GERM 450 | Contemporary Voices in German Literature and Film since 1989

This seminar seeks to interrogate assumptions about contemporary German and American culture and examine how one can better define what German and ’Germanness’ means today (if at all possible) from the perspective of the outsider, the foreigner, and the other. What do the words ’Heimat’ and ’Nation’ mean to Germans today and why have these notions remained so fluid - even undefinable - in the German context? In this course, students engage with various literary texts, film, news items, and other media from Germany after reunification (1989/90). The course begins by touching on current events and debates surrounding the nation-state, immigrants, and multiculturalism in Germany’s increasingly evolving social and political landscape in the twenty-first century. Then it explores these questions and topics in several units, focusing on the following themes: Germany’s ever-changing capital Berlin and its role within the European and German cultural landscape; perspectives on contemporary Germany and the problems of identity, assimilation, and integration into the Leitkultur/dominant culture from German-Jewish, German-Turkish, and Afro-German writers, artists, and their communities; the on-going reassessment of life in the former German Democratic Republic and the phenomenon of so-called ’Ostalgie’; and finally, Germany’s legacy of and continued struggle with fascism.