GERMAN LITERATURE III
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2022/2023
- Teacher
- MICAELA LATINI
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Secondo Semestre
- SSD
- L-LIN/13
Training objectives
- The aim of the course is to address the issue of post-1945 German-language literature on the basis of the motif "Writing after Auschwitz". Learning objectives are: learning the essentials of the political-cultural, ethical, aesthetic and literary situation in German-speaking countries after the Second World War; acquiring the tools for analysing 20th century poetic, narrative and theatrical texts and the ability to put them into historical context.
through the reading, analysis and commentary of a number of key texts of the second German-language literary twentieth century. Prerequisites
- German Literature II
Course programme
- The module, divided into two parts, addresses the problem, central to the understanding of 20th century German area culture, of the possibility of 'writing after Auschwitz', of finding words that are both a memory of the traumatic past, of the unspeakable horror, and at the same time a proposal for ethical and political resistance in the present.
A first section will introduce the historical circumstances of the destruction of the Jews of Europe at the hands of the Nazis; of the dissemination of German and German-Jewish cultures in Central and Eastern Europe; of the political and philosophical debate that arose in the immediate post-war period on the appropriateness of 'making art' after the horror and of 'German guilt'.
The question of the expressibility of pain and the possibility of the survival of a language that makes sense lies at the heart of the aesthetic and poetic debate in Germany's second half of the 20th century.
The path of the intellectuals and writers who addressed this issue will be traced in milestones; the aesthetic questions of a writing that primarily wants to give itself as testimony will be addressed.
Examples will be taken from literary, theatrical and theoretical works. The indicated textbook will help in the reconstruction of the historical-literary period. Didactic methods
- Classes in presence, 4 hours of lessons per week for 12 weeks.
Teaching will take place through face-to-face lectures, but with a focus on discussion and direct dialogue with the students, who will be able, during the lectures, to formulate proposals for further study or debate. Learning assessment procedures
- The examination consists of two parts - the historical-literary part (in Italian and German) and the translation part (in German). The translation part is taken concurrently, and concerns the contextual reading and translation of the German text (the one with the facing text)
Reference texts
- Bibliography
Part I
3 primary literature texts including:
1) a choice from:
Jean Améry, Intellectual at Auschwitz, Bollati Boringhieri 2014 or G.W. Sebald, Austerlitz, Adelphi, Milan 2013
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2)Th. Bernhard, Piazza degli eroi, in Id. Theatre VI, Ubulibri, 2021 (only the indicated theatre text)
3) A. Seghers, La gita delle ragazze morte/Der Ausflug der toten Mädchen, Marsilio 2010
Part II:
Secondary bibliography
Lyrik nach Aushwitz. Adorno und die Dichter, edited by Kiedaisch, Petra, Reclam 2014.
