Introductory description

The module is a 30-CAT intermediate-year core module for intermediate-year students on German single honours or 'German with' courses, and is also available to other intermediate-year students studying German in combination with a range of other subjects, and expands student choice. It complements but does not necessitate prior knowledge of work covered under ‘GE109 Aspects of German Culture in the Age of Enlightenment’, a core module in the first year.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Term 1

Week 1: The Legacy of the Enlightenment in Germany: Continuities and Challenges
Week 2 : The Politics of the Enlightenment in Germany: Immanuel Kant, ‘Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?’ (1784) - part 1
Week 3: Kant, ‘Was ist Aufklärung?’ - part 2
Week 4: Identity and difference: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Die Juden (1749) - part 1
Week 5: Lessing, Die Juden - part 2
Week 6: Reading week; no class
Week 7: Friedrich Schiller, Wilhelm Tell (1803-4) - part 1: Tell – assassin or revolutionary hero?
Week 8: Friedrich Schiller, Wilhelm Tell (1803-4) - part 2: “Wir sind ein Volk, und einig wollen wir handeln” – the construction of the ‘Swiss people’ in Wilhelm Tell
Week 9: Heinrich von Kleist, Prinz Friedrich von Homburg (1810) - part 1: exploring the tensions within ‘benevolent despotism
Week 10: Kleist, Homburg - part 2: Whose values, whose reality? Ambiguity and conflict in Homburg

Term 2

Week 1: The Romantic rebellion.
Week 2: Romanticism and Interiority: Ludwig Tieck Der blonde Eckbert
Week 3: Madness and death in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann - part 1
Week 4: Hoffmann, Der Sandmann - part 2
Week 5: Heinrich von Kleist Das Erdbeben in Chili
Week 6: Reading week
Week 7: Georg Büchner, Lenz
Week 8: Büchner, Dantons Tod - part 1
Week 9: Büchner, Dantons Tod - part 2
Week 10: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Das kommunistische Manifest

Term 3

Week 1: Revision session
Week 2: Essay & exam workshop

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Acquire a broad understanding of the key issues in German culture and society 1789 – 1848 gained through the study of written texts and other cultural products in the target language
• Ability to access, read and critically analyse primary and secondary source materials in German
• analyse and deploy a range of critical approaches to representations of society, nation, the modern individual, gender and ethnicity.
• Knowledge and understanding of important aspects of the literatures, cultures, linguistic contexts, history, politics, social and economic structures of the country or countries of the target language.
• the ability to organize, present, and defend ideas within the framework of a structured and reasoned argument
• the ability to analyse critically a range of materials in German and English (primary texts, secondary sources, contextualizing historical material)
• the ability to conduct independent research using library and bibliographic resources and ICT skills.

Indicative reading list

Primary texts

Term 1
Immanuel Kant, ‘Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?’ in Was ist Aufklärung? (Reclam)
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Die Juden (Reclam)
Friedrich Schiller, Wilhelm Tell (Reclam)
Heinrich von Kleist, Prinz Friedrich von Homburg (Reclam)

Term 2
Ludwig Tieck, Der blonde Eckbert (Reclam)
E.T.A. Hoffmann, Der Sandmann (Reclam)
Heinrich von Kleist, Das Erdbeben in Chili (Reclam)
Georg Büchner, Lenz / Der hessische Landbote (Reclam)
Georg Büchner, Dantons Tod (Reclam)
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Das kommunistische Manifest (Reclam)

View reading list on Talis Aspire

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

This module will develop students’ linguistic skills through engaging with primary materials in the target language. It will build students’ capacity to engage with aspects of German culture through analysis of this primary material and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of German culture from 1789-1848 will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage in scholarship in the field.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.