Course Info | Class Number: 1276
German society has undergone drastic changes as a result of immigration. Traditional notions of Germanness have been and are still being challenged and subverted. This course uses films and visual media to examine the experiences of various minority groups living in Germany. Students will learn about the history of immigration of different ethnic groups, including Turkish Germans, Afro-Germans, Asian Germans, Arab Germans, German Jews, and ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. We will explore discourses on migration, racism, xenophobia, integration, and citizenship. We will seek to understand not only the historical and contemporary contexts for these films but also their relevance for reshaping German society. Students will be introduced to modern German cinema from the silent era to the present. They will acquire terminology and methods for reading films as fictional and aesthetic representations of history and politics, and analyze identity construction in the worlds of the real and the reel. This course is taught in English.
Approach: Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC), Critical Interpretation (CI), Writing Intensive;
Enrollment Cap: 15; This course is only open to students in the 360
program. Established narratives of Europe tend to be Western European
and focused on high politics. This cluster changes the focus from
structures to stories, using an interdisciplinary approach
(incorporating political science, history, and German studies) to
critically examine Europe’s past and present from the margins. What
does Europe look like from the perspectives of those whose voices are
usually missing from mainstream narratives – the disempowered, queers,
migrant laborers, artists, refugees, and people from Europe’s eastern
and southern peripheries? By inserting and foregrounding perspectives
of the historically marginalized along with an examination of their
theoretical, cultural, and political contributions to European
society, this 360 aims to provide critical analytical tools to not
only foster greater understanding of the broader context of modern
Europe but to rethink what Europe itself is. If you are interested in
the 360 program, you must fill out the application link here:
https://www.brynmawr.edu/360/spring-2022-application-europe-margins.
This 360 cluster includes enrolling in HIST B238 & POLS B205. |