Exploring Contemporary Germany (level 6)

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 6
• Coordinator: Joanne Leal
• Lecturer: Joanne Leal
• Assessment: a 2500-word essay (70%) and a 1500-word essay (30%)

This module will allow you to engage with some of the most significant social and political developments in Germany during the twenty-first century by exploring how these have been represented in literature and film. This will not only provide you with the opportunity to understand some of contemporary Germany’s most pressing issues but also the role of culture in mediating these and providing new ways to understand and address them. We will learn more about the way in which way filmmakers and novelists have explored such issues as globalisation, financial crisis, social injustice, migration to and migration from Germany, the German past, terrorism, generational tension, ethnic and armed conflict, and explore what artistic engagements with these issues can bring to debates about them.

By the end of this module, you will:

• understand the significance of various social and political developments in Germany since the beginning of the twenty-first century
• understand how these have been represented in literature and film and what culture can bring to discussions of them
• have relevant factual knowledge about the directors, writers, contexts and issues under discussion
• be able to evaluate films and literature at a thematic and a stylistic level
• understand a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the analysis of film and literature
• be able to work within these theoretical frameworks in the interpretation of films, novels and their contexts
• be able to compare and contrast a number of cultural objects within these frameworks.

• Maren Ade, Toni Erdmann (2016)
• Fatih Akin, Auf der anderen Seite (2007)
• Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, Ging, Gegangen (2015)
• Olga Grjasnowa, Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt (2012)
• Katharina Hacker, Die Habenichtse (2006)
• Christian Petzold, Yella (2007)
• Hans Weingarten, Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei / The Edukators (2004)