André Fischer

This course explores Berlin's central role as a cultural, political, and intellectual center throughout the 20th century. Through literature, film, art, and architecture, we will examine the city's transformation from the Wilhelminian Empire to the Weimar Republic, from Nazism to the Cold War and German reunification. We will analyze themes and tropes such as democracy and revolution, the rise and fall of fascism, the Berlin wall, exile and migration, student movements and left-wing terrorism, as well as underground culture and electronic music. Seminal works by writers like Alfred Döblin, Irmgard Keun, Bertolt Brecht, and Christa Wolf, as well as filmmakers like Walter Ruttmann and Wim Wenders, or artists like Käthe Kollwitz and Martin Kippenberger will provide insight into Berlin's complex identity as a city at the heart of European modernity. Students will engage with the concept of Berlin as a space of memory, resistance, and transition, reflecting broader cultural changes in 20th century Europe. Readings and discussions in English. Students wishing to receive German major or minor credit must also enroll in L21 3401, a weekly discussion subsection in German

• L21 German 3400 Berlin

German Language Subsection for students enrolled in German 3400. Credit counts towards German major or minor.

• L21 German 3401

For writers, artists, activists, and intellectuals, expressing their political commitments often requires a strong notion of resistance. While the term resistance has become ubiquitous in contemporary discourse, a closer look at its history since the early 20th century allows for a critical perspective on the complex and contradictory structure of its usage by writers and intellectuals of various ideological leanings. Focusing on the "short 20th century" (1914-1989), this course explores the various understandings of resistance in the context of modern European literature and thought. Students will analyze a range of novels, plays, stories, poems, essays, treatises, pamphlets, and manifestoes with the goal of formulating a - however preliminary - aesthetic theory of resistance. We will discuss how resistance and oppression are related, how aesthetics and politics intersect, how art and ideology permeate one another, and how subversion constantly seeks new ways to express itself. Authors include Luxemburg, Brecht, Seghers, Benjamin, Jünger, Schmitt, Malaparte, Camus, Weil, Arendt, Weiss, or Krasznahorkai. Readings and discussions in English.

• L21 German 527