Introductory description

From Medea to Kriemhild, Charlotte Corday to Irma Grese, violent women haunt the cultural imaginary as figures of horror and fascination. This module will use the exceptional figure of the female perpetrator as a frame for considering shifting ideas about women and society in modern German culture. We will begin by discussing canonical representations of violent women using short-texts and visual art, considering why the female perpetrator is such a prominent artistic motif and how her representation relates to anxieties about the gender hierarchy and social order. We will particularly investigate how traditional images of female perpetrators shape how society understands violence today. As we engage with more recent works, we will explore how feminist writers have revised and challenged stereotypical images of female perpetrators. To what extent do they construe violent women as symbols of transgression and power? Are they role models or outlaws? Are they deserving of sympathy or derision? Finally, how successful are these writers’ attempts to challenge stereotypes about violent women and demonstrate their concrete implications?

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.

Indicative syllabus: The legacy of the Holocaust; political violence, the 1968 protest movements, and the Rote Armee Fraktion; feminist violence and "re-vision" (i.e. rewriting myths); right-extremism in 21st century Germany.

Learning outcomes

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

• Describe trends and recurrent motifs in the representation of violent women in contemporary German culture and explain how they relate to shifting ideas about gender in East Germany, West Germany, and Austria
• Exemplify how debates about female violence relate to wider socio-political phenomena (e.g. West German terrorism, the women’s movement, unification, the European migrant crisis)
• Critically reflect on what is at stake in cultural discussions about female violence
• Intercultural awareness, understanding and competence
• Knowledge, awareness and understanding of one or more cultures and societies, other than their own.
• Ability to access, read and critically analyse primary and secondary source materials in target language
• Familiarity with the methodologies and approaches appropriate to the discipline

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Specific reading list for the module

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 the German cultural imagination 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.