Eric C. Ames
Questions addressed include: What is "German culture," how has it been defined and contested, and how and why do we study it? Interdisciplinary methods and readings. Recommended: GERMAN 203.
Exploring Visual Culture This course asks how and why visual media have become so central to modern German culture. In it, we will explore various key forms, including sculpture, photography, architecture, film, and museum display. We will also consider the representational tension between word and image. Readings will provide historical as well as contemporary perspectives on specific topics--namely, power, knowledge, memory, and identity. Our primary way of understanding the world is now visual, and not textual. So, the goal of this course is to give students a set of critical tools for analyzing and understanding visual culture in the German context and beyond.
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