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This course explores some of the most exciting - and disturbing - ideas and artworks of the fast-moving modern age. It reflects the ways in which, from the late nineteenth-century onwards, the German-speaking world seemed to be turned upside-down by shocking historical events, radical ideas and new cultural forms. The works studied in this course show how these developments could be experienced as exhilarating, disturbing, liberating, traumatic - or all of these at once. The module begins with writing from the German Empire after 1871, and then considers classic texts of early modernism, to the Weimar years and the rise of Nazism, to the Third Reich. Finally, it looks at important currents in cultural and socio-political life of the post-1945 period.

Primary Reading/Viewing

• Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne’ (1873)
• Theodor Fontane, Effi Briest (1896)
• Arthur Schnitzler, Reigen (1920)
• Rainer Maria Rilke, Neue Gedichte (1907)
• Thomas Mann, Der Tod in Venedig (1912)
• Irmgard Keun, Das kunstseidene Mädchen (1932)
• Walter Benjamin, ‘Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit’ (1936)
• Slatan Dudow, Bertolt Brecht et al., Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt (1932)
• Leni Riefenstahl, Olympia (1938)
• Ingeborg Bachmann, Das dreißigste Jahr (1961)
• Monika Maron, Pawels Briefe (1999)

Feel free to use any modern edition of the above texts. They should all be easily available in paperback. Films will be made available to view.

Primary Reading for Ab Initio Students Only

• Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense’ (1873), in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (expanded second edition), ed. by Lawrence Cahoone (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 109–16
• Theodor Fontane, Effi Briest (1896), trans. by Helen Chambers and Hugh Rorrison (London: Penguin, 2000)
• Arthur Schnitzler, ‘Round Dance’ (1920) in Arthur Schnitzler, Round Dance and Other Plays, trans. by J.M.Q. Davies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)
• Rainer Maria Rilke, New Poems / Neue Gedichte (1907), trans. by Stephen Cohn (Manchester: Carcanet, 2004)
• Thomas Mann, ‘Death in Venice’ (1912), in Thomas Mann, Death in Venice and Other Stories, trans. by David Luke (London: Vintage, 1998), pp. 197–267
• Irmgard Keun, The Artificial Silk Girl, trans. by Kathie von Ankum (New York: Other, 2011)
• Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (1936), in Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, trans. by J.A. Underwood (London: Penguin 2008), pp. 1–50
• Ingeborg Bachmann, The Thirtieth Year, trans. By Michael Bullock (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1993)
• Monika Maron, Pavel’s Letters, trans. by Brigitte Goldstein (London: Harvill, 2002)

Preparatory Reading and Set Texts

• Anthony Phelan, Rilke: Neue Gedichte (London, 1992)
• Alan Bance, Theodor Fontane: The Major Works (Cambridge, 1982)
• T. J. Reed, Thomas Mann: The Uses of Tradition (Oxford, 1974)
• Michael Tanner, Nietzsche: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 1994)
• Martin Swales, Arthur Schnitzler: A Critical Study (Oxford, 1971)
• Heinz Politzer, Franz Kafka: Parable and Paradox (Cornell University Press, 1962)
• Keith Dickson, Towards Utopia: A Study of Brecht (Oxford University Press, 1978)

Please note that this module description is accurate at the time of publication. Amendments may be made prior to the start of the academic year.