HTST 410 Syllabus
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Spring 2018: April 30–May 24 University of Calgary Group Study Instructor: Dr. A. Timm E-Mail: [email protected] HTST 410 Phone: 403-220-6411 Office: SS 630 Great Cities of the World: Berlin Website: http://hist.ucalgary.ca/atimm Course Description Berlin Energies Website: When compared to the other great cities of Europe, Berlin is a newcomer. With https://www.ucalgary.ca/uci/abroad/gsp/berlin a population of under 200,000 in 1800, the city grew rapidly over the course of the nineteenth century, quadrupling its population in the second half of the Books: century to reach two million by 1905. After becoming the capital of the newly Required: unified German Empire in 1871, the city served as both the administrative • Mary Fulbrook, A Concise History of centre for imperialistic, racist and warmongering regimes and the birthplace for Germany, 2nd ed. (2004). German democracy, progressive urban policy, health innovations, and vibrant • The History Student’s Handbook (Click social and cultural movements. By the 1920s, Berlin’s iconoclastic culture was link at: http://hist.ucalgary.ca). world famous, making it a symbol of the exciting and disruptive political and Recommended: social trends of European modernity. After the catastrophe of Nazism and the • Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler: A Second World War, the destroyed and divided city found a new iconic status in Memoir (2002). - can be borrowed defeat: as ground zero for the conflicts of the Cold War but also as an incubator • Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, for new forms of urban living, multiculturalism, and political activism. Having Battleground Berlin: Diaries 1945- regained its status as the capital in 1999, Berlin’s post-unification image has 1948 (1990) - can be borrowed once again become infused with images of youth, tolerance, and rapid progress. Due Dates & Weighting What can the politically turbulent history of Europe’s youngest metropolis teach us about how cities nurture innovation, foster communication, and Quizzes: 20% produce new relationships between humans and the built environment? What are the dangers of rapid urbanization and how can the material challenges of In Class, April 30 and May 1 housing, educating, and socializing urban populations also produce politically dangerous energies that require specific democratic safeguards and cultural Initial Photo Assembly: 6% responses? Building on the larger theme of “Berlin Energies” that unites the Uploaded to D2L by 1 pm, May 2: three courses of this group-study program, this course will track the various ways that Berlin has been and remains a centre for political, social, cultural, Group Photo Assembly: 10% and even sexual energy. Focusing on selected themes in the twentieth- and Presented to Group, May 24 twenty-first century history of the city, the course will demonstrate that despite the rapid technological and social advancements that cities create, their futures Image Descriptions: 4% are always influenced by enduring political and spatial structures that have been May 24 produced in the past. Artifact Mini-Essay: 20% Objectives May 22 or June 20 (see below) • To provide background for students who might not have had any Image Essay Term Paper: 30% exposure to German history. • To provide context for the more thematically specific units of the other Uploaded to D2L by 6 pm, July 15 two courses in the “Berlin Energies” series. Participation: 10% • To introduce students to the historical construction of Berlin’s urban landscape in order to demonstrate the importance of civic structures Throughout Term and democratic forms for the creation of livable cities. Great Cities of the World: Berlin 1 Assignments Due in Calgary Quizzes There will be two quizzes on historical knowledge, two on each day of the pre-session meetings on April 30 and May 1. Each one will be worth 10% for a total of 20% of your final grade. Photo Essay A central assignment for this course will be a collaboratively produced photo essay, which will combine components from each of the three courses for the “Berlin Energies” group-study program. Students will be divided into working groups, and each group will produce a photo essay consisting of 27 images or videos. Although the final product will combine material from all three courses (9 images from each course) the components will be graded separately. (Please refer to the description of the components of the assignment below as well as the assessment summary provided on D2L.) When we return from Berlin, we will present these photo essays as an exhibition at the university’s Germany Day, held on campus each fall. Component 1: Initial Photo Assembly Each student will pick three themes from the syllabus for each of the three courses in “Berlin Energies.” For each theme, you will then find one archival image or video. We will give you instructions for finding these images, but please be aware that you must be very careful about provenance (the source of the image) and documentation. In other words, you must use only reputable sources, and you must be able to document the precise historical context for the image. You will then write a caption for each (appropriate for a PowerPoint slide) and a 150-200 word description (similar to what you might find in a museum wall plate), describing the image’s provenance, context, and relevance for the course. You must provide a bibliography of your sources for this information, and these sources must be scholarly. This small assignment will be worth 6% of your grade for each course. There will be some time to work on this in class on April 30 and May 1. They should be uploaded to D2L by 1 pm on May 2. Assignments Due in Berlin Participation Since this course depends upon a group experience of onsite learning, students are expected to attend all sessions and be engaged with the site visits and discussions. You will lose marks for unexplained absences and for failure to participate in discussion. Photo Essay Component 2 of the Photo Essay: Group Photo Assembly This will be a group project. Once we arrive in Berlin, each group will compare the themes they had chosen in Component 1 and come to a consensus about an overarching theme for their photo essay that will combine images relevant to each of the three courses. Over the course of the trip, you will then pick the best pictures (and possibly videos) that you have yourselves taken to produce a photo essay of 27 images – 9 images per course. This three-part organization does not necessarily need to be marked in the presentation itself, but you will have to provide the instructors with this breakdown, because we have to grade each portion of the photo essay separately. (We recognize that this complicates things, but we are trying to balance coherence between the three courses with the faculty requirement that the grading remains separate.) We will grade the overall composition of the photo essay and its captions as a group project, which will be worth 10% of the final grade for each course. Component 3 of the Photo Essay: Image Descriptions As documentation for your photo essay, we will also require a wall-plate-like description for each image, just like the one you did in Component 1. We will divide up these descriptions between members of the group. This will be worth 4% of your final grade. Breakdown of Photo Essay Composition Component total themes themes per course total images images per course image descriptions 1: Initial Photo Assembly 9 3 3 1 3 X 150-200 words 2 & 3: Group Photo 9 3 27 9 27 (divided Assembly between group members – 9 each) Great Cities of the World: Berlin 2 Image Essay Term Paper The term paper for this course will be an extended image analysis. Pick 3-8 of the images that you have encountered in the photo essay assignment. They must be thematically related, and they can be images that were rejected for the final photo essay. They can be either historical images, ones you have taken, or ones that a fellow student has taken. Write a 1500-word essay about these images, addressing issues that have come up in the readings for the course. You must rely on at least six scholarly sources, which can include any readings for the three “Berlin Energies” courses but should also include at least two sources you have found on your own. You must rely on at least three scholarly sources and employ footnotes formatted in Chicago style, which is described in the History Student’s Handbook, available here: https://hist.ucalgary.ca/sites/hist.ucalgary.ca/files/history_students_handbook_2015.pdf. This essay is worth 30% of your final grade. Artifact Assignment: Presentation or Mini-Essay While in Berlin, each student will choose an image (or small set of images, or a video clip) from one of the exhibitions or memorial sites that we visit in Germany – either sites that we visit as a group or things that you have found on your own. Pick an object, event, artistic work, specific story, or some other discrete component in the museum or memorial site. (For simplicity, we’ll just call this an artifact, though you may be talking about a life story.) You will then prepare a brief analysis of how this person or object is represented in the exhibition. Did the curators/architects/artists make a successful use of the image or object to convey historical knowledge to the general public? Did the artifact help to convey a larger theme of the exhibition/memorial or did it just play to emotions? Is the display historically rigorous or more sensationalistic? Some of the sites we will visit are very much geared toward the tourist market.