German (GERM-GA)

Past topics have included ?Kant?s third critique and Arendt?s lectures? and ?theories of history.?

A systematic introduction to German intellectual history with special emphasis on the role of art. Authors include Baumgarten, Herder, Kant, Schiller, Schlegel, Schelling, and Hegel.

A continuation of GERM.1115, this course presents Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Adorno, Derrida, de Man, and Luhmann.

Examines the philosophical roots and historical legacy of the German Enlightenment, addressing such topics as the public use of reason and the structural transformation of the public sphere; the dialectic of enlightenment; religious tolerance; the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah); representation and the sublime; opera and enlightenment; the idea of progress and the French Revolution. Texts by Leibniz, Mendelssohn, Kant, Lessing, Hamann, Goethe, Kleist, Mozart, Horkheimer, Adorno, Habermas, Benjamin, Foucault, and others.

Introduction to major works of Goethe, including Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, Faust, Wilhelm Meister, and selections of poetry.

Introduction to a new field in cultural and literary studies that investigates responses to and definitions of subjective and collective trauma.

Kafka?s work in the light of his preoccupation with language, particularly with the way this preoccupation affected his writing. The point of departure is the problematization of the referential function of language. An examination of Kafka?s diaries and letters follows.

Topics may include the disintegration of human and sexual relations in the early works; the destruction of identity and the construction of a ?collective individuality?; the experience of the modern metropolis; Brecht?s Marxism and his contribution to a new dialectics; Brecht?s formal innovations in drama and poetry; and Brecht?s theatre theories.

Focuses on the role of visuality in modernist thought, with an emphasis on the German tradition. Examines how epistemological models are oriented to a subject defined as a viewer and producer of images. Readings in critical theory, art history, and theories of film and photography.

An investigation into the ways photography has been conceptualized since its inception until its recent transformation brought about by the advent of digital imaging. Particular attention is paid to the notion of the ?world? as it informs most theoretical attempts to grasp photography; the way in which the rise of photography is indissociably linked to the emergence of psychoanalysis and phenomenology; theories of perception; issues of veracity, mimesis, and aesthetics; and the relation between photography andAn investigation into the ways photography has been conceptualized since its inception until its recent transformation brought about by the advent of digital imaging. Particular attention is paid to the notion of the ?world? as it informs most theoretical attempts to grasp photography; the way in which the rise of photography is indissociably linked to the emergence of psychoanalysis and phenomenology; theories of perception; issues of veracity, mimesis, and aesthetics; and the relation between photography and its historical moment.

Examination of Nietzsche?s terms ?Appollonian? and ?Dionysian? in The Birth of Tragedy that serves as the basis for an investigation of his aesthetic theory, epistemology, and ethics. Uses other writings as background and source. Traces Nietzsche?s impact on 20th-century literature.

Explores the fundamental structures of psychoanalysis with a view to its philosophical implications. Readings range from scrupulous analyses of Freud, Lacan, Klein, Derrida, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Nancy to ?Heideggerian psychoanalysis? or cryptonymy (Abraham and Torok).

Introduction to a major author of early 20th-century German literature. Selected essays and fictional texts are studied as examples of modernism in German prose literature: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, Drei Frauen, Nachlass zu Lebzeiten.

Topics include Weimar modernity, Weimar theatre, women, Jewish aspects and anti-Semitism, the rise of fascism, and the postexpressionist aesthetics of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Sobriety) in novels, drama, poetry, and journalism, with an interdisciplinary interest in the other arts. Works by Roth, brothers Mann, Brecht, Seghers, Horv?th, Fleisser, Tucholsky, Polgar, and Kisch.

Max Frisch and Peter Weiss, outsiders who confronted Germans with the Nazi past and became key figures in the reconstitution of (West) German postwar literature. Emphasis is on the experimental and innovative aspects of their works and on theories of diaristic and autobiographical prose.

Systematic introduction to problems of representation in 19th-century prose. Authors include Tieck, Hebbel, Keller, Stifter, and others.

In this seminar we will explore temporality as the backbone of history, but not in the traditional, chronological way. Instead, we will examine the possibilities of a temporality that is not linear but moves in different directions, starting from the present. During the four weeks we will closely read selected chapters from three novels, in view of their potential for transmediation into visual, or audio-visual texts: -Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary 1856 -Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote (part 1) 1605 -Domnica Radulescu, Train to Trieste 2008 Each novel lends itself to reading with a contemporary slant that we will take as primary in view of making a “pre-posterous” connection between present and past. Each has been or will be audio-visualized: the first one into a feature film, alternatively shown with photographs as installations; the second consists of installations only, and the third will be a feature film only. For the latter we will be able to read the script based on the novel, written by someone else (not connected to my own projects). The question of time will be studied in view of order (sequence, chronology, preposterousness); duration; and rhythm. This 2-credit course will be conducted in English.

Taught annually in conjunction with the Departments of German, English, and Comparative Literature. Ronell. 4 points. Recent themes include ?forgiveness and violence,? ?sovereignty,? ?trauma.?

Open to advanced students with permission of the director of graduate studies and chair of the department.

Students will explore the interlocking histories of Jews and non-Jewish Western Europeans after the Holocaust using Germany, Italy, and France as case studies. They will analyze how Jewish and non-Jewish populations coped with "difference" and with political uncertainty in their post-Holocaust landscapes and how these fraught relationships have evolved over the past 60 years. The course will examine political, social and cultural aspects of these relationships as well as differing memories, memorializations, and perceptions of the past.