History of German Culture
Code: 106334 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2504212 English Studies | OT | 3 | 2 |
| 2504212 English Studies | OT | 4 | 2 |
Contact
- Name:
- Bernd Franz Wilhelm Springer
- Email:
- bernd.springer@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject. Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2023.
Prerequisites
No prior knowledge of German language, literature, culture or history is necessary.
Objectives and Contextualisation
- give an overview of German history.
- give an overall orientation to German artistic and philosophical traditions.
- give an overall orientation to the literary and cinematographic representation of German history.
- develop and deepen the understanding of German culture and its mentalities.
- develop and deepen the understanding of regional, national and European identities.
- develop and deepen understanding of cultural and historical identities.
- Develop and deepen critical and argumentative skills and the ability to relate ideas.
- develop and deepen the capacity for aesthetic experience.
- develop and deepen the ability to present academic subjects.
- increase the linguistic awareness of the student in the receptive aspect of a text of literary, artistic and film criticism.
- introduce strategies for the study of foreign philology.
Competences
- English Studies
- Act with ethical responsibility and respect for fundamental rights and duties, diversity and democratic values.
- Develop arguments applicable to the fields of literature, culture and linguistics and evaluate their academic relevance.
- Identify and analyse the main currents, genres, works and authors in English and comparative literature.
- Produce effective written work or oral presentations adapted to the appropriate register in distinct languages (except English).
- Students can apply the knowledge to their own work or vocation in a professional manner and have the powers generally demonstrated by preparing and defending arguments and solving problems within their area of study.
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
Learning Outcomes
- Apply the knowledge and skills acquired to professional and academic activities related to German Literature, History and Culture.
- Communicating in the studied language in oral and written form, properly using vocabulary and grammar.
- Demonstrate a sound knowledge about advanced topics related to the study of literature and culture.
- Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
- Generate strategies to facilitate the increase and improvement of mutual respect in multicultural environments.
- Identify the main genres and the main literary, cultural and historical trends in the German language.
- Make relevant critical assessments based on an understanding of relevant information on topics related to German literature and culture of social, scientific or ethical interest.
- Practise the critical discourse and implement the argumentative processes.
- Recognise the most important aspects of the history of German-speaking countries and other Western literatures and cultures.
- Use the specific expressive resources of the essay genre.
Content
1.) Neanderthal man, the Neolithic revolution, the celestial disc of nebra
2.) The Julian calendar and the Christmas festival
3.) A brief history of the German language
4.) Biblical, Christian and Germanic names, surnames and Jewish names
5.) Zuckmayer: The General of the Devil: On a German race
6.) The Roman Empire and the Germania liberates, the battle in the Teutoburg Forest, the Germans and the Forest
7.) The migration of peoples (invasion of the barbarians), the Franks and Charlemagne.
8.) European Epochs: Romanesque in Germany and Europe
9.) The beginnings of Germany: Saxons and Ottonians.
10.) The German High Middle Ages: The Staufers
11.) The German High Middle Ages: Court culture, the Minne, Tristan and Isolde.
12.) Great women in the Middle Ages: Hildegard von Bingen, Elisabeth von Thüringen, Mechthild von Magdeburg, (Abelard &) Heloise, Leonora of Aquitania
13.) The Hansa
14.) European epochs: Gothic architecture in Germany and Europe
15.) William Tell and Swiss independence
16.) The fall of Constantinople, the invention of gunpowder and how firearms changed warfare.
17.) European Epochs: The Renaissance in Italy and Europe
18.) Erasmus of Rotterdam
19.) Gutenberg, the invention of the press and its consequences
20.) Luther and the Reformation and its consequences: The thesis of the birth of capitalism from the Protestant spirit.
21.) Luther and the Reformation and its consequences: The university, the Protestant mentality, music, Bach.
22.) Dürer
23.) Lucas Cranach (the elder)
24.) Counter-Reformation and Baroque in Germany and Europe
25.) European Epochs: The Enlightenment, Kant: What is the Enlightenment?
