Reading the Twentieth Century

1 Course Unit

Taught in German, this graduate anchor course gives an introduction to German-language literary traditions through an overview of important authors, texts and movements of the long twentieth century. Short texts by Franz Kafka and Elfriede Jelinek provide conceptual bookends permitting an understanding of the evolution of literary modernism into the postmodern—from psychoanalysis to the postnational, Expressionism to postdramatic theater and from language crisis to the (im)possibility of poetry after Auschwitz. Longer works of narrative and theater are complemented by accompanying poetry, theoretical or philosophical approaches. Readings include works by Hofmannsthal, Rilke, Schnitzler, Musil, Brecht, Celan, Özdamar and Tawada, among others. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit