4AAGA114 Texts and Contexts
Module Syllabus:
Module Organizers: Dr Ben Schofield, benedict.schofield@kcl.ac.uk / Professor
Erica Carter, erica.carter@kcl.ac.uk
Module Level: 4
Module Credit: 30 credits
Module Semester: Semesters 1 and 2
1. Module Description:
What is German culture and why is it important? How is culture related to history,
politics, and society? To what extent are texts the products of their contexts? These
and other questions stand at the heart of this first year introductory module. The
module is designed to give you an introduction to German literature, film, history
and culture from the Early Modern Period to the present day. It provides you with a
foundation in literary and film studies, as well as a background in German history
since the Reformation.
The module works through week-by-week primary readings that introduce you to
key texts and important literary, cultural and political movements. Each text derives
from one or more representative figures from prose, drama, poetry, film and
politics. Seminar work involves close readings of the primary texts, but also draws
on secondary literature to familiarize you with a range of critical methods,
approaches and issues. Weekly whole-group lectures provide background context
and core critical perspectives on the texts and their context, while small-group
seminars help you develop critical awareness and skills in close textual analysis.
Methodologies explored in seminar work include formal and stylistic analyses of
texts; genre analysis; thematic versus historical or intertextual studies of primary
material; and discussions of issues in historiography, including questions of
periodisation, and of the interplay between history and literary or other cultural
texts.
You will not be a passive observer in your lectures and seminars with module
tutors. Instead, these sessions are designed, through small-group discussion and
collaborative work on primary and secondary texts, to involve you in the process of
honing your analytical and interpretative skills, and developing your capacity for
critical expression about texts and their contexts.
By the end of the module, you will be able to demonstrate a sound understanding of
the major movements of German culture, as well as the interaction of cultural works
with their social, economic and historical contexts. You will have significantly
enhanced your skills in the reading comprehension of German literary, historical
and critical texts, and will be able to express yourselves critically and independently
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about those texts and their contexts. The module will have equipped you with core
knowledge and understanding of German culture and history; given you practical
experience of literary, filmic and historical analysis; and provided an introduction to
the central skills required to read texts analytically and express ideas critically.
2. Weekly Outline and Primary Texts:
Listed below is your week-by-week reading for the module. It is very important
that you read the primary texts before attending the classes, since the classes are
seminar-based and interactive! You should purchase your own copies of primary
literature where possible. Films will be available on DVD from the Maughan
Library.
You are required to read primary texts in German. This may seem hard initially,
especially for those of you who have not studied German-language literature at ALevel. But your reading speed and comprehension will develop as the module
progresses, so what may seem difficult at the beginning will hopefully become
second nature by the end of Semester 2.
There are also important pieces of secondary reading that we recommend as
background for the weekly seminars. Wherever possible, we have included the
secondary reading in your Digital Coursepack, which contains electronic copies of
the texts. In some cases, however, we need you to read a paper copy, or there is a
link to an online version of the text available in the library catalogue. The link to the
Digital Coursepack can be found on the main KEATS page for this module; e-books
can be accessed through the library catalogue.
For a full bibliography of secondary literature, including further reading not listed
below, see the Reading List pages on this KEATS module.
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SEMESTER ONE:
Week 1
Introduction to the Module
Dr Ben Schofield
No primary or secondary reading: lecture handouts will include a module outline
and research skills quiz.
Week 2
What is a Text?
Dr Ben Schofield
Primary Text
No text.
Secondary Readings
E-book: Mario Klarer, An Introduction to Literary Studies. 2nd edition (Routledge:
London, 2004), Chapter 1: ‘What is Literature? What is Text’; and Chapter 2, Part 1:
‘Major Genres in Textual Studies: Fiction’, pp. 1-26.
You might also want to read
Digital Coursepack: Roland Barthes, ‘Rhetoric of the Image’, in Roland Barthes,
Image, Music, Text, ed. and trans. by Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977), pp. 3251.
Week 3
What is Context?
Dr Ben Schofield
Primary Text
No text.
Secondary Reading
E-book: Nicholas Boyle, A Very Short Introduction to German Literature (Oxford:
OUP, 2008), ‘Introduction’, pp. 1-4.
Paper Copy: Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany. 2nd edition (Cambridge:
CUP, 2004), Chapter 1: ‘Introduction. The German Lands and People’, pp. 1-8.
Week 4
German Reunification
Dr Ben Schofield
Primary Text
Stefan Heym, ‘Auf Sand gebaut’, in Stefan Heym, Auf Sand gebaut. Filz (München: btb,
2005).
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack: Rob Burns (ed.), German Cultural Studies. An Introduction,
Chapter 7: Godfrey Carr and Georgina Paul, ‘Unification and its Aftermath. The
Challenge of History’, pp. 325-46.
Paper Copy: Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of Germany. 2nd edition (Cambridge:
CUP, 2004), Chapters 7 and 8: ‘The Two Germanies: 1945-1990’ and ‘The Federal
Republic of Germany since 1990’, pp. 205-57 (esp. pp. 220-57).
Week 5
Immigration and Multiculturalism
Dr Alex Clarkson
Primary Texts
Feridun Zaimoglu, Abschaum: Die Wahre Geschichte von Ertan Ongun (Tübingen:
Rotbuch, 2003).
Paper Copy: Feridun Zaimoglu, ‘Der Nudelsalat’, in Georg Diez (ed.), Das war die BRD
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– Fast Vergessene Geschichten (Munich: Goldmann, 2001).
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack: Panikos Panayi, Ethnic Minorities in Nineteenth and Twentieth
Century Germany (Harlow, Longman, 2000), Chapter 6: ‘The Age of Mass Migration’.
Digital Coursepack: Karen Schönwälder, ‘Why Germany’s Guest Workers were
largely Europeans: The Selective Principles of Post-War Labour Recruitment
Policy’, in Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 27, no. 2 (2004), 248-65.
You might also want to look at:
Paper Copy: Roger Brubaker, ‘The return of assimilation? Changing perspectives on
immigration and its sequels in France, Germany, and the United States’, in Ethnic
and Racial Studies, vol. 24, no. 4 (2001), 531-548.
Week 6
Reading Week
Week 7
Primary Text
Paper Copy:
Post-1945 Poetry (i)
Dr Áine McMurtry
Ingeborg Bachmann, ‘Alle Tage’; ‘Die gestundete Zeit’ [*close analysis*]
Bertolt Brecht, ‘An die Nachgeborenen’
Paul Celan, ‘Todesfuge’; ‘Zähle die Mandeln’ [*close analysis*]
Günter Eich, ‘Inventur’
Nelly Sachs, ‘In den Wohnungen des Todes’
Secondary Reading
Paper Copy:
Paul Celan, ‘Bremer Rede’ (1958)
Paper Copy:
Karen Leeder, ‘Modern German poetry’ in The Cambridge
Companion to Modern German Culture, ed. by Eva Kolinsky and
Wilfried van der Will (Cambridge: CUP, 1999), pp. 193-212
You might also want to look at:
Paper Copy:
Petra Kiedaisch (ed.), Lyrik nach Auschwitz? Adorno und die
Dichter (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1995)
Week 8
Primary Text
Paper Copy:
Post-1945 Poetry (ii)
Dr Áine McMurtry
Ingeborg Bachmann, ‘Keine Delikatessen’ [*close analysis*]
Hans Magnus Enzensberger, ‘Bildzeitung’
Eugen Gomringer, ‘schweigen’; ‘vielleicht’; ‘worte’
Ernst Jandl, ‘schtzngrmm’; ‘wien : heldenplatz’ [*close analysis*]
Peter Ruhmkorf, ‘Lied der Naturlyriker’
Timm Ulrichs, ‘ordnung’
Secondary Reading
Paper Copy:
Peter Rühmkorf, extracts from ‘Das lyrische Weltbild der
Nachkriegsdeutschen’ (1962)
Paper Copy:
Eugen Gomringer, ‘konkrete dichtung’ (1956)
You might also want to look at:
Paper Copy:
Petra Kiedaisch (ed.), Lyrik nach Auschwitz? Adorno und die
Dichter (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1995)
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Week 9
Weimar Modernism 1
Prof Erica Carter
Primary Text
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (dir. Robert Wiene, 1919/20)
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack: Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler. A Psychological
History of the German Film. Ed. and Introduction Leonardo Quaresima (Princeton:
Princeton UP, 2004: orig.1947), Chapter 3, ‘Caligari’, pp. 61-76.
