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The Changing Face of Germany in Film and Text

Module Code: GE108
Module Name: The Changing Face of Germany in Film and Text
Module Coordinator: Dr Dan Hall
Not running 2024-25
Module Credits: 30

Module Description

The module GE 108 The Changing Face of Germany in Film and Text has three central aims:

1. It aims to provide you with an introduction to the intellectual history of post-war Germany (principally the Federal Republic but also the German Democratic Republic).

2. It considers the development of the mass media in Germany and in particular the role played within the media by writers and intellectuals.

3. It aims to provide you with the analytical skills required to examine diverse types of literary and filmic text. The module consists of a weekly lecture and a small-group tutorial.

Topics you should study on this module:

The restoration of West German society; writers and the political reconstruction of Germany; the military reintegration of the Federal Republic into the West and the opposition to rearmament; coming to terms with the Nazi past; the Student Movement; the West German Women's Movement; the development of the press in the Federal Republic; migration and settlement; introducing the German Democratic Republic; women in the GDR; German Unification and the intellectual debate.

Texts you will study include:
Term 1: Heinrich Böll, Das Brot der frühen Jahre and Peter Weiss, Die Ermittlung.
Term 2: Bernhard Schlink, Der Vorleser, Heinrich Böll, Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum, and Elfriede Jelinek, Die Liebhaberinnen
Term 3: Ulrich Plenzdorf, Die neuen Leiden des jungen W
Films you will study include:

Term 1: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Die Ehe der Maria Braun; Bernhard Wicki, Die Brücke; Michael Verhoeven, Das schreckliche Mädchen

Term 2: Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta, Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum; Fatih Akin, Kurz und Schmerzlos (Akin)

Term 3: Konrad Wolf, Solo Sunny

Topics for study and texts/films may be subject to revision

Module coordinator: Dan Hall

Module tutors: Dan Hall, Melissa Pawelski

Workshop leaders:Dan Hall, Ian Roberts, Antonia Hofstatter

Module lecturers: Katie Stone, Ian Roberts, Dan Hall, Christine Achinger, James Hodkinson

Assessment Method:

One unassessed essay (0%), one assessed essay (50%) and one take-home paper in lieu of exam (50%).

GE108 Moodle

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Link to first lecture on SMLC Welcome Week Moodle

Comprehensive reading list on Talis Aspire

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