Death: A Theme in German Culture

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 6
• Convenor: Eckard Michels
• Tutors: Eckard Michels, Nicolette David, Anna Richards, Professor Joanne Leal, Alexander Weber
• Prerequisite: German 3
• Assessment: two essays of 2500 words (40%) and 4500 words (60%) respectively

This module is intended to offer an overview of German culture from the late eighteenth century to the present day from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives.

The theme of death will be approached through a variety of cultural media such as literature, poetry or architecture and from a variety of thematic approaches, including literary criticism, gender studies, philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis or history. Most texts will be studied in German.

Indicative module content

• Changing Attitudes towards Death in European History
• The Remembrance of Fallen Soldier of the First World War in Weimar and Nazi Germany
• The Bombing War Against German Cities in the Second World War and its Aftermath
• Socialist Heroes and Ordinary Comrades: Cemeteries and Burials in the GDR
• Thomas Mann, Tod in Venedig
• Arthur Schnitzler, Leutnant Gustl
• Ernst Jünger, In Stahlgewittern/The Storm of Steel
• Erich Maria Remarque, Im Westen nichts Neues/All Quiet on the Western Front
• Peter Stramm, Agnes
• Judith Hermann, Alice
• G.E. Lessing, Wie die Alten den Tod gebildet
• J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie Bd. 2, Kapitel 27: Der Tod
• H. von Hofmannsthal, der Tor und der Tod