GRMN 238/COML 244(CwiC)
Fall 2008 – T/R 4:30-6:00
Meeting Place TBA
Instructor: Curtis Swope
Office: Williams 437
Email: cswope@sas.upenn.edu
The Image of Berlin
Course Description: Berlin was arguably the twentieth century’s most
important city. It produced some of the world’s most innovative art,
architecture, literature, theater and film during the 1920s, yet went
on to become Hitler’s capital in the 1930s. It was the iconic city of
the Cold War as its Western sectors received U.S. aid during the
Berlin airlift and as its neighborhoods were torn asunder by the Wall
in 1961. It is a city defined as much by its image and its symbolic
force as by the reality of life along its boulevards and in its
apartment buildings. This course will examine Berlin’s image in the
twentieth century from the heyday of the cabarets to the new palaces
of glass and steel in which today’s parliament and chancellor conduct
the affairs of state. We will explore ways the city was made into a
showpiece by governments with different ideologies and why it has been
such a compelling destination for American politicians seeking to
score points at home.
Course Goals: Affiliated with Communication within the Curriculum
(CwiC), this course has two main aims. One is to examine Berlin’s
image in the twentieth century and how that image has been used for
different political and economic purposes. The second aim, as we
reflect on how the city has been marketed and presented, is to help
students reflect on their own self-presentation. This means a focus on
rhetorical skills from exposition to argument in discussions of texts
and films, in debates and in speech assignments. Most Tuesday sessions
will see the introduction of a new topic in rhetoric and presentation.
Most Thursdays will feature debates. Students will have the
opportunity to work with a CwiC adviser to prepare speech assignments
and improve specific aspects of his or her speaking according to
personal needs and goals. In addition, video recordings will be made
of at least one presentation by each student, also to be discussed in
a meeting with the CwiC adviser. Students are encouraged but not
required to attend CwiC workshops throughout the semester. Details on
these and more information on other CwiC programs can be found at
www.sas.upenn.edu/cwic
Texts and Screenings: Döblin, Isherwood and Le Carré are available for
purchase at the Penn Book Center (34th and Sansom). We will discuss
screening dates/locations for the six required films, four of which
come at the end of the course. All other readings will be put on
reserve in the Rosengarten Library (lower level of Van Pelt)and/or
handed out as photocopies in class.
2
Grading: 25% preparation, discussions, debates; 25% mid-term
presentation (5-8 min. analytical presentation on a major text or film
from the course, in-class Oct. 16 - Nov. 4); 50% final presentation
(20 min. cultural “tour” of Berlin based on works from the course, in
pairs in class Nov. 18 – Dec. 4)
Course Policies: No late work accepted. The third missed class or late
arrival results in a one-letter-grade reduction in final grade.
Course Schedule
Sept. 4:
Course Introduction – A Geographical Approach to Berlin Culture
Sept. 9:
Berlin in the 1910s and 1920s - Georg Heym, selected poems; excerpts
from Otto Dix, 1861-1969 (London: Tate Gallery, 1992); excerpts from
The Berlin of George Grosz: Drawings, Watercolors and Prints, 19121930 (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1997)
Speech Topic: Persuasion and Visual Aids
Sept. 11:
Döblin’s Berlin – excerpts, Alfred Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz (New
York: Continuum, 1983)
Debate: Döblin’s literary rhetoric – overblown or effective?
Sept. 16:
Excerpts, Berlin Alexanderplatz
Speech Topic: Voice Control, Eye Contact, Posture and Nervousness
Sept. 18:
Excerpts, Berlin Alexanderplatz
Debate: Döblin’s Berlin – gritty and realist or stylized and
mythological?
3
Sept. 23:
Isherwood’s Berlin - excerpts, Christopher Isherwood, The Last of Mr.
Norris in Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin
(New York: New Directions, 1963)
Speech Topic: Speaking about Yourself
Sept. 25:
Excerpts, The Last of Mr. Norris
Debate: Who is Mr. Norris?
