HISTORY OF GERMAN CULTURE MOD.1

The course of History of German Culture (1 and 2) belongs to the curriculum German Literature of the Master's Degree Programme European, American and Postcolonial Language and Literature. According to the aims of the Master's Degree and to the areas Literatures and Cultures, the course provides the ability to consolidate advanced critical and methodological instruments and a solid knowledge of literary texts and debates in their cultural and historical context.

Aims of this course are 1) the ability to analyse critically some of the most significant thoretical and literary texts of the cultural debates subject of the course; 2) the comprehension of these debates in their cultural and historical context; 3) the ability to consolidate critical and methodological instruments; 4) the ability to comprehend and analyze texts and contexts in a competent and autonomous way; 5) the ability to perfectionate comunication and production in the original language by an accurate reading of the texts, the discussion and presentation in class and and a detailed study of scientific writing in German; 6) the ability to write a well-discussed and formally correct scientific paper in German; 7) the ability to discuss with international lecturers in seminars and workshops about the subjects of the course.

Degree in Modern languages according to the rules of the course LLEAP.
Other students and Erasmus students are kindly asked to contact the lecturer.

The First World War in German-speaking countries: cultural debates and literary representations

The First World War is the first major historical event of the twentieth century to provoke not only a heated cultural debate but also a real aesthetic-literary reflection by the intellectual world on the "meaning" of History. The course intends to present the contemporary discussion on the war event from different angles, focusing both on the essays as well as the theoretical stances, ranging from enthusiasm to criticism and condemnation, of writers such as Sigmund Freud, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Oswald Spengler and Kurt Tucholsky. The aim of the course is to reflect on the one hand on the so-called "ideas of 1914" and on the other, more generally, on the phenomenon of "war" and the possible (or impossible) elaborations of the same by the world of culture.

1.
Gustavo Corni, Storia della Germania. Da Bismarck a Merkel, Il Saggiatore, Milano 2017 (capitoli IV e V sulla Prima Guerra Mondiale e la Repubblica di Weimar, pp. 113-193. Vanno bene anche le edizioni precedenti);
- La Repubblica di Weimar: democrazia e modernità, ed. by C. Cornelissen and G. D'Ottavio, Il Mulino 2021.

2.
- Sigmund Freud, Zeitgemäßes über Krieg und Tod, in: Studienausgabe IX, Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 1970, S. 33-60 / Warum Krieg? (testo online: https://archive.org/details/freud_1933_warum/page/n15/mode/2up );
- Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Antwort auf eine Umfrage des Svenska Dagbladet, in: Reden und Aufsätze II (1914-1924), in: Gesammelte Werke in zehn Einzelbänden, Bernd Schoeller in Beratung mit Rudolf Hirsch (Hrsg.), Frankfurt a.M. 1979, S. 417-420;
- Thomas Mann, Gedanken im Kriege, in: Große kommentierte Ausgabe. Werke-Briefe-Tagebücher, hrsg. von Heinrich Detering et al., Bd. 15.1. (Essays II 1914-1926), hrsg. Von Hermann Kurzke, Fischer, Frankfurt a.M. 2002, S. 27-46;
- Robert Musil: Europäertum, Krieg, Deutschtum, in: Gesammelte Werke. hrsg. von Adolf Frisé, bd. 8 (Essays und Reden), Rowohlt 1955, S. 1020-1022;
- Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, dtv München 2006 (Einleitung, S. 4-70);
- Kurt Tucholsky: Der Geist von 1914 (testo online: http://www.textlog.de/tucholsky-geist-von-1914.html ) / Wofür? (testo online: http://www.textlog.de/tucholsky-wofuer.html ).

3.
- Heinz Ludwig Arnold, "Erich Maria Remarque und Ernst Jünger. Zwei deutsche Wege durch das 20. Jahrhundert", in: Erich Maria Remarque Jahrbuch/Yearbook No. IX/1999, pp. 5-17;
- Barbara Besslich, Wege in den “Kulturkrieg”. Zivilisationskritik in Deutschland 1890-1914, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2000 (pp. 1-44, 119-191, 327-350, testo disponibile in biblioteca);
- Alexander Honold, Einsatz der Dichtung. Literatur im Zeichen des Ersten Weltkriegs. Vorwerk 8, Berlin 2015 (chapters II, III and IV);

An oral exam divided into three parts:

Module 1:
- a translation of a text passage from German into Italian;
- a general check about the whole programme;
- a brief presentation of a paper written in German (5-10 pages).

Module 2:
- a translation of a text passage from German into Italian;
- a general check about the whole programme;
- a brief presentation of a paper written in German (10-15 pages).

Front lectures, seminars, oral presentations by the students.

Students who cannot attend the lessons are kindly requested to contact the lecturer in the office hours.
The course includes a follow-up lecture in December 2022 that will focus on recent research on the Weimar Republic, held by Prof. G. D. Ottavio of the University of Trento (The Weimar Republic: Democracy and Modernity).

oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "International cooperation" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development