Paper Ge6 Modern German Culture (2) 1890 to the present day MML Part IB Module Descriptions and Reading Lists 1. Sexuality and the Unconscious The conflict between social norms and sexual desire became a salient public issue in the period around 1900, and it lies at the heart of Freud’s project of psychoanalysis as well as the literary writing of that time. This module focuses on Wedekind’s famous drama about adolescent sexuality, Frühlings Erwachen, and Schnitzler’s equally well-known narrative representation of a young woman confronting a profound sexual dilemma, Fräulein Else. It also provides the opportunity to consider how Freud’s ideas might help us understand these literary texts on the one hand, and the senses in which Freud’s thinking should itself be viewed critically as a manifestation of the culture of his time on the other. Primary material Frank Wedekind, Frühlings Erwachen Arthur Schnitzler, Fräulein Else Sigmund Freud, Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse lectures 5-7 (on dreaming): lecture 5 ('Schwierigkeiten und erste Annäherungen'): pp. 101-115, particularly pp. 105-109 and 113-115 lecture 6 ('Voraussetzungen und Technik der Deutung'): pp. 116-127, particularly pp. 120-127 lecture 6 ('Manifester Trauminhalt und latente Traumgedanken'): pp. 128- 138, particularly pp. 128-135 lectures 9-11 (on the interpretation of dreams): lecture 9 ('Die Traumzensur'), pp. 148-158, particularly pp. 148-154 lecture 10 ('Die Symbolik im Traum'), pp. 159-177, particularly pp. 159-163, pp. 165- 169 and pp. 174-175 lecture 11 ('Die Traumarbeit'), pp. 178-189, particularly 178-185 (drei Leistungen der Traumarbeit) and pp. 188-189 (sekundäre Bearbeitung) lecture 20 ('Das menschliche Sexualleben'), pp. 300-315, particularly 306-15 lecture 31 ('Die Zerlegung der psychischen Persönlichkeit') Introductory reading Elizabeth Boa, The Sexual Circus (Oxford 1987), chapter 2 Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body: death, femininity and the aesthetic (Manchester University Press 1992), pp. 281-90 Anthony Storr, Freud, Oxford 1989 For further study (long essay option) Freud, Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie (1905), with one of the following: a) Wedekind, Erdgeist; David Midgley, ‘Wedekind: Erdgeist’, in Peter Hutchinson (ed.), Landmarks in German Drama (Oxford: Lang, 2002), pp. 143-58; Ruth Florack, Wedekinds ‘Lulu’: Zerrbild der Sinnlichkeit (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1995) b) Arthur Schnitzler, ‘Frau Beate und ihr Sohn’; Michael Titzmann, ‘Normenkrise und Psychologie in der frühen Moderne: Zur Interpretation von Arthur Schnitzlers “Frau Beate und ihr Sohn”’, Recherches Germaniques 28 (1998), 97-112; Silvia Kronberger, Die unerhörten Töchter: Fräulein Else und Elektra und die gesellschaftliche Funktion der Hysterie (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2002) c) Robert Musil, Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß; Andrew Webber, ‘Robert Musil, Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß’, in David Midgley (ed.), The German Novel in the Twentieth Century: Beyond Realism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1993); Patrizia C. McBride, The Void of Ethics: Robert Musil and the experience of modernity (Evanston IL: Northwestern UP, 2006), chapter 1 Further secondary reading Andrew Webber, ‘Psychoanalysis, Homosexuality, and Modernism’, in The Cambridge Companion to Gay and Lesbian Writing, ed. Hugh Stevens (Cambridge: CUP, 2011), pp. 34-49 Juliet Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism (London 1974) Malcolm Bowie, ‘Freud and Art’, in Psychoanalysis and the Future of Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993) 2. Transformations of the National Idea 1890-1989 German national identity underwent profound changes between 1890 and 1989. Questions about the relationship between national identity and the state posed themselves with traumatic regularity: after 1888, with the accession of the impetuous Emperor Wilhelm II; in the Weimar Republic after 1918 and the Third Reich after 1933; after 1945 with the emergence of two German states; and in 1989-90 with the unification of the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany. Between 1890 and 1945 German nationalism became increasingly radical and xenophobic, shaped by the ideological conflict between Left and Right and by racial thinking. After the Second World War and the Holocaust the Germans had to redefine their relationship with their past and, in both East Germany and West Germany, they forged new ideas about their identity and their role in Europe. The selection of primary material will enable students to explore political, social and cultural-historical dimensions of the development of modern German national identity in its European context. Primary Material (Short texts to be made available as a pdf document via Camtools.) Selected extracts from Lesebuch zur deutschen