26.) Weimar Classicism: Goethe and Schiller, Goethe: Faust
27.) The relationship between the Enlightenment and Romanticism.
28.) Romanticism, texts by Novalis, Schlegel, Eichendorff, the art of Caspar David Friedrich
29.) Beethoven, Schillerand the European hymn
30.) Hoffmann von Fallersleben and the German hymn - the invention of nationalism
31.) Commentary on texts by Heinrich Heine
32.) A chapter from the History of Feelings: Empathy
33.) A chapter from the history of philosophy and mentalities: The death of God (Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud).
34.) The autonomous subject and the reforms in Prussia.
35.) The revolution of 1848/49
36.) Bismarck and the unification of Germany
37.) Bismarck and the social state: 1883 Health insurance / 1884 Accident insurance / 1890 Invalidity insurance and pension insurance
38.) The work of Richard Wagner
39.) Nietzsche
40.) The artists' colony at Dachau and Worpswede
41.) Women in art and music of the 19th century
42.) The Habsburg Monarchy at the turn of the century: Vienna, Prague and Budapest
43.) The Habsburg Monarchy: Johann Strauss and Gustav Mahler
44.) The Wiener Moderne: the painters Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele
45.) Wiener Moderne: intellectuals (Arthur Schnitzler, Joseph Roth, Stefan Zweig, Robert Musil, Hugo von Hofmannsthal)
46.) Siegmund Freud
47.) The artists' groups: Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)
48.) History of Expressionist Cinema - Siegfried Kracauer: From Caligari to Hitler
49.) The Bauhaus
50.) Post-war cinema (1940s and 1950s) and the new German cinema (1970s and 1980s)
51.) Music of the 70s, 80s and 90s - electronic music - Neue Deutsche Welle - music from the 90s onwards
52.) The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War
53.) Reunified Germany / traditional and folkloric Germany / modern, scientific and industrial Germany / multicultural Germany
Not all themes are always addressed.
Methodology
- Master classes
- Oral presentations by students
- Group work in class
- Virtual Campus
- Films
- Tutorials
- Reading at home
- Writing texts
- Formulating and answering questions about the contents covered in class.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| master classes | 45 | 1.8 | 1, 3, 7, 9 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Summarising lectures and reflecting on own learning outcomes | 9 | 0.36 | 1, 3, 7 |
| give a presentation | 10 | 0.4 | 3, 7, 5 |
| make 3 cultural cards for a Memory Game | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 9 |
| writing a text | 3 | 0.12 | 7, 8, 4, 10 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Reading books | 60 | 2.4 | 6, 9 |
| Viewing a film | 10 | 0.4 | 6, 9 |
Assessment
Continuous assessment:
1. An essay on Stefan Zweig's book: Castellio v. Calvino 20% 2.
2. An exposition (20 min.) & Word doc. with 3 questions on the content 20% 3.
3. A text of answers to the teacher's questions on Rüdiger Safranski's book: Romanticism (8-10 p.) 20% 4.
4. Answers to the questions on the lectures 30%.
5. 3 cultural letters for a Memory Game 10%.
Single assessment:
1. An exam with 30 questions on the syllabus done in class. 30%
2. Delivery of a Powerpoint presentation with audios on a previously agreed topic 20% 3.
3. Answers to the teacher's questions on the book by Rüdiger Safranski: Romanticism (8-10 p.) 20% 4.
4. Hand in an essay on Stefan Zweig's book: Castellio v. Calvino according to the teacher's instructions 20%.
5. Hand in 3 cultural cards for a Memory Game 10%.
Very important: the use of electronic devices (mobile phones, laptops, etc.) in class is not allowed! The notes are to be written on paper. It is compulsory to bring the texts (finished reading) to class every day whose reading is the subject of the class according to the updated schedule.
