0A
This course will explore the themes of dreams, death, and sex in literary and aesthetic representations about the city of Vienna. We will examine the ways in which Freud's work on dreams and his theory of psychoanalysis shaped larger cultural discourses about unconscious drives, dreams, and sexuality. One focus of the course will be on the centrality of death as a defining topic in Austrian culture. Looking at a wide variety of texts drawn from literature, art, music, and film, we will explore the centrality of dreams, death, and sex in Austrian culture from the fin-de-siècle to the present. By reading literary texts in German, writing critical papers, and discussing the works in German, students' command of written and spoken German language will improve. Readings will include works by Freud, Schnitzler, Hofmannsthal, Musil, Bachmann, and Jelinek,. Class will be conducted entirely in German.