4AAGA114 Texts and Contexts
Module Syllabus:
Module Organizers: Dr Ben Schofield, / Professor Erica Carter,
Module Level: 4
Module Credit: 30 credits
Module Semester: Semesters 1 and 2
- Module Description:
What is German culture and why is it important? How is culture related to history, politics, and society? To what extent are texts the products of their contexts? These and other questions stand at the heart of this first year introductory module. The module is designed to give you an introduction to German literature, film, history and culture from the Early Modern Period to the present day. It provides you with a foundation in literary and film studies, as well as a background in German history since the Reformation.
The module works through week-by-week primary readings that introduce you to key texts and important literary, cultural and political movements. Each text derives fromone or more representative figures from prose, drama, poetry, film and politics. Seminar work involves close readings of the primary texts, but also draws on secondary literature to familiarize you with a range of critical methods, approaches and issues. Weekly whole-group lectures provide background context and core critical perspectives on the texts and their context, while small-group seminars help you develop critical awareness and skills in close textual analysis. Methodologies explored in seminar work includeformal and stylistic analyses of texts; genre analysis;thematic versus historical or intertextual studies of primary material; and discussions of issues in historiography, including questions of periodisation, and of the interplay between history and literary or other cultural texts.
You will not be a passive observer in your lectures and seminars with module tutors. Instead, these sessions are designed, through small-group discussion and collaborative work on primary and secondary texts, to involve you in the process of honing your analytical and interpretative skills, and developing your capacity for critical expression about texts and their contexts.
By the end of the module, you will be able to demonstrate a sound understanding of the major movements of German culture, as well as the interaction of cultural works with their social, economic and historical contexts. You will have significantly enhanced your skills in the reading comprehension of German literary, historical and critical texts, and will be able to express yourselves critically and independently about those texts and their contexts. The module will have equipped you with core knowledge and understanding of German culture and history; given you practical experience of literary, filmic and historical analysis; and provided an introduction to the central skills required to read texts analytically and express ideas critically.
- Weekly Outline and Primary Texts:
Listed below is your week-by-week reading for the module. It is very important that you read the primary texts before attending the classes, since the classes are seminar-based and interactive!You should purchase your own copies of primary literature where possible. Films will be available on DVD from the Maughan Library.
You are required to read primary texts in German. This may seem hard initially, especially for those of you who have not studied German-language literature at A-Level. But your reading speed and comprehension will develop as the module progresses, so what may seem difficult at the beginning will hopefully become second nature by the end of Semester 2.
There are also important pieces of secondary reading that we recommend as background for the weekly seminars. Wherever possible, we have included the secondary reading in your Digital Coursepack, which contains electronic copies of the texts. In some cases, however, we need you to read a paper copy, or there is a link to an online version of the text available in the library catalogue. Thelink to the Digital Coursepackcan be found on the main KEATS page for this module; e-books can be accessed through the library catalogue.
For a full bibliography of secondary literature, including further reading not listed below, see the Reading List pages on this KEATS module.
SEMESTER ONE:
Week 1 Introduction to the ModuleDr Ben Schofield
No primary or secondary reading: lecture handouts will include a module outline and research skills quiz.
Week 2 What is a Text? Dr Ben Schofield
Primary Text
No text.
Secondary Readings
E-book: Mario Klarer, An Introduction to Literary Studies. 2nd edition (Routledge: London, 2004), Chapter 1: ‘What is Literature? What is Text’; and Chapter 2, Part 1: ‘Major Genres in Textual Studies: Fiction’, pp. 1-26.
You might also want to read
Digital Coursepack:Roland Barthes, ‘Rhetoric of the Image’, in Roland Barthes,Image, Music, Text, ed. and trans. by Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977), pp. 32-51.
Week 3What is Context?Dr Ben Schofield
Primary Text
No text.
Secondary Reading
E-book: Nicholas Boyle, A Very Short Introduction to German Literature (Oxford: OUP, 2008), ‘Introduction’, pp. 1-4.
Paper Copy: Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany. 2nd edition (Cambridge: CUP, 2004), Chapter 1: ‘Introduction. The German Lands and People’, pp. 1-8.
Week 4 German ReunificationDr Ben Schofield
Primary Text
Stefan Heym, ‘Auf Sand gebaut’, in Stefan Heym, Auf Sand gebaut. Filz (München: btb, 2005).
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack: Rob Burns (ed.), German Cultural Studies. An Introduction, Chapter 7: Godfrey Carr and Georgina Paul, ‘Unification and its Aftermath. The Challenge of History’, pp. 325-46.
Paper Copy: Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany. 2nd edition (Cambridge: CUP, 2004), Chapters 7 and 8: ‘The Two Germanies: 1945-1990’ and ‘The Federal Republic of Germany since 1990’, pp. 205-57 (esp. pp. 220-57).
