Andrea Krauss (Johns Hopkins University) This course will be

Andrea Krauss (Johns Hopkins University)
This course will be offered in Fall 2016:
The Berlin Wall: Divided Stories in Literature and Film
With the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago, one of the most powerful symbols of the Cold
War came down. For decades, the division between East and West Germany had been a decisive
factor in German literature and film from both states in several respects. Political censorship in
the GDR and West German publishing policies determined the conditions for art production.
They created specific audiences and shaped the role of the public intellectual. The Berlin Wall
could also be said to have contributed to certain trends like the aesthetics of coldness and the
poetics of observation. The course examines the relationship between aesthetics and politics in
German-German literature and film from 1961 to the present.
Weekly schedule
Week 1-2
Introduction
Anna Funder: Stasiland (2003/dt. 2004, excerpts)
Topographies of Division
Week 3-5
Uwe Johnson: Berliner Stadtbahn (veraltet) (1961)
Uwe Johnson: Nachtrag zur S-Bahn (1970)
Himmel über Berlin (Director: Wim Wenders, 1987)
Die Mauer (Director: Jürgen Böttcher, Documentary 1990)
Years of Coldness
Week 6-7
Reiner Kunze: Die wunderbaren Jahre (1976, excerpts)
The Tunnel (Director: Roland Suso Richter, 2001)
The Stasi Complex
Week 9-11
Christa Wolf: Was bleibt (1990, excerpts)
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Clips from: Aus Liebe zum Volk (Directors: Eyal Sivan, Audrey Maurion,
Documentary 2004); Die Firma – Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit
(Director: Christian Gierke, Documentary 2007)
Life as a File:
Cornelia Vismann: Akten (2000, excerpts)
Das Leben der Andern (Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck,
2006)
Revolution on TV: The Fall of the Wall as Media Event
Week 12-14
Rainald Goetz: 1989 (2004, excerpts)
Clips from: Als die Mauer fiel (DVD edition The Berlin Wall: part 8, 2009)
Die führende Rolle (Director: Harun Farocki, 1994)
Good Bye, Lenin! (Director: Wolfgang Becker, 2003)
Post-Wall Fiction
Week 15-16
Ingo Schulze: Simple Storys. Ein Roman aus der ostdeutschen Provinz
(1998, excerpts)
Yella (Director: Christian Petzold, 2007)
Conclusions
Requirements
All students must do the assigned reading and participate actively in class discussions. Students
are required to write two papers, one shorter (5 pages) and one longer (10 pages).
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