GERST 4100 - The Seminar

(LA-AS, ALC-AS) Satisfies Option 1.

Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

Prerequisite: standard German proficiency as required for this level: any German course at the 3200-3499-level or equivalent. Taught in German. The Seminar is a requirement of the German Studies major, but is open to all students who have met the prerequisites. The course has a research component, including poster presentations of all final projects, and is taught each fall by a faculty member in the Department of German Studies on a topic of their expertise.

E. Born.

Topic: German Film from Weimar to Present: As the quintessential medium of modernity, film has played a central role in shaping national identities and creating imagined communities. At the same time, it remains closely connected to notions of universal communication, multicultural representation, and movements in global cinema. Moving between the national and the transnational, this course will examine the development of German cinema from the Weimar Republic to the present. With an emphasis on historical, economic, and social contexts, we will discuss classic feature films including Caligari, Der blaue Engel, Angst essen Seele auf, Die bleierne Zeit, Lola rennt, Good Bye, Lenin!, and Gegen die Wand. Student research will delve further into German cinema’s longstanding preoccupation with history and tradition, its provisional answers to questions of race, class, and gender, and its ongoing negotiation of local, regional, national, and global cultures.