Week 5Immigration and MulticulturalismDr Alex Clarkson
Primary Texts
Feridun Zaimoglu,Abschaum: Die Wahre Geschichte von Ertan Ongun (Tübingen: Rotbuch, 2003).
Paper Copy: Feridun Zaimoglu, ‘Der Nudelsalat’, in Georg Diez (ed.),Das wardie BRD – Fast Vergessene Geschichten (Munich: Goldmann, 2001).
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack:PanikosPanayi, Ethnic Minorities in Nineteenth and Twentieth CenturyGermany (Harlow, Longman, 2000), Chapter 6: ‘The Age of Mass Migration’.
Digital Coursepack: Karen Schönwälder, ‘Why Germany’s Guest Workers were largelyEuropeans: The Selective Principles of Post-War Labour Recruitment
Policy’, in Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 27, no. 2 (2004), 248-65.
You might also want to look at:
Paper Copy: Roger Brubaker, ‘The return of assimilation? Changingperspectives on immigration and its sequels in France, Germany, and the United States’, inEthnic and Racial Studies, vol. 24, no. 4 (2001), 531-548.
Week 6Reading Week
Week 7Post-1945 Poetry (i)Dr Áine McMurtry
Primary Text
Paper Copy:Ingeborg Bachmann, ‘Alle Tage’; ‘Die gestundete Zeit’ [*close analysis*]
Bertolt Brecht, ‘An die Nachgeborenen’
Paul Celan, ‘Todesfuge’; ‘Zähle die Mandeln’ [*close analysis*]
Günter Eich, ‘Inventur’
Nelly Sachs, ‘In den Wohnungen des Todes’
Secondary Reading
Paper Copy:Paul Celan, ‘Bremer Rede’ (1958)
Paper Copy:Karen Leeder, ‘Modern German poetry’ in The Cambridge Companion to Modern German Culture, ed. by Eva Kolinsky and Wilfried van der Will (Cambridge: CUP, 1999), pp. 193-212
You might also want to look at:
Paper Copy: Petra Kiedaisch (ed.), Lyrik nach Auschwitz? Adorno und die Dichter (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1995)
Week 8 Post-1945 Poetry (ii)Dr Áine McMurtry
Primary Text
Paper Copy: Ingeborg Bachmann, ‘Keine Delikatessen’ [*close analysis*]
Hans Magnus Enzensberger, ‘Bildzeitung’
Eugen Gomringer, ‘schweigen’; ‘vielleicht’; ‘worte’
Ernst Jandl, ‘schtzngrmm’; ‘wien : heldenplatz’ [*close analysis*]
Peter Ruhmkorf, ‘Lied der Naturlyriker’
Timm Ulrichs, ‘ordnung’
Secondary Reading
Paper Copy:Peter Rühmkorf, extracts from ‘Das lyrische Weltbild der Nachkriegsdeutschen’ (1962)
Paper Copy:Eugen Gomringer, ‘konkrete dichtung’ (1956)
You might also want to look at:
Paper Copy: Petra Kiedaisch (ed.), Lyrik nach Auschwitz? Adorno und die Dichter (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1995)
Week 9Weimar Modernism 1Prof Erica Carter
Primary Text
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (dir. Robert Wiene, 1919/20)
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack:Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler. A Psychological History of the German Film. Ed. and Introduction Leonardo Quaresima (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2004: orig.1947), Chapter 3, ‘Caligari’, pp. 61-76.
Digital Coursepack:Anton Kaes, Shell Shock Cinema. Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2011), Chapter 2, ‘Tales from the Asylum’, pp.45-86.
You might also want to look at:
Paper Copy: Lotte Eisner, The Haunted Screen: expressionism in the German Cinema and the influence of Max Reinhardt. Trans. Roger Greaves (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008: orig. 1952). Extract from Chapter 2, ‘The Beginnings of the Expressionist Film’, pp. 17-27.
E-book: Mario Klarer, An Introduction to Literary Studies. 2nd edition (Routledge: London, 2004), Chapter 2, Part 4: ‘Major Genres in Textual Studies: Film’, pp. 56-66.
Paper Copy: Gerd Gemünden, ‘How to View a Film’, in Scott Denham, Irene Kacandes and Jonathan Petropoulos (eds.), A User’s Guide to German Cultural Studies (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1997), pp. 458-460.
Week 10Weimar Modernism 2Prof Erica Carter
Primary Text
Berlin. Die Sinfonie der Grossstadt (dir. W. Ruttmann, 1927).
