Unit name | German Modernist Prose |
---|---|
Unit code | GERM20045 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | I/5 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Professor. Vilain |
Open unit status | Open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
none |
School/department | Department of German |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit will explore the phenomenon of modernism in the German-speaking world using literary and non-literary texts written predominantly between 1895 and 1935 (with the exception of texts by Nietzsche, an important precursor). The fiction of this period is complex and often contradictory and frequently explores the increasing isolation of the individual in a rapidly developing world, the nature of consciousness and the threats posed to the stability of notions of ‘home’ and ‘identity’. It was inspired and influenced to some extent by the thinking of Nietzsche and Freud, but also by socio-political phenomena such as the rise of communism and the parallel development of nationalism, the emancipation of women, the growing importance of science, technology and psychology (including changing attitudes to mental health) – and, not least, the First World War, its genesis and its aftermath. There is an explosion of experimentation in techniques of representation, narrative technique, and linguistic eclecticism.
Texts for study will vary year-by-year. They will represent a range of genres, and will typically include (extracts from) novels (e.g. by Veza Canetti, Alfred Döblin, Rainer Maria Rilke), Novellen (e.g. by Arthur Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig), and short stories (e.g. by Marieluise Fleißer, Franz Kafka), as well as extracts from seminal works by Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Aims:
Successful students will be able to demonstrate:
2-hour seminars, including mini-lectures, student presentations, quizzes, small-group and full-group discussion.
two essays of 2000 words each, each contributing 50% of the total mark, each testing ILOs 1-5.