Modern German History, 1740-Present

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course introduces students to topics in German history from the nineteenth century to the present. Beginning with the fade of the Holy Roman Empire and ending with the Federal Republic in contemporary Europe, we will follow the transformation of the German lands from a loose federation of small and provincial states into a unified nation and a global power. Wednesday lectures will engage visual, material, and audio sources to explore events and themes including nation-building, the colonial empire, the World Wars, National Socialism, the Holocaust, the Cold War, and re-unification. Friday discussions will center on close readings of primary source texts and films that document the ruptures and discontinuities that define German history in the modern period: the successes and failures of revolution; the construction and destruction of walls; the formation of mass politics; the trauma of genocide; the construction of plural German identities in and beyond the German nation state. We will approach these subjects from a variety of registers of experience, keeping open two fundamental questions: What is German? What is history? A Languages Across the Curriculum (LxC) section will be available pending interest. Assignments: short creative writing assignments throughout the quarter and a final exam.