Digital Coursepack: Anton Kaes, Shell Shock Cinema. Weimar Culture and the Wounds
of War (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2011), Chapter 2, ‘Tales from the Asylum’, pp.4586.
You might also want to look at:
Paper Copy: Lotte Eisner, The Haunted Screen: expressionism in the German Cinema
and the influence of Max Reinhardt. Trans. Roger Greaves (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2008: orig. 1952). Extract from Chapter 2, ‘The Beginnings of the
Expressionist Film’, pp. 17-27.
E-book: Mario Klarer, An Introduction to Literary Studies. 2nd edition (Routledge:
London, 2004), Chapter 2, Part 4: ‘Major Genres in Textual Studies: Film’, pp. 56-66.
Paper Copy: Gerd Gemünden, ‘How to View a Film’, in Scott Denham, Irene Kacandes
and Jonathan Petropoulos (eds.), A User’s Guide to German Cultural Studies
(Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1997), pp. 458-460.
Week 10
Weimar Modernism 2
Prof Erica Carter
Primary Text
Berlin. Die Sinfonie der Grossstadt (dir. W. Ruttmann, 1927).
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack: Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler. A Psychological
History of the German Film. Ed. and Introduction Leonardo Quaresima (Princeton:
Princeton UP, 2004: orig.1947), Chapter 3, ‘The Stabilized Period (1924-1929), esp.
‘The New Realism’ and ‘Montage,’ pp. 165-189.
Paper copy: Nora M. Alter, ‘Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (1927): City, Image,
Sound’, in Noah Isenberg, ed. and introd., Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to
Classic Films of the Era (New York, NY: Columbia UP, 2009), pp. 193-215
You might also want to look at
Paper copy: Rob Burns (ed.), German Cultural Studies. An Introduction, Selections
from Chapter 2, “Weimar Culture: the Birth of Modernism,” pp. 53-77 (Introduction
to the Chapter, “Defending Tradition: The Reaction against Modernity”, “Weimar
Germany’s Modernist Political Project: Theory and Practice”, “Definitions of
Culture”, “Modernism and its Malcontents”, and “Neue Sachlichkeit: The Weimar
Structure of Feeling”).
Week 11
Weimar Modernism 3
Dr Florian Lippert
Primary Text
Franz Kafka, ‘Das Urteil’, in Franz Kafka, Das Urteil und andere Erzählungen (Text
und Kommentar. suhrkamp BasisBibliothek) (Frankfurt: suhrkamp, 2003:
orig.1912).
Secondary Reading
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Paper Copy: Hans Dieter Zimmermann, ‘Das Urteil. Der Sohn’, in Hans Dieter
Zimmermann, Kafka für Fortgeschrittene (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2004), pp. 65-72.
Digital Coursepack: Russell A. Berman, ‘Tradition and Betrayal in “Das Urteil”’, in A
Companion to the Works of Franz Kafka, ed. James Rolleston (Rochester NY: Camden
House, 2002), pp. 85-99.
You might also want to look at:
E-book: Ritchie Robertson, Kafka: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 2004).
