GER 576

Spring 2012 All Classes

All Classes

Credit: 4 hours.

Seminar in literary phenomena (such as movements, genres and forms, relations, themes and types, interdisciplinary studies, women's studies) that go beyond the confines of a particular century.

May be repeated to a maximum of 12 hours if topics vary. Prerequisite: GER 510.

GER 576 class schedule data for spring 2012
CRN Type Section Time Day Location Instructor Section Details
39103
Lecture-Discussion
A4
3:00PM -4:50PM
M
1136 Foreign Languages Building
Nielsen, K
Part of Term:
1
Date Range:
01/17/12-05/02/12
Credit:
4 hours
Section Title:
Aesthetics and Politics
Section Info:
The seminar will focus on seminal texts by German social theorists writing on art, culture, and politics in the early 20th century. The course will explore seminal texts by German social theorists and philosophers writing on art, media, mass culture and politics in the early twentieth century. Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer, Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and other left-wing intellectuals sought to put their theories into practice with the aim of transforming and liberating society from oppressive political systems. These theorists, writing before, during and after the political turmoil of mid-20th century Europe, created and demanded a significant social role for aesthetics, and their cross-disciplinary research involved all cultural dimensions, including literature, music, the visual arts, and mass media. In the 1920s and 30s, Kracauer and Benjamin examined photography, film, and the role of images in ways that linked the social focus of the Frankfurt School with the cultural focus of the Hamburg School (Warburg Institute). The graduate seminar is primarily a reading course designed to familiarize us with some of the most important early texts. But the seminar will also consider later European theorists, such as Peter B�rger and Jacques Ranci�re, tangentially drawing on the ideas of the Frankfurt School while fundamentally concerned with the politics of aesthetics. Instructor: Kristine Nielsen Meets with GER 496 and CWL 581.
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