A compact seminar designed to feature distinguished short-term visitors from German-speaking countries who have expertise in German literature and culture to teach topics that complement regular departmental offerings. One short paper is required. Taught in German.

Screening 1968: On the Poetics of Film Viewing In the wake of many retrospectives on the occasion of the fifty-year anniversary of “1968,” it became evident that prior knowledge about events and contexts has come to frame conceptions about the cultural shifts signaled but this momentous year. But what if one were to investigate the ideas about “1968” that are inherent in the films themselves, considering classics of art cinema as well as mundane documentaries and genre films such as jarring examples of exploitation? How can films be read as documents that reveal interactions of heterogeneous cultural, social and political phenomena? Based on film-analytical discussion, this seminar intends to give center stage to the poetics of film-viewing, that is, a way of thinking of and through cinematic images, in order to access the historical constellation of 1968 that has since been overwritten in the popular and academic imaginary. Taught in German. Note: this class meets only for 5 Fridays from 02/22-03/22/2019.

Repeat Rules