HISTORY OF GERMAN CULTURE MOD.2
- Academic year
- 2018/2019 Syllabus of previous years
- Official course title
- STORIA DELLA CULTURA TEDESCA MOD. 2
- Course code
- LM1020 (AF:277257 AR:157178)
- Modality
- On campus classes
- ECTS credits
- 6
- Degree level
- Master's Degree Programme (DM270)
- Educational sector code
- L-LIN/13
- Period
- 1st Semester
- Course year
- 1
- Where
- VENEZIA
Contribution of the course to the overall degree programme goals
Expected learning outcomes
Pre-requirements
Other students and Erasmus students are kindly asked to contact the lecturer.
Contents
At the end of the Enlightenment, and particularly after the French Revolution and The Terror regime, some German and Austrian authors develop a strong critique against Rationality, which is no longer seen as an instrument of Knowledge but critically considered as an instrument of Power. During the last 200 years very different writers like Friedrich Schiller, Heinrich von Kleist, Novalis, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Mann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Sigmund Freud and Botho Strauss expressed this antirationalistic and antimodern attitude in their works. The module aims to offer an introduction to German "Antimodernism" from the French Revolution until today and to analyse some key texts of these intellectual tendencies with regard to content and style.
The course will be divided into three parts:
1. Kulturkritik and the French Revolution: Schiller, Kleist, Novalis;
2. Kulturkritik and Nationalism (with regard to the World Wars): Nietzsche, Mann, Hofmannsthal;
3. Kulturkritik and national identity in the contemporary age: Botho Strauß.
The course will concentrate on the critical potentialities of these texts but also highlight their not always unproblematic results.
Referral texts
Friedrich Schiller: Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen, in einer Reihe von Briefen (edizione Reclam oppure testo online:
http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/-3355/1 );
Novalis: Fragmente und Studien, Die Christenheit oder Europa, Reclam, Stuttgart 1986, pp. 67-89 (oppure testo online:
http://www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Novalis/Essay/Die+Christenheit+oder+Europa );
Heinrich von Kleist: Michael Kohlhaas (edizione Reclam oppure testo online: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/583/1 );
Thomas Mann: Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, Fischer, Frankfurt a.M. 2001 (capitolo „Bürgerlichkeit“, pp. 120-165);
Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Das Schrifttum als geistiger Raum der Nation, in: Hofmannsthal, Hugo von: Reden und Aufsätze, in: ders.: Gesammelte Werke in zehn Einzelbänden, a cura di Bernd Schoeller con la collaborazione di Rudolf
Hirsch, Frankfurt a.M. 1979, vol. 3, pp. 24-41 oppure testo online: http://ds.ub.uni-bielefeld.de/viewer/image/97830/1/ );
Sigmund Freud: Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, in: Studienausgabe IX , Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 1970,(o testo online: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/922/1 );
Thomas Mann: Deutschland und die Deutschen, in: Essays (vol. 5: Deutschland und die Deutschen 1938-1945), a cura di Hermann Kurzke e Stephan Stachorski, Frankfurt a.M. 1996, pp. 260-281;
Botho Strauss: Anschwellender Bocksgesang (8.2.1993, online: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13681004.html );
Botho Strauss: Der letzte Deutsche (2.10.2015, online: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/index-2015-41.html ).
2.
Olivier Agard/Barbara Beßlich (Hrsg.): Kulturkritik zwischen Deutschland und Frankreich (1890–1933) in SCHRIFTEN ZUR POLITISCHEN KULTUR DER WEIMARER REPUBLIK, Peter Lang,Frankfurt a.M. 2016, vol. 18 (pp. 9-21; 291-305);
Giuliano Baioni: „La filologia e il sublime dionisiaco", in: Friedrich Nietzsche: Considerazioni Inattuali, Torino 1981, pp. VII-LXIII;
Barbara Beßlich: Wege in den „Kulturkrieg“. Zivilisationskritik in Deutschland 1890-1914, Darmstadt 2000, (pp. 1-44);
Stefan Breuer: Ästhetischer Fundamentalismus. Stefan George und der deutsche Antimodernismus, Darmstadt 1996 (Einleitung, pp.1-10; Präludium, pp. 11-19; Drittes Kapitel: Die Kultur und ihre Feinde, pp. 184-240, Die Paradoxie des ästhetischen Fundamentalismus, pp. 241-244);
Merlio, Gilbert / Raulet, Gérard (Hrsg.): Linke und rechte Kulturkritik. Interdiskursivität als Krisenbewußtsein, Frankfurt a.M. et al., 2005 (parti).
Moreover, for students who cannot attend the lessons:
Georg Bollenbeck: Eine Geschichte der Kulturkritik. Von Rousseau bis Günther Anders, Beck, München 2007.
Assessment methods
Module 1:
- a translation of a text passage from German into Italian;
- a general check about the whole programme;
- a brief presentation of a paper written in German (5-10 pages).
Module 2:
- a translation of a text passage from German into Italian;
- a general check about the whole programme;
- a brief presentation of a paper written in German (10-15 pages).
The exam can be held in German.
Teaching methods
Further information
2. Students who cannot attend the lessons are kindly requested to contact the lecturer in the office hours.
3. An international congress about "Kulturkritik der Wiener Moderne" organized in collaboration with the University of Heidelberg and funded by DFG, by DAAD and by the Forum Austriaco di cultura Milano (25th-27th September 2018), will be part of this course. A workshop in collaboration with the Foundation Musei Civici Veneziani is connected to this project, so that two lectures of the course will take place in the Venetian museums Ca’ Pesaro and Palazzo Fortuny on the subject "Venice and Mitteleuropa" and "Wagner in Venice".
4.A special Seminar, with debates and discussions involving both students and professors, will be held by professor Franco Moretti (Columbia University, Stanford University, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) on the subject of « Teaching literature » (18th, 19th, and 22nd October 2018). It will be an essential addition to this course as part of the 2018/2019 teaching activities for all the LLEAP Students.
Type of exam
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals
This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "International cooperation" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development