FALL 2009

Nietzsche und die deutschsprachige Literatur von 1900 bis heute

Prof K Bauer

Dieses Seminar bietet Einblick in die Vielfältigkeit der Nietzsche-Rezeption von 1900 bis zur Gegenwart. Zunächst erarbeiten wir ein generelles Verständnis der Bedeutung des Werkes Nietzsches für die deutschsprachige Literatur, um uns dann mit von Nietzsche inspirierten Fragen der Ästhetik und Ideologiekritik auseinander zu setzen. Untersucht werden nicht nur die Werke extensiver Rezipienten Nietzsches, sondern auch literarische Werke, die Nietzsches Gedankengut auf subtile Weise reflektieren. Vorläufige Leseliste: Nietzsche: Geburt der Tragödie; Genealogie der Moral; Zarathustra und Werke von Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Stefan George, Thomas Mann, Botho Strauß, Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, Hubert Fichte, und Christian Kracht.

Experimental and Documentary Film

Prof M Cowan

“Cinema”, Jean Epstein famously claimed in 1921, “is true. A story is a lie”. Over the past century, experimental and documentary filmmakers have never ceased to question the ‘truth’ of —or about — moving image media beyond the realms of explicitly narrative film. As early as the Weimar Republic, with its “Kulturfilme” and its defining experiments in “absolute film”, Germany and the German-speaking world have played a central role in this tradition—a tradition with particularly high stakes after WWII. In this course, we will examine the rich variety of non-narrative filmmaking from Germany and Austria over the past few decades, while also reading a selection of current theoretical works on images—moving and otherwise—in the modern world. Genres will include filmic essays, found footage and compilation films, ethnographic films, documentary reenactments, animation, celluloid ‘alchemy’, digital art and video installations.

Winter 2010

Der Pariser Heine

Prof P Peters

Perhaps the most important and exciting topic in Heine research in recent years has been the discovery and rediscovery of Heine as an author in and of the city of Paris: indeed, it has been rightfully asserted that Heine is not simply an adherent, but one of the prime creators of the “Myth of Paris” as it emerged in the 19th century. This seminar will examine in detail not only the codification of Paris in Heine’s classic studies Lutezia and Französische Zustände - as the generative centre of modernity in politics, society, culture, and mores - but Paris’s own considerable impact on him in his poetic work, particularly the Neue Gedichte, Romanzero and Letzte Gedichte. Finally, Heine’s codification of Paris would be contrasted with that of Balzac and Baudelaire, and of Benjamin in his Baudelaire studies.

The History of Text Technologies

Prof A Piper

A great deal of recent scholarly work has focused our attention on the materiality of the text, on what has been called the “dynamism of the signifier.” This course will serve as an introduction into a variety of theoretical approaches to studying the long history of textual technologies, from the inception of writing through medieval manuscript culture, mass print culture, to contemporary electronic forms of (hyper)textuality. It is open to students from a broad range of disciplinary backgrounds (literature, cultural and communication studies, anthropology, etc.) and will serve as an extended reflection on the complex interactions of language and artifact for social practices of communication.

Previous graduate courses

Buchstäblichkeit
Prof S Benninghof-Lühl

Kino und Moderne
Prof M Cowan

Goethe und der Roman
Prof A Piper

Hölderlin
Prof P Peters

Ästhetische Theorie vom 18. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert
Prof M Cowan

Zwischen Protest und Post-Modernem Impuls: Zur Frage des Engagements
Prof K Bauer

Einführung in die Filmanalyse
Prof M Cowan

Ursprung der Weltliteratur: Übersetzung um 1800
Prof A Piper

Sprache(n) der Liebe
Prof P Peters