Sept. 30:
Excerpts, The Last of Mr. Norris
Speech Topic: Mid-term Presentations
Oct. 2:
Nazi Berlin - David Clay Large, Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936 (New
York: Norton, 2007) 3-17, 147-165; Steven Bach, Leni: The Life and
Work of Leni Riefenstahl (New York: Knopf, 2007)9-21, 141-163
Debate: The Olympic Stadium renovation – pro vs. con
Oct. 9:
Selected Nazi speeches available from PBS at the following link:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goebbels/filmmore/ps.html; The Man behind
Hitler (PBS documentary on Josef Goebbels, to be watched in class)
Speech Topic: Rallies, Appeals and Exhortations
Oct. 16:
Berlin in Ruins - A Foreign Affair (VHS), (Universal City: Universal,
1998)
Debate: Does Erika von Schlütow deserve sympathy?
+ Presentations (3)
4
Oct. 23:
Socialist Berlin in the 1950s - Brian Ladd, “Socialism on Display:
East Berlin as a Capital” in Berlin-Washington, 1800-2000: Capital
Cities, Cultural Representation and National Identities (Washington,
D.C.: German Historical Institute, 2005); Aman Anders, Architecture
and Ideology in Eastern Europe during the Stalin Era: An Aspect of
Cold War History (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992) selections
Speech Topic: Visual Aids (part 2)
+ Presentations (3)
Oct. 28:
Berlin as Capital of Espionage – excerpts from John Le Carré, The Spy
Who Came in from the Cold (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963); Andrew
Rutherford’s essay in John Le Carré (New York: Chelsea House, 1987)
Debate: Is Le Carré’s Berlin that different from his London?
+ Presentations (3)
Oct. 30:
Excerpts, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Speech Topic: Target Audience
+ Presentations (3)
Nov. 4:
Kennedy’s Cold War - John F. Kennedy, “Ich bin ein Berliner”, in Let
Every Nation Know: John F. Kennedy in his Own Words (Naperville:
Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2006); Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy’s Wars (New
York: Oxford U. Press, 2000) 58-78.
Debate: Krushchev vs. Johnson
+ Presentations (3)
Nov. 6:
Socialist Cosumers, Socialist Rebels – Introduction to Consuming
Germany in the Cold War (Oxford: Berg, 2003); excerpts from Kathleen
James-Chakraborty, German Architecture for a Mass Audience (New York:
Routledge, 200); scenes from Solo Sunny (DVD from First Run Features,
2008; to be watched in class)
5
Speech Topic: Final Presentations
Nov. 11:
1930s Berlin in the 1970s - Cabaret (DVD), (Burbank: Warner Home Video,
1998)
Debate: Is the film just historical or is it supposed to say
something about the U.S. in the 1970s?
Nov. 13:
The Wild West – selections from Jeremy Varon, Bringing the War Home:
The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and the Revolutionary
Violence in the Sixties and Seventies (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2004); Excerpts from John Le Carré Absolute Friends
(New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2003); selections from The Words
and Music of David Bowie (Westport: Praeger, 2007)
Speech Topic: Reports
Nov. 18:
The Divided City in the 1980s - Wings of Desire (DVD)(Santa Monica:
MGM, 2003), Ronald Reagan, “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down this Wall”
Debate: Is Reagan’s rhetoric effective?
+ Presentations (1)
Nov. 20:
Turkish Berlin - Die Liebenden vom Hotel von Osman (DVD); Peter
Schneider, “The New Berlin Wall” The New York Times, Dec. 4, 2005;
Nora Fitzgerald, “Turkish-German Artists Thrive in their Adopted Land”
The New York Times, January 8, 2004
Speech Topic: “Like”, “Ya know” and the culture of language
+ Presentations (1)
Nov. 25:
The East Remembered - The Lives of Others, (DVD) (Culver City: Sony
Pictures Home Entertainment, 2007)
6
Debate: Art was more powerful in East Germany than it is now –
pro and con
+ Presentations (1)
Dec. 2
The New Berlin – Michael Wise, “Expressing Government Power without
Pomposity”, The New York Times, April 11, 1999; Ed Ward, “The
‘Cabaret’ Days Are Gone, Now It’s Shades of Gray”, The New York Times,
April 11, 1999; Barack Obama Speech in Berlin, July 24, 2008
Speech Topic: Language and Identity
+ Presentations (2)
Dec. 4
Final discussion
+ Presentations (2)