| Title: | German Cinema: Rise of Fascism |
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| Course Section Number: | GER-277-01 |
| Department: | German |
| Description: | This course is taught in English. What caused the democratic experiment of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) to give way to the Third Reich? In general, why would voters support autocratic leaders who embrace fascism? And is the German national character particularly susceptible to authoritarianism, or is this something we should all worry about? Students will pursue these questions by exploring the history of German cinema in the era before, during, and after the Weimar Republic. Or, to be more precise, students will explore history as cinema, and cinema as history. To what extent can we interpret films not only as vehicles of mass entertainment but also as cultural-historical documents? Can films reveal to us an era's mentality - its anxieties, drives, and hidden desires? We will consider in particular Siegfried Kracauer's 1947 book, From Caligari to Hitler, in which he aims to reconstruct through film a "psychological history" of Germany in the Weimar era. Our goal will be to use film as a window onto the interwar years and the cultural milieu that gave rise to Hitler and the Third Reich. We will conclude by considering the NSDAP propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl. No prerequisites, no specialized knowledge assumed, no knowledge of German required. This course counts toward the Lit/Fine Arts distribution requirement, the Film and Digital Media minor, and the German major and minor. |
| Credits: | 1.00 |
| Start Date: | January 17, 2022 |
| End Date: | May 7, 2022 |
| Meeting Information: |
01/18/2022-05/05/2022 Lecture Tuesday, Thursday 09:45AM - 11:00AM, Detchon, Room 109
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| Faculty: | Tucker, Brian |
Course Status
| Section Name/Title | Status | Dept. | Capacity |
Enrolled/ Available/ Waitlist |
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