HST 415: German Cultural History, 1800-1989
Spring 2006 -- TTH 2:00-3:15
Prof. Susan Crane
Office/Hours: Social Sciences 237a/TTH 3:30-4:30 and by appointment.
E-mail/phone: scrane@u.arizona.edu /621-1113
What is "cultural history"? This course introduces themes in German history which emphasize the production of culture within pre-and post-national states. We will focus on forms of identity which are shaped by dynamic processes involving institutions, individuals, and groups within German society from the eighteenth century to the present. In particular, we will pay attention to how collective identities are formed around religion, nationalism, political ideologies, the experience of war, and intellectual movements such as Romanticism.
Students are not required to have a prior knowledge of the German language or German history but are expected to have some familiarity with the outlines of modern European history.
TEXTS
All of the assigned readings are available for purchase either as books and course packet at the bookstore, or as "ERes" on the Main Library website, Sabio.
- Eric Dorn Brose, German History 1789-1871
- Amos Elon, The Pity of it All: A History of the Jews in Germany , 1743-1933
- Modris Eksteins, The Rites of Spring
- Ian Kershaw, The Hitler Myth
- Course Packets (2)
Access "ER" readings at http://eres.library.arizona.edu/
Password for the course: culture
ASSIGNMENTS
CLASS PARTICIPATION
Students are expected to have read each reading assignment in advance of the class meeting for which it is assigned, and be prepared to discuss the contents. To assist preparation for discussion, students will regularly write one-page reading responses . Responses are limited to one typed page of comments, questions and reflections on the assigned reading. Do not summarize the reading; a better response will focus on one aspect or issue that interested you. Use quotes from the text as examples or evidence to support a point.
Attendence: If you know you will have to miss a class for legitimate reasons, you are expected to inform the instructor in advance. Only students who have excused absences on reading response due dates may make up the assignment by writing a response for another day's reading and handing it in on the day that reading is assigned.
Papers : Three 5-7 page papers will be written on the assigned readings and will not require additional research. Failure to credit the source of any statement which is not the result of your own creative endeavor is plagiarism, which is a violation of academic integrity and personal honesty and will result in a failing grade for the course . If you have any questions about what plagiarism is, consult the instructor or the Sabio page on plagiarism (http://www.library.arizona.edu/help/tutorials/plagiarism/plagiarism-res…).
The Dept. of History offers writing support, from brainstorming to rough draft review, to any student enrolled in a history course. The writing assistant this semester is Rachel Ayers, rjayers@email.arizona.edu . Her office hours are Monday, 9-12 and Thursday 1-3 in SS 124; 621-3247.
GRADES
Papers: 70%
Class participation (reading responses, active discussion): 30%
Class Schedule
Jan. 12 Introduction
Jan. 17 Heimat and National Identity
Required Reading : Applegate, Nation of Provincials , pp. 1-14; (ER; also available as e-book on Sabio)
**READING RESPONSE DUE **
JAN. 19 NO CLASS (instructor out of town)
Jan. 24 Wars of Liberation as Foundation of National Identity [slides]
Required Reading : Brose, German History, ch. 4
Jan. 26 United Germany or United Europe ? Franz von Baader's solution
Jan. 31 Culture as Identity: Romanticism [slides]
Required Reading : Brose, German History , ch. 8 and Holt, The Triumph of Art for the Public , pp. 169-178 [packet]
Feb. 2 Lecture. Culture as Identity: Historical Consciousness
Feb. 7 Required Reading : Goethe, "On Gothic Art and Architecture" (2 essays; packet)
**READING RESPONSE DUE **
Feb. 9 Religious Identities: Protestant
