HST 415: German Cultural History, 1800-1989
Spring 2004 -- TTH 2:00-3:15
Prof. Susan Crane

Office/Hours: Social Sciences 237a/TTH 3:30-4:30 and by appointment.

E-mail/phone: scrane@u.arizona.edu/621-1113

**See individual class dates for additional links**

What is "cultural history"? This course introduces themes in German history which emphasize the production of culture within pre-and post-national states. We will focus on forms of identity which are shaped by dynamic processes involving institutions, individuals, and groups within German society from the eighteenth century to the present. In particular, we will pay attention to how collective identities are formed around religion, nationalism, political ideologies, the experience of war, and intellectual movements such as Romanticism.

Students are not required to have a prior knowledge of the German language or German history but are expected to have some familiarity with the outlines of modern European history.

TEXTS

All of the assigned readings are available for purchase either as books or course packet at the bookstore. Also, all assigned readings are on 2-hour reserve at the Main Library under the title and author listed on the syllabus or, for course packet readings, on the Table of Contents. Additional readings are available as "ERes" on the Main Library website, Sabio.

Amos Elon, The Pity of it All: A History of the Jews in Germany, 1743-1933

George Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses

Modris Eksteins, The Rites of Spring

Ian Kershaw, The Hitler Myth

Course Packet (there are two packets; see attached Table of Contents)

Access "ER" readings at http://eres.library.arizona.edu/

ASSIGNMENTS

CLASS PARTICIPATION

Students are expected to have read each reading assignment in advance of the class meeting for which it is assigned, and be prepared to discuss the contents. To assist preparation for discussion, students will regularly write one-page reading responses. Responses are limited to one typed page of comments, questions and reflections on the assigned reading. Do not summarize the reading; a better response will focus on one aspect or issue that interested you. Only students who have excused absences on reading response due dates may make up the assignment by writing a response for another day’s reading and handing it in on the day that reading is assigned.

Papers: Three 5-6 page papers will be written on the assigned readings.

Failure to credit the source of any statement which is not the result of your own creative endeavor is plagiarism, which is a violation of academic integrity and personal honesty and will result in a failing grade for the course.

GRADES

Papers: 70%

Class participation (reading responses, discussion): 30%

Class Schedule

Jan. 15 Introduction

Jan. 20 Heimat and National Idenity

Required Reading: Applegate, Nation of Provincials, pp. 1-14; (ER; also available as e-book on Sabio)

**READING RESPONSE DUE **

Jan. 22 Wars of Liberation as Foundation of National Identity

Required Reading: Brose, German History, ch. 4 (packet)

Jan. 27 United Germany or United Europe? Franz von Baader's solution

Jan 29 Culture as Identity: Romanticism

Required Reading: Brose, German History, ch. 8 and Holt, The Triumph of Art for the Public, pp. 169-197 (packet)

To view images by Caspar David Friedrich:

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/4782/MonkbytheSea1809.jpg

http://www.inter-art.com/en/friedrich1.htm?x=1995

Feb. 3 Culture as Identity: Historical Consciousness

Feb. 5 Required Reading: Goethe, "On Gothic Art and Architecture" (2 essays; packet)

**READING RESPONSE DUE **

Feb. 10 Religious Identities: Protestant

Required Reading: Brose, German History, pp. 124-130; Schleiermacher, "First Speech: Apology" [packet]

**READING RESPONSE DUE **

Feb. 12 Religious Identities: Catholic

Required Reading: Blackbourn, "Marpingen" [packet]

Feb. 17 Religious Identities: Jewish

Required Reading: Elon, The Pity of it All, ch. 4-6

**READING RESPONSE DUE **

Paper Topic #1 handed out in class

Feb. 19 Required Reading: Elon, The Pity of it All, ch. 7-8

Feb. 24 Spectacles of National Identity

Required Reading: Mosse, ch. 1-3

**READING RESPONSE DUE **

Feb. 26 Required Reading: Mosse, ch. 4-7

Mar. 2 Film Screening: "The Great War"

Paper #1 due in class

Mar. 4 Film Screening: "The Great War"

Mar. 9 Required Reading: Eksteins, The Rites of Spring, ch. 1-3, 6

**READING RESPONSE DUE

Mar. 11 Required Reading: Eksteins, The Rites of Spring, ch. 9-10

**Spring Break**

Mar. 23 "Film screening: Berlin, Symphony of a Great City"

Mar. 25 From the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich

Paper Topic #2 handed out in class

Mar. 30 Required Reading: Kershaw, The Hitler Myth, ch. 1-3

Apr. 1 Required Reading: Kershaw, The Hitler Myth, ch. 4-5

Apr. 6 Required Reading: Mosse, ch. 8-9

Apr. 8 Film screening: "Triumph of the Will"

Paper #2 due in class

Apr. 13 Representatives of German Culture: Jewish Surviving Victims

Required Reading: Reich-Ranicki, selections (packet); Kluger, selections (packet); and Kershaw, ch. 9

Apr. 15 Race = Identity = Destiny in Third Reich

Required Reading: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/rassenpo.htm (SS pamphlet on racial policy) and Evans, "Social Outsiders in German History"

**READING RESPONSE DUE**

Apr. 20 Postwar Reflections

Required Reading: Herbert, "Good Times, Bad Times" (ER) and Jarausch, "The Totalitarian Temptation" (packet)

Apr. 22 Migration, Re-migration and the National Identity Reconsidered

Required Reading: Naimark, "The Expulsion of Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia" and Jarausch, "Unsettling German Society" (packet)

Apr. 27-29 Film screening: "The Nasty Girl"

May 4 A Short History of the Berlin Wall

Final paper due May 10

Course packet and other readings

Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials (U California Press, 1990), pp. 1-14

Eric Dorn Brose, German History 1789-1870: from the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich (Berghahn, 1997), pp. 66-80, 131-152.

Elizabeth Holt, The Triumph of Art for the Public: The Emerging Role of Exhibitions and Critics (1979), pp. 169-197.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Essays on Art and Literature (1986): "On German Architecture" pp 3-9; "On Gothic Architecture" pp. 10-14.

David Blackbourn, "Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarkian Germany" in Geoff Eley, ed., Society, Culture and the State in Germany 1870-1930 (Michigan, 1996), pp. 189-220.

Ruth Kluger, Still Alive (The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2001), pp. 44-60, 70-79, 84-88, 110-112.

Marcel Reich-Ranicki, The Author of Himself: The Life of Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Princeton Univ. Press, 2001), pp. vii-x, 3-13, 44-53,103-109, 123-130, 375-378.

Norman Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe (Harvard University Press, 2001), ch. 4. "The Expulsion of Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia".

Richard Evans, "Social Outsiders in German History" in Robert Gellately and Nathan Stoltzfus, eds., Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany (Princteon UP, 2001), pp. 20-44.

Konrad Jarausch and Michael Geyer, Shattered Past: Reconstructing German Histories (Princeton Univ. Press, 2003), pp. 148-172 and 197-244.