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| This course examines, in a comparative perspective, the literary and theoretical dimensions of key debates in post-World War II German-language culture, with particular attention to the relations between East and West German discourses, i.e. those in the former German Democratic Republic and those in the former and current Federal Republic of Germany. Questions that stand at the center of these debates include: the question of the adequate representation and historical treatment of the Holocaust (and of its political, social, moral, and aesthetic implications), the question of the role of literature in society (and the literary aesthetics and poetics that are appropriate to this role), the question of the meaning of history in general and of the place of Germany in that history, and the question of the roles of ethnic and gender identities within the larger projects of the nation and the state. Each time the course is offered, one such question will stand at the thematic center of its readings and concerns. No knowledge of German required; readings and discussions in English. |
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