Required Reading : Brose, German History , pp. 124-130; Schleiermacher, "First Speech: Apology" [ER]
Feb. 14 Religious Identities: Catholic
Required Reading : Blackbourn, "Apparitions of the Virgin Mary" [packet]
Feb. 16 Religious Identities: Jewish
Required Reading : Elon, The Pity of it All , ch. 4-5
Paper Topic #1 handed out in class
Feb. 21 Required Reading : Elon, The Pity of it All , ch. 6-8
**READING RESPONSE DUE **
Feb. 23 Required Reading : Berger, "Making Germans 1871-1914" (ER)
Feb. 28 Film Screening: "The Great War"
Paper #1 due in class
Mar. 2 Film Screening: "The Great War"
Mar. 7 Required Reading : Eksteins, The Rites of Spring , ch. 1-3, 6
Mar. 9 Required Reading : Eksteins, The Rites of Spring , ch. 9-10
**READING RESPONSE DUE **
**Spring Break**
Mar. 21 Film screening: " Berlin , Symphony of a Great City "
Mar. 23 From the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich
Paper Topic #2 handed out in class
Mar. 28 Required Reading : Kershaw, The Hitler Myth , ch. 1-3
Mar. 30 Required Reading : Evans, "Social Outsiders in German History" [packet]
Apr. 4 Required Reading : Kershaw, The Hitler Myth , ch. 4-5
Apr. 6 Film screening: "Triumph of the Will"
Paper #2 due in class
Apr. 11 Representatives of German Culture: Jewish Surviving Victims
Required Reading : Reich-Ranicki, selections; Kluger, selections [packet]; and Kershaw, ch. 9
Apr. 13 Race = Identity = Destiny in the Third Reich
Required Reading : http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/rassenpo.htm (SS pamphlet on racial policy)
**READING RESPONSE DUE**
Apr. 18 Postwar Reflections
Required Reading : Herbert, "Good Times, Bad Times" {ER} and Jarausch, "The Totalitarian Temptation" [packet]
Apr. 20 Migration, Re-migration and the National Identity Reconsidered
Required Reading : Naimark, "The Expulsion of Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia " and Jarausch, "Unsettling German Society" [packet]
Final paper topics handed out in class
Apr. 25 Guest Lecture: Dr. Severin Hochberg , US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Apr. 27 A Short History of the Berlin Wall
May 2 No class � prepare final papers
Final paper due May 5 by 5:00 pm in Soc Sci 215 (instructor's mailbox)
Packet/ERes Readings
Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials (U California Press, 1990) , 273 pages; pp. 1-14.
Eric Dorn Brose, German History 1789-1870: from the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich (Berghahn, 1997), pp. 66-80, 131-152.
Elizabeth Holt, The Triumph of Art for the Public: The Emerging Role of Exhibitions and Critics (1979), 530 pages; pp. 169-178.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Essays on Art and Literature ( Princeton , 1986), 268 pages: "On German Architecture" pp 3-9; "On Gothic Architecture" pp. 10-14.
David Blackbourn, "Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarkian Germany " in Geoff Eley, ed., Society, Culture and the State in Germany 1870-1930 ( Michigan , 1996), 522 pages; pp. 189-220.
Stefan Berger, Inventing the Nation: Germany ( Arnold , 2004), 274 pages; pp. 77-110.
Ruth Kluger, Still Alive (The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2001), 214 pages; pp. 44-60, 70-79, 84-88, 110-112.
Marcel Reich-Ranicki, The Author of Himself: The Life of Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Princeton Univ. Press, 2001), 407 pages; pp. vii-x, 3-13, 44-53,103-109, 123-130, 375-378.
Norman Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe (Harvard University Press, 2001), 248 pages; ch. 4. "The Expulsion of Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia ".
Richard Evans, "Social Outsiders in German History" in Robert Gellately and Nathan Stoltzfus, eds ., Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany (Princteon UP, 2001), 332 pages; pp. 20-44.
Konrad Jarausch and Michael Geyer, Shattered Past: Reconstructing German Histories (Princeton Univ. Press, 2003), 380 pages; pp. 148-172 and 197-220.