This course provides a general introduction to German, Scandinavian, Nordic & Dutch literary and cultural history from the 1700s to the present. Quite the feat! Literature will be broadly defined to analyze the variety of ways texts and visual media can be analyzed. Course materials include: autobiography, persuasive writing, film, letter writing, poetry, short story, theater, and a novel. Whose history and literature counts will be tested and provoked as we examine Central and Northern Europe in its entirety and not just in its whiteness. From unification to the present, we will reflect on identity formation in Europe and challenge the idea that Europe was/is constructed as a white space. In this course, we will question various notions of "exceptionalism" as part of their identity myths. As we think through this and more will allow us to discuss the perception of who is imagined to belong to a German/Nordic/Dutch community and who is not.
Course Historical Points
· Colonialism
Enlightenment
· Emerging bourgeoisie
· Fin de siècle Vienna
· WWII and the Holocaust
· Divided Germany
· Travel Writing
· Balkan War