GER 460 - Contemporary Visual & Digital Culture in Germany

This course will provide advanced students of German on overview of visual and digital forms connected to contemporary issues. Two main areas of focus will be the wave of immigration that began in 2015 and the rise of right-wing political responses to it. The course will examine a variety of media forms: newspaper images representing the new “Welcome Culture”; political ads for the right wing Alternative for Germany; the annually televised Eurovision Song contest; works by bicultural video artist Hito Steyerl, who was ranked by ArtReview as the most influential artist of 2017; films that depict East/West divides, like the German/Turkish/French Mustang (Deniz Gamze Ergüven, 2015) and the German/Turkish short film Fidelity (Ilker Catak, 2014); and the web series Polyglot, which documents young creatives of color in Berlin. It will also include recent scholarship, including a special issue of German Politics and Culture that focuses on German diversity, and journalism.
 

Satisifes a major requirement in German Studies.
Satisifes a minor requirement in German Studies.