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack:Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler. A Psychological History of the German Film. Ed. and Introduction Leonardo Quaresima (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2004: orig.1947), Chapter 3, ‘The Stabilized Period (1924-1929), esp. ‘The New Realism’ and ‘Montage,’ pp. 165-189.
Paper copy: Nora M. Alter, ‘Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927): City, Image, Sound’, in Noah Isenberg, ed. and introd.,Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era (New York, NY: Columbia UP, 2009), pp. 193-215
You might also want to look at
Paper copy: Rob Burns (ed.), German Cultural Studies. An Introduction,Selections from Chapter 2, “Weimar Culture: the Birth of Modernism,” pp. 53-77 (Introduction to the Chapter, “Defending Tradition: The Reaction against Modernity”, “Weimar Germany’s Modernist Political Project: Theory and Practice”, “Definitions of Culture”, “Modernism and its Malcontents”, and “Neue Sachlichkeit: The Weimar Structure of Feeling”).
Week 11Weimar Modernism 3Dr Florian Lippert
Primary Text
Franz Kafka, ‘Das Urteil’, in Franz Kafka, Das Urteil und andere Erzählungen (Text und Kommentar. suhrkamp BasisBibliothek) (Frankfurt: suhrkamp, 2003: orig.1912).
Secondary Reading
Paper Copy: Hans Dieter Zimmermann, ‘Das Urteil. Der Sohn’, in Hans Dieter Zimmermann, Kafka für Fortgeschrittene (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2004), pp. 65-72.
Digital Coursepack: Russell A. Berman, ‘Tradition and Betrayal in “Das Urteil”’, in A Companion to the Works of Franz Kafka, ed. James Rolleston (Rochester NY: Camden House, 2002), pp. 85-99.
You might also want to look at:
E-book:Ritchie Robertson,Kafka: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 2004).
SEMESTER TWO:
Week 1Medieval Love LyricDr Sarah Bowden
Primary Text
Paper Copy: Selection of Minnesang (to be distributed in semester 1)
Secondary Reading
Paper Copy: Peter Gilgen, ‘Singer of Himself’, in A New History of German Literature, ed. by David Wellbery and Judith Ryan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), pp. 102–06
Paper Copy: Nigel Palmer, ‘The high and later Middle Ages (1100–1450)’, in The Cambridge History of German Literature, ed. by Helen Watanabe O’Kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)
You may also want to read:
E-book: Joachim Bumke, Courtly Culture: Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages, trans. by Thomas Dunlap (Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford: University of California Press, 1991), chapter 5 (‘The Courtly Ideal of Society’), section 3 (‘Courtly love’), pp. 360–77
Week 2 Medieval Comic TalesDr Sarah Bowden
Primary Text
Paper Copy: Heinrich Kaufringer, Die Rache des Ehemannes (to be distributed in semester 1)
Secondary Reading
Paper Copy: Mark Chinca, ‘The body in some Middle High German Mären’, in Framing Medieval Bodies, ed. by Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), pp. 187–210
Paper Copy: Sebastian Coxon, Laughter and Narrative in the Later Middle Ages: German Comic Tales 1350–1525 (London: Legenda, 2008), chapter 3 (Laughter in Comic Tales), pp. 58–82
Week 3Reformation1Dr Catherine Smale
Primary Texts
Digital Coursepack: Martin Luther, Von der Freyheyt einisz Christenmenschen(excerpts)
Secondary Reading
E-book: Nicholas Boyle, A Very Short Introduction to German Literature (Oxford:OUP,2008),Chapter2,‘TheLayingoftheFoundations(to1781)’,sub‐section:‘TownsandPrinces(to1720)’,pp.27‐37.
Paper Copy: C. Scott Dixon, ‘The Reformation Movement in Germany’, in Early Modern German Literature, 1350–1700, ed. by Max Reinhart (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2007), pp. 189-216.
You might also want to look at
Paper Copy: Alister McGrath, Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 3rd edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), Chapter 6, ‘The Doctrine of Justification by Faith’, pp. 101-129.
Paper Copy: Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided (London: Penguin, 2003), Chapter 3, ‘New Heaven: New Earth, 1517-24’, pp. 106-152.
Paper Copy: Marcus Wriedt, ‘Luther’s Theology’, in The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther, ed. by Donald K. McKim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 86-119.
Week 4Reformation 2Dr Catherine Smale
Primary Texts
Digital Coursepack: Argula von Grumbach, ‘Wie eyn Christlich fraw des adels...’ (1523)
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack: Kirsi Stjerna, Women and the Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), Chapter 6, ‘Argula von Grumbach, 1492 to 1563/68? – A Bavarian Apologist and a Pamphleteer’, pp. 72-85.
