Cool Courses in Spring: Voices and Themes in Contemporary German Literature

Museumsquartier Wien, Kunsthalle 2013

This course introduces students to some of the engaging voices and themes in contemporary German literature since the fall of the Berlin Wall, focusing on shorter prose fiction and non-fictional writing by a diverse group of transcultural writers mostly from the last decade. The stories and novels on our program range from playful accounts of multilingualism and modern media culture to postmodern travelogues, from the exploration of origins and identities to myths of femininity and female authorship, from untold stories of social activism to narratives of displacement. Writers include Judith Hermann, Christl Clear, Terézia Mora, Daniel Kehlmann, Mithu Sanyal, Saša Stanišić, Yoko Tawada, Tomer Gardi, Gün Tank. Requirements: Discussion, journals, midterm, team projects, take-home final. German 203 required; German 301/302/303 recommended. Readings in German; discussion in German and English.