Active participation in class is compulsory. If physical presence is not possible, it is the student's responsibility to independently procure the material that the teacher has presented in class and is obliged to demonstrate with written work and under the supervision and control of the teacher that he/she has worked on the subject in question autonomously. Absence from class for more than 20% of the lessons (or for more than 20% of the written work on the lessons with absence) must be compensated by an extra paper on a topic from German history or literature of about 5 pages in length. If a student misses more than 40% of the lessons (or the corresponding assignments), the conditions for an evaluation of the student are no longer met and the mark is either "not evaluable" or the student is transferred to a single evaluation.
The individual parts of the assessment must be passed with a minimum mark of 5 (out of 10). If this minimum requirement is not achieved, the test must be repeated in the make-up weeks. The tests are taken on the date indicated or in the make-up weeks.
At the time of each evaluation activity, the teacher will inform the students (Moodle) of the procedure and date of revision of the grades.
It is necessary to present the exhibitions on the day foreseen in the updated schedule (it is constantly updated!), it is not possible to present exhibitions outside the historical or cultural context. In case of failure to present the exhibition on the scheduled day, this part of the evaluation must be recovered by means of a 15-page text on the same topic in the recovery weeks.
In order to be entitled to a make-up, it is necessary to have an average mark of 3.5 and, in addition, it is necessary to have passed 60% of the evaluation activities with a minimum mark of 5 (out of 10). If the percentage of failed parts exceeds 40%, the subject is failed. In the recovery, each of the evaluation parts must also be passed with a minimum mark of 5 (out of 10), otherwise the course will be failed.
Exhibitions must be presented on the day specified in the updated schedule (it is constantly updated!), exhibitions cannot be presented outside the historical or cultural context. The presentation should last 15-20 minutes; if it is a topic for two people, it should last 30-40 minutes.
If the presentation is not given on that day, the presentation counts as not having been given and this part of the evaluation must be made up with a 10-page text on the same topic in the make-up weeks.
The presentation must be accompanied by a Word document with 3 key questions on the content, which forms part of the presentation mark. This document must bear the title and date of the presentation and the name of the author. It must be sent to the teacher in Word format the day before the day foreseenin the updated schedule so that it can be posted on the Virtual Campus.
All the Word files with questions about the lectures and presentations must be put together in a single Word file, sorted by date and subject and do not forget to put your name and surname in the header of the file.
It is necessary to complete, hand in and pass all parts of the assessment, both in the continuous assessment and in the single assessment.
The class languages are Spanish and Catalan.
The languages of the presentations are Spanish, Catalan and English.
The languages of the written work can be: German, Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Italian.
VERY IMPORTANT:
Total and partial plagiarism of any of the exercises will automatically be considered a SUSPENSE (0) of the plagiarised exercise. If the situation is repeated, the whole course will be failed. PLAGIARISING is copying from unidentified sources of a text, be it just one more sentence, which is passed off as one's own production (THIS INCLUDES COPYING PHRASES OR FRAGMENTS FROM THE INTERNET AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND ADDING THEM WITHOUT MODIFICATION TO A TEXT THAT IS PRESENTED AS ONE'S OWN), and is a serious offence. It is necessary to learn to respect the intellectual property of others and always identify the sources that can be used, and it is essential to take responsibility for the originality and authenticity of one's own text.
In the event that students commit any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade of an evaluation act, this evaluation act will be graded with 0, regardless of the disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in the assessment acts of the same subject, the final mark for this subject will be 0.
In the event that the tests cannot be taken in person, their format will be adapted (maintaining their weighting) to the possibilities offered by the UAB's virtual tools. Homework, activities and class participation will be done through forums, wikis and/or discussions of exercises through Teams or other platforms, ensuring that all students can access them.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| An essay on Stefan Zweig's book: Castellio v. Calvino | 20% | 0 | 0 | 7, 8, 4, 10 |
| Summarising lectures and reflecting on own learning outcomes | 30% | 3 | 0.12 | 1, 3, 7, 6 |
| a text of answers to the teacher's questions on Rüdiger Safranski's book Romanticism. | 20% | 3 | 0.12 | 1, 3, 7 |
| give a presentation | 20% | 3 | 0.12 | 3, 7, 5 |
| make 3 cultural cards for a Memory Game | 10% | 2 | 0.08 | 1, 2, 9 |
Bibliography
Extracts of Texts compiled in a Dossier:
J.Huizinga: El Otoño de la Edad Media +
J.Burckhardt: El Renacimiento en Italia.
