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| Campus | Bryn Mawr |
| Semester | Spring 2024 |
| Registration ID | GERMB321001 |
| Course Title | Adv Topics German Cultural St-The Letter/Spirit, & Beyond |
| Credit | 1.00 |
| Department | German |
| Instructor | Strair,Margaret |
| Times and Days | TTh 02:25pm-03:45pm
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| Room Location | |
| Additional Course Info | Class Number: 1049 This is a topics course. Course content varies. Recent topic titles include: Asia and Germany through Film; The Letter, the Spirit, and Beyond: German-Jewish Writers and Jewish Culture in the 18th and 19th Century.; Current topic description: The Letter, the Spirit, and Beyond: German-Jewish Writers and Jewish Culture in the 18th and 19th Century: While Jewish history extends well over a thousand years in German-speaking lands, the political, cultural, and social changes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries lay the foundation for German-Jewish relations today, and begin articulating new dimensions of the experiences the Other, treated metaphorically through the tension between the Letter and the Spirit. Starting in the Age of Reason, this course focuses on depictions of Jewishness in the literary works and intellectual contributions by German and German-Jewish authors, and explores ways in which German-Jewish identity goes beyond the Letter and the Spirit. The fragile utopia of religious tolerance staged in Lessings Nathan the Wise is followed by grotesque antisemitic tropes in the folk tales and fairy tales in Romanticism, and in other nationalist, artistic endeavors such as those by Richard Wagner. Stories of disguise, concealment, and intrigue double as metaphors of assimilation and conversion of Jewish life, highlighting the complicated and conflicted place of many German-Jewish writers. The salons cultivated and attended by German-Jewish women such as Rahel Varnhagen and Fanny Lewald yield generative, philosophical thought and intellectual contributions. We will conclude by looking at twentieth century German-Jewish writers after the Holocaust, and the status of antisemitism and philosemitism in Germany today. Approach: Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ); Haverford: A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts) (A), Humanities (HU) Enrollment Cap: 15. Spring 2024: Course is taught in English |
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