SEMESTER TWO:
Week 1
Medieval Love Lyric
Dr Sarah Bowden
Primary Text
Paper Copy: Selection of Minnesang (to be distributed in semester 1)
Secondary Reading
Paper Copy: Peter Gilgen, ‘Singer of Himself’, in A New History of German Literature,
ed. by David Wellbery and Judith Ryan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2004), pp. 102–06
Paper Copy: Nigel Palmer, ‘The high and later Middle Ages (1100–1450)’, in The
Cambridge History of German Literature, ed. by Helen Watanabe O’Kelly (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997)
You may also want to read:
E-book: Joachim Bumke, Courtly Culture: Literature and Society in the High Middle
Ages, trans. by Thomas Dunlap (Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford: University of
California Press, 1991), chapter 5 (‘The Courtly Ideal of Society’), section 3 (‘Courtly
love’), pp. 360–77
Week 2
Medieval Comic Tales
Dr Sarah Bowden
Primary Text
Paper Copy: Heinrich Kaufringer, Die Rache des Ehemannes (to be distributed in
semester 1)
Secondary Reading
Paper Copy: Mark Chinca, ‘The body in some Middle High German Mären’, in Framing
Medieval Bodies, ed. by Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1994), pp. 187–210
Paper Copy: Sebastian Coxon, Laughter and Narrative in the Later Middle Ages:
German Comic Tales 1350–1525 (London: Legenda, 2008), chapter 3 (Laughter in
Comic Tales), pp. 58–82
Week 3
Reformation 1
Dr Catherine Smale
Primary Texts
Digital Coursepack: Martin Luther, Von der Freyheyt einisz Christenmenschen
(excerpts)
Secondary Reading
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E--book: Nicholas Boyle, A Very Short Introduction to German Literature (Oxford:
OUP, 2008), Chapter 2, ‘The Laying of the Foundations (to 1781)’, sub‐section:
‘Towns and Princes (to1720)’, pp. 27‐37.
Paper Copy: C. Scott Dixon, ‘The Reformation Movement in Germany’, in Early
Modern German Literature, 1350–1700, ed. by Max Reinhart (Rochester, NY: Camden
House, 2007), pp. 189-216.
You might also want to look at
Paper Copy: Alister McGrath, Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 3rd edition
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), Chapter 6, ‘The Doctrine of Justification by Faith’, pp.
101-129.
Paper Copy: Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided (London:
Penguin, 2003), Chapter 3, ‘New Heaven: New Earth, 1517-24’, pp. 106-152.
Paper Copy: Marcus Wriedt, ‘Luther’s Theology’, in The Cambridge Companion to
Martin Luther, ed. by Donald K. McKim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003), pp. 86-119.
Week 4
Reformation 2
Dr Catherine Smale
Primary Texts
Digital Coursepack: Argula von Grumbach, ‘Wie eyn Christlich fraw des adels...’
(1523)
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack: Kirsi Stjerna, Women and the Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell,
2002), Chapter 6, ‘Argula von Grumbach, 1492 to 1563/68? – A Bavarian Apologist
and a Pamphleteer’, pp. 72-85.
E-journal (accessed via Maughan Library Catalogue): Peter Matheson, ‘Breaking the
Silence: Women, Censorship, and the Reformation’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 27:1
(1996), 97-109.
You might also want to look at
Paper Copy: Paul Russell, Lay Theology in the Reformation: Popular Pamphleteers in
Southwest Germany 1521-1525 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986),
Chapter 6, ‘Female Pamphleteers: The Housewives Strike Back’, pp. 185-211.
Paper Copy: Merry Wiesner, ‘Nuns, Wives and Mothers: Women and the Reformation
in Germany’, in Women in Reformation and Counter-Reformation Europe: Public and
Private Worlds (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), pp. 8-27.
E-journal (accessed via Maughan Library Catalogue): Albretch Classen, ‘Woman Poet
and Reformer: The 16th-Century Feminist Argula von Grumbach’, Daphnis 20:1
(1991), 167-97.
Week 5
Enlightenment
Professor Matthew Bell
Primary Text
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Emilia Galotti: Ein Trauerspiel in fünf Aufzügen. (Text und
Kommentar. Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek) (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2004: orig. 1772).
