Emphasizes the impact of Nietzsche on 20th-century literature and thought in such diverse authors as Shaw, Rilke, Thomas Mann, and Kafka. A term paper submitted in two stages and a final examination. Existential Quest in the Continental Novel Topics include authenticity, self, and their relationship to narrative form in Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Rilke, Musil, Kafka, Sartre, Camus, Frisch, and Beckett. All classes and reading in English. Includes works by Hesse, Kafka, Mann, Brecht, Boell, and Canetti.
Classes consist of informal lectures and discussion, and videos of several works read.
Children s Literature Study of the nature and aims of children s literature, primarily European and American, from the 17th century onward. Outstanding works of German literature read and discussed in English. Ibsen Discussion of Ibsen s major plays, in English translation. Focuses on the status of women and feminist literature in the former German Democratic Republic and the former Soviet Union. Nazi Germany Detailed survey of Hitler s life and its political, social, and cultural consequences.