To buy:
Stefan Zweig: Castelo contra Calvino (El acantilado)
Rüdiger Safranski: El Romanticismo. Una odisea del espíritu alemán (Tusquets)
Software
1.) The Neanderthal man, the Neolithic revolution, the celestial disc of nebra
2.) The Julian calendar and the Christmas festival
3.) A brief history of the German language
4.) Biblical, Christian and Germanic names, surnames and Jewish names
5.) Roman Empire and Germania libera, the battle in the Teutoburg Forest, the Germans and the Forest
6.) Migration of peoples (invasion of the barbarians), the Franks and Charlemagne
7.) The Romanesque period in Europe
8.) The beginnings of Germany: Saxons and Ottonians.
9.) The German High Middle Ages: The Staufer dynasty.
10.) The German High Middle Ages: Court culture, the Minne, Tristan and Isolde.
11.) Great women in the Middle Ages: Hildegard von Bingen, Elisabeth von Thüringen, Mechthild von Magdeburg, (Abelard &) Heloise, Leonora of Aquitania
12.) The Hansa
13.) Gothic architecture in Europe
14.) William Tell and Swiss independence
15.) The fall of Constantinople, the invention of gunpowder and how firearms changed warfare.
16.) The Renaissance in Italy and Europe
17.) Erasmus of Rotterdam
18.) Gutenberg, the invention of the press and its consequences
19.) Luther and the Reformation and its consequences: The thesis of the birth of capitalism from the Protestant spirit, the university, the Protestant mentality
20.) The painters Dürer and Lucas Cranach
21.) Counter-Reformation and Baroque in Europe
22.) The Enlightenment, Kant: What is the Enlightenment?
23.) Weimar Classicism: Goethe and Schiller, Goethe: The Faust
24.) Relations between the Enlightenment and Romanticism in Germany
25.) Romanticism: texts by Novalis, Schlegel, Eichendorff, and the art of Caspar David Friedrich
26.) Beethoven, Schiller and the European hymn - Hoffmann von Fallersleben and the German hymn - the invention of nationalism
27.) Commentary on texts by Heinrich Heine
28.) A chapter from the History of Sentiments
29.) A chapter from the history of philosophy and mentalities: The death of God (Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud).
30.) Autonomous Subject? The reforms in Prussia
31.) The revolution of 1848/49
32.) Bismarck and the unification of Germany 1864-1871
33.) Bismarck and the social state: 1883 Health insurance / 1884 Accident insurance / 1890 Invalidity insurance and old-age insurance
34.) The works of Richard Wagner
35.) Nietzsche
36.) The artists' colonies at Dachau and Worpswede
37.) Women in art and music of the 19th century
38.) The Habsburg monarchy at the turn of the century: Vienna, Prague and Budapest
39.) The musical tradition of Habsburg Monarchy: Johann Strauss and Gustav Mahler
40.) The Wiener Moderne: the painters Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele and the intellectuals Arthur Schnitzler, Joseph Roth, Stefan Zweig, Robert Musil, Hugo von Hofmannsthal
41.) Siegmund Freud and the restart of Psychology
42.) Artists' groups: Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider)
43.) History of Expressionist Cinema - Siegfried Kracauer: From Caligari to Hitler
44.) The Bauhaus
45.) Post-war cinema (1940s and 1950s) and New German cinema (1970s and 1980s)
46.) Music of the 70s, 80s and 90s - electronic music - Neue Deutsche Welle - music since the 90s
47.) The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War
48.) Reunified Germany / traditional and folkloric Germany / modern, scientific and industrial Germany / multicultural Germany