Geschichte, vol. 3, ed. Bernhard Pollmann, (Dortmund: Chronik Verlag, 1984), pp. 21-26, 41-6, 58-61, 63-9, 82-5, 120-9, 134-5, 150-3, 177-98, 209-11, 221-5, 229-32, 234-49, 258-60. Selected extracts from Nürnberg Laws (1935) Preamble to the Grundgesetz fur die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (23.05.1949), also articles 20-27 on ‘Der Bund und die Lander’, and 116 Preambles to Verfassung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik of 7 October 1949 and 1974 Bundespräsident Horst Köhler, Ansprache 8.v.2005, Rede vor dem Bundestag zum 60. Jahrestag der deutschen Kapitulation 1945 (http://www.bundespraesident.de/Reden-und-Interviews) Recommended reading Stefan Berger, Inventing the Nation: Germany (London: Bloomsbury, 2004), ch. 3-7 John Breuilly (ed.), The state of Germany: the national idea in the making, unmaking and remaking of a modern nation state (London: Longman, 1992), ch. 1, 6-12. John Breuilly, ‘The national idea in modern German history’, in Mary Fulbrook (ed.), German History since 1800 (London: Hodder Arnold, 1997), pp.556-84. William W. Hagen, German history in modern times: four lives of the nation (Cambridge CUP, 2012), Part III + IV. Helmut Walser Smith (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Modern German History (Oxford: OUP, 2011), ch. 22, 24, 31, 34, 35. For further study (long essay option) Volker Kronenberg, ‘Verfassungs-patriotismus im vereinten Deutschland’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (28/2009) online at http://www.bpb.de/apuz/31878/verfassungs- patriotismus-im-vereinten-deutschland?p=0- Selected extracts from Peter Alter (ed.), Nationalismus: Dokumente zur Geschichte und Gegenwart (Munich: Piper, 1994). “Historikerstreit”. Die Dokumentation der Kontroverse um die Einzigartigkeit der nationalsozialistischen Judenvernichtung, 9th edn (Munich: Piper, 1995), pp. 39-47, 62-76, 132-42. Students are also advised to consult the website of the Deutsches Historisches Museum for an illustrated account of the period (including documents): http://www.dhm.de/lemo/home.html Further secondary reading David Blackbourn and James Retallack (ed.), Localism, landscape and the ambiguities of place: German-speaking central Europe, 1860-1930 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2007), Introduction and chapter 6. Peter Blickle, Heimat: A critical theory of the German idea of homeland (Rochester: Camden House, 2002). Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (1995), Introduction and pp. 69-91, 137-76, 239-61 Jane Caplan (ed.), Nazi Germany (Oxford: OUP, 2008), chapters 1, 4, 10. Norbert Frei, 1945 und wir: Das Dritte Reich im Bewußtsein der Deutschen (enlarged edition, Munich: dtv, 2009) Mary Fulbrook, German national identity after the holocaust (Cambridge: Polity, 1999). 3. Gender and Austrian Writing This module focuses on the role of gender in Austrian writing after 1945. Faced with challenges of post-fascist memory and national identity distinctively different from both West and East Germany, Austrian women writers in particular were trying to break free from oppressive social and aesthetic traditions. Discussing Peter Handke’s Wunschloses Unglück and Ruth Klüger’s weiter leben, we will look at challenges to paradigms of femininity, masculinity, sexuality and the family (both in the traditional circumscribed sense and as larger collective of the nation). Along the lines of the feminist credo that the private is always already political, we will examine the ethics that underlie these writings and attempt to shed more light on their historical and political contexts through a gendered reading of literature. Primary material Peter Handke, Wunschloses Unglück (1972) Ruth Klüger, weiter leben (1992) Luce Irigaray, ‘Women’s Exile’, Ideology and Consciousness 1 (1977), 62-76. Introductory reading Hélène Cixous. The Laugh of the Medusa. Signs, Vol. 1, No. 4. (Summer, 1976), 875-893. Aleida Assman. Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit. Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik. Munich: C.H.Beck, 2006. 12-59. Allyson Fiddler. “Post-war Austrian women writers”. – In: Chris Weedon (ed): Postwar Women’s Writing in German. Feminist Critical Approaches. Providence and Oxford: Berghahn. 1997. Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler. Bruchlinien. Vorlesungen zur österreichischen Literatur 1945 bis 1990. St.Pölten-Salzburg-Vienna: Residenz, 1997. 5-15; 111-129; 254-268. For further study (long essay option) Ilse Aichinger. “Aufruf zum Misstrauen” (1946) Ingeborg Bachmann. “Undine geht” (1961) Further secondary reading Dagmar C. G. Lorenz. “Austrian Authors and the Dilemma of National Identity at the End of the 20th Century”. In: MAL 29/3-4, 1996. Ruth Klüger. “Frauen lesen anders.” In: Ruth Klüger. Frauen lesen anders. Munich: dtv 1996. Andrea Reiter. “’Ich wollte, es wäre ein Roman.’ Ruth Klügers feminist survival report.” Forum for Modern Language Studies (2002) 38 (3):