Envisioning Contemporary Europe: New Political Realities in Film, Literature, and Art

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

In this course we'll focus on some of the central concerns in contemporary European cultures: how to construct a meaningful sense of historical memory (and post-memory), how are gender and class struggles impacting national and increasingly transnational identities, and how can artists develop new forms of representation to depict those changes. In each unit we'll compare how films, novels, television series, and conceptual art frame these issues, zeroing in on points of both commonality and divergence. We'll also be incorporating films from the Nanovic Film Series at the Browning Cinema. (Some of the texts we'll be discussing: Pawlikowski, Cold War, Tykwer, Babylon Berlin, Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend, Sorrentino, La Grande Bellezza, Donnersmarck, Never Look Away, Almodovar, Pain and Glory, Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book 2, Rohrwacher, Lazzardo Felice, Price, Borgen)