GER 403 - Kultur der Weimarer Republik

In this seminar we will encounter and study a broad array of cultural manifestations of the Weimar period (1919-1933). The course will center on individual characters, their self-reflection, and self-representation. Some anchors in the seminar will be the self-portraits of artists Käthe Kollwitz, Jeanne Mammen, Otto Dix, Hannah Höch, and Max Beckmann; the living spaces designed by Bauhaus-influenced architects and designers Marguerite Wildenhain-Friedlaender, Walter Gropius, Hans Scharoun, Bruno Taut, Alma Siedhoff-Buscher; the music of Kurt Weill, The Comedian Harmonists, and jazz in Berlin; cabaret and the dance of Anita Berber and Veleska Gert; literature by Alfred Döblin, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Irmgard Keun, and Hans Fallada; and the films of Robert Wiene, F.W. Murnau, Walter Ruttmann, Joseph Sternberg, Fritz Lang, G.W. Pabst and others; essays, journalism, and feuilleton of Kurt Tucholsky, Maria Leitner, and Walter Benjamin. The seminar includes a required weekly Wednesday night film series.