E-journal (accessed via Maughan Library Catalogue): Peter Matheson, ‘Breaking the Silence: Women, Censorship, and the Reformation’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 27:1 (1996), 97-109.
You might also want to look at
Paper Copy: Paul Russell, Lay Theology in the Reformation: Popular Pamphleteers in Southwest Germany 1521-1525 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), Chapter 6, ‘Female Pamphleteers: The Housewives Strike Back’, pp. 185-211.
Paper Copy: Merry Wiesner, ‘Nuns, Wives and Mothers: Women and the Reformation in Germany’, in Women in Reformation and Counter-Reformation Europe: Public and Private Worlds (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), pp. 8-27.
E-journal (accessed via Maughan Library Catalogue): Albretch Classen, ‘Woman Poet and Reformer: The 16th-Century Feminist Argula von Grumbach’, Daphnis 20:1 (1991), 167-97.
Week 5 EnlightenmentProfessor Matthew Bell
Primary Text
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, EmiliaGalotti: Ein Trauerspiel in fünf Aufzügen. (Text und Kommentar. Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek) (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2004: orig. 1772).
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack:G.A.Wells,‘Whatiswrongwith Emilia Galotti?’, German Life and Letters,vol.37(1983‐84),163-73.
Digital Coursepack:F.J.Lamport,‘The Death of Emilia Galotti – A Reconsideration’, German Life and Letters, vol. 44 (1990-91), 25-34.
You might also want to look at
E-book: Nicholas Boyle, A Very Short Introduction to German Literature (Oxford:OUP,2008), Chapter 2, ‘The Laying of the Foundations (to 1781); sub-section: ‘Between France and England, 1720-81’, pp. 37-48.
E-book: Mario Klarer, An Introduction to Literary Studies. 2ndedition (Routledge: London, 2004), Chapter 2, Part 3: ‘Major Genres in Textual Studies: Drama’, pp. 27‐42.
Paper Copy: Christian Rogowski, ‘How to Read a Play’ and Heidi Gilpin, ‘How to View Performance’, in Scott Denham, Irene Kacandes and Jonathan Petropoulos (eds.), A User’s Guide to German Cultural Studies (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1997), pp. 467-473.
Week 6Reading Week
Week 7Sturm und DrangProfessor Matthew Bell
Primary Text
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (Text und Kommentar. Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek) (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998: orig. 1774).
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack:Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, ed. by Roger Paulin (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1993), ‘Introduction’, pp. vii–xxvi.
Digital Coursepack: Bruce Duncan, ‘“Emilia Galotti lag auf dem Pult aufgeschlagen”: Werther as (Mis-)Reader’, Goethe Yearbook, vol. 1 (1982), 42-50.
You might also want to look at:
E-book: Nicholas Boyle, A Very Short Introduction to German Literature (Oxford: OUP, 2008), Chapter 2, ‘The Laying of the Foundations (to 1871)’; extract, pp. 48-57.
Week 8Vormärz Germany Dr Ben Schofield
Primary Text
Georg Büchner, Woyzeck. (Text und Kommentar. Suhrkamp Basisbibliothek) (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2008: orig.1836-1879).
Secondary Reading
Paper Copy: Edward McInnes, Woyzeck(Glasgow Introductory Guides to German Literature 9) (Glasgow: University of Glasgow French and German Productions, 1991), esp. Chapter Four (pp. 37-49).
Paper Copy:John Guthrie,‘Introduction’ toWoyzeck(Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1993), esp. pp. 14-23.
Week 9German RealismDr Ben Schofield
Primary Text
Theodor Storm, Der Schimmelreiter. (Text und Kommentar. Suhrkamp Basisbibliothek) (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1999: orig.1888).
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack: Todd Kontje (ed.), A Companion to German Realism, 1848-1900 (Rochester NY: Camden House, 2004), “Introduction. Reawakening German Realism” (extract), pp.1-9.
Paper Copy: Michael Minden, Modern German Literature (Cambridge: Polity, 2011), ‘The Novelle’, pp. 68-70.
You might also want to look at:
Paper Copy: Michael Minden, Modern German Literature (Cambridge: Polity, 2011), Chapter 2, ‘Poetry and Politics’, sub-sections: ‘German Realism’ and ‘An Affirmative Literature’, pp. 53-64.
Week 10Essay WorkshopBS/CSm/AM/SB
No readings.
Week 11Module ReviewBS/CSm/AM/SB
No readings.
- Teaching arrangements:
-The module is taught for two hours per week.
-The first hour is a whole-group lecture
-The second hour is a small group seminar
-You are welcome to contact the module tutors to discuss the module at any time. The module tutors also have Office Hours which can be found at the bottom of the KEATS page for the module and on the departmental noticeboard.
BS/CSm 17.08.12
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