Course Schedule

What innovations can a moment of extreme crisis bring to a society? From the radicals and reactionaries of Weimar Berlin to the student movements of the 1960s and the fall of the Berlin Wall, German society has born witness to unprecedented traumatic and regenerative moments of social crisis and creative rebellion. Focusing on the economic, aesthetic, moral, and political transformations, this course explores how deep collective uncertainty can lead to booms of creativity across boundaries in music, literature, fine arts, pop culture, architecture, and film, and how rebellion and activism influenced and shaped the society and culture.

What innovations can a moment of extreme crisis bring to a society? From the radicals and reactionaries of Weimar Berlin to the student movements of the 1960s and the fall of the Berlin Wall, German society has born witness to unprecedented traumatic and regenerative moments of social crisis and creative rebellion. Focusing on the economic, aesthetic, moral, and political transformations, this course explores how deep collective uncertainty can lead to booms of creativity across boundaries in music, literature, fine arts, pop culture, architecture, and film, and how rebellion and activism influenced and shaped the society and culture.