Course Details In this J-Term seminar, we will experience Berlin as a geographical and spatial prism of the long, troubled and exciting history of Germany. Instead of proceeding through this history and culture chronologically, we will allow specific urban sites and places to guide us through Germany's past, present and future. Our walking tours, readings and discussions will take us through the architectural, cultural and urban history of Berlin and modern Europe. Loaded with our own maps, cultural histories, plays, pod-casts and architectural guides, we won't just read about German cultural history, we'll walk through it and touch it. While reading about the Soviet take-over of Berlin, we'll walk through the re-constructed Reichstag. While reading Primo Levi's If This is a Man, his account of Auschwitz, we'll walk the ruins of the Buchenwald concentration camp. After reading Brecht's Threepenny Opera, we'll tour the theater he founded and watch a performance. We'll discuss the 1936 Olympics and the rise of Nazi Germany, while visiting Olympiastadion and walking through the ruins of the SS and Gestapo Headquarters.
Students will also be given plenty of time to research their own projects in an experiential manner: students interested in Jewish-German culture can gather their own materials from Berlin's monuments and museums; students interested in Islam in contemporary Europe can visit the Islamic Cultural Center in Kreuzberg; students interested in life in the former East Germany can walk the working class neighborhoods of Prenzlauerberg. This course will be an intense and rewarding experience of a singular urban metropolis, one marked with history and tension at every corner.
This J-Term course in Berlin is open to all students and requires no previous knowledge of the German language, literature or history. We will focus on Germany and Berlin in the 20th and 21st centuries. Every day we will visit one or more sites central to Berlin's cultural history. Every evening we will visit the theater, opera, art houses and other cultural happenings. We will make one excursion to Weimar, where we will explore the old haunts of Germany's most famous poet, Wolfgang von Goethe, and visit the nearby concentration camp of Buchenwald. Each student will design and carry out their own research project.
