Literature: German Literature Post 1945
Course details
Course code
Q00017914Course date
Number of classes
10 sessionsTimetable
Tutor
Stephen SmithFee range
How you'll learn
Venue
OnlineLevel of study
Entry Levels 1,2,3: If you have never studied this subject before and you’re not confident in your skills, Entry levels are a good starting point.
Level 1: Covers basic skills and knowledge needed for this subject
Level 2: Building on basic knowledge or experience. Similar to Grade 4/ C at GCSE or O level in England or Standards in Scotland.
Level 3: Learn about the topic in-depth and have a broad range of skills. Independent working Equivalent to an A level in England or Higher in Scotland.
Beginners: A perfect introduction if you have no experience and skills in this subject.
Improvers: The next step if you have basic skills or knowledge but want to progress them further.
Advanced: Build on the solid experience and skills you have in this subject, applying your skills and knowledge in a more complex way.
Course overview
Course description
Each of the texts and authors will be studied in depth, with context, textual analysis, and an investigation of the text’s style and unique themes to the fore. In Boschwitz’s work, we will recognise a terrible prescience, and this will create the stage for our later assessments of the themes of memory, guilt, and German suffering itself in the post-war years. Each of these themes will provoke us to consider moral, ethical and philosophical responses to the trauma of mid-century Germany and Europe, a legacy with which we are still contending.
Our second text, Vertigo by the late, and were it but for his untimely death, a Nobel Prize winner in waiting, is a genre defying tale of pursuit and the pursuit of memory across Europe. Our third text, Lost, will illustrate the persistence of memory but in the context of a family’s loss through displacement.
Our fourth and last novel is Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, which has enjoyed widespread praise since its publication. It is a beautiful and profound work.
Our final author is the poet Durs Grunbein, among Germany’s leading post-war poets, and we will evaluate a selection of his poems, discovering in these works a sensitivity of perspective and humanity.
The course offers much to discover and discuss and illustrates why German writers have been at the forefront of postwar European literature.
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