Germany's Interwar Years

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The years between the First and Second World Wars in Germany, 1918-1933, was a period of tremendous cultural and social experimentation. All of the arts—literature, painting, music, film, architecture—experienced radical transformations, in which artists broke with centuries of traditions and explored new ways of expression and shaping the environment. Politically it was a time of great change as well, with competing ideologies transforming the way people thought of themselves in relation to each other and to society and the state at large. In this class, we will explore some of the major movements, works, and people that characterize this extraordinary decade and a half of transition and upheaval. Topics and figures we will consider are Expressionism, Bauhaus, New Objectivity, Atonal music, Fritz Lang, Bertolt Brecht, Klaus Mann, Irmgard Keun, Marlene Dietrich, Hermann Hesse, Christopher Isherwood, Käthe Kollwitz, Georg Grosz, Otto Dix. Taught in German.