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack: G. A. Wells, ‘What is wrong with Emilia Galotti?’, German Life and
Letters, vol. 37 (1983‐84), 163-73.
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Digital Coursepack: F. J. Lamport, ‘The Death of Emilia Galotti – A Reconsideration’,
German Life and Letters, vol. 44 (1990-91), 25-34.
You might also want to look at
E--book: Nicholas Boyle, A Very Short Introduction to German Literature (Oxford:
OUP, 2008), Chapter 2, ‘The Laying of the Foundations (to 1781); sub-section:
‘Between France and England, 1720-81’, pp. 37-48.
E--book: Mario Klarer, An Introduction to Literary Studies. 2nd edition (Routledge:
London, 2004), Chapter 2, Part 3: ‘Major Genres in Textual Studies: Drama’, pp.
27‐42.
Paper Copy: Christian Rogowski, ‘How to Read a Play’ and Heidi Gilpin, ‘How to View
Performance’, in Scott Denham, Irene Kacandes and Jonathan Petropoulos (eds.), A
User’s Guide to German Cultural Studies (Michigan: University of Michigan Press,
1997), pp. 467-473.
Week 6
Reading Week
Week 7
Sturm und Drang
Professor Matthew Bell
Primary Text
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (Text und Kommentar.
Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek) (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998: orig. 1774).
Secondary Reading
Digital Coursepack: Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, ed. by
Roger Paulin (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1993), ‘Introduction’, pp. vii–xxvi.
Digital Coursepack: Bruce Duncan, ‘“Emilia Galotti lag auf dem Pult aufgeschlagen”:
Werther as (Mis-)Reader’, Goethe Yearbook, vol. 1 (1982), 42-50.
You might also want to look at:
E-book: Nicholas Boyle, A Very Short Introduction to German Literature (Oxford: OUP,
2008), Chapter 2, ‘The Laying of the Foundations (to 1871)’; extract, pp. 48-57.
Week 8
Vormärz Germany
Dr Ben Schofield
Primary Text
Georg Büchner, Woyzeck. (Text und Kommentar. Suhrkamp Basisbibliothek)
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2008: orig.1836-1879).
Secondary Reading
Paper Copy: Edward McInnes, Woyzeck (Glasgow Introductory Guides to German
Literature 9) (Glasgow: University of Glasgow French and German Productions,
1991), esp. Chapter Four (pp. 37-49).
Paper Copy: John Guthrie, ‘Introduction’ to Woyzeck (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press,
1993), esp. pp. 14-23.
Week 9
German Realism
Dr Ben Schofield
Primary Text
Theodor Storm, Der Schimmelreiter. (Text und Kommentar. Suhrkamp
Basisbibliothek) (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1999: orig.1888).
Secondary Reading
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Digital Coursepack: Todd Kontje (ed.), A Companion to German Realism, 1848-1900
(Rochester NY: Camden House, 2004), “Introduction. Reawakening German
Realism” (extract), pp.1-9.
Paper Copy: Michael Minden, Modern German Literature (Cambridge: Polity, 2011),
‘The Novelle’, pp. 68-70.
You might also want to look at:
Paper Copy: Michael Minden, Modern German Literature (Cambridge: Polity, 2011),
Chapter 2, ‘Poetry and Politics’, sub-sections: ‘German Realism’ and ‘An Affirmative
Literature’, pp. 53-64.
Week 10
No readings.
Essay Workshop
BS/CSm/AM/SB
Week 11
No readings.
Module Review
BS/CSm/AM/SB
3. Teaching arrangements:
-
The module is taught for two hours per week.
The first hour is a whole-group lecture
The second hour is a small group seminar
You are welcome to contact the module tutors to discuss the module at
any time. The module tutors also have Office Hours which can be found at the
bottom of the KEATS page for the module and on the departmental
noticeboard.
BS/CSm 17.08.12
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