HST 415: German Cultural History, 1800-1989
Spring 2008 -- TTH 2:00-3:15
Prof. Susan Crane
Office/Hours: Social Sciences 237a/W 3:30-4:30, TTH 3:30-4:15 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
Assigned required books are available at the UA Bookstore:
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
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.
Attendance: 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…).**
GRADES
Papers: 70%
Class participation (reading responses, active participation in discussion): 30%
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.