterwalde’s Finsterworld, while students will also analyze German popular music from Schlager to Krautrock to hip hop and techno. Writings by critics like Theodor W. Adorno, Stuart Hall, Diedrich Diederichsen, Priscilla Layne, and others will provide students with the critical language they need to navigate the class’s materials.
Learning Objectives. After taking this class, students will be able to …
… describe the particular history of German popular culture.
… analyze popular culture by applying critical and theoretical concepts.
… compare the role of popular culture in Germany, the U.S., and other countries. … evaluate different perspectives on the emancipatory potential of popular culture.