Week 9
The Golden Years of Weimar
Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt, 1927http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYKu5zegpfc
Weimar Culture
• High vs. Low Culture • Mass culture and the Avant-Garde• Clash of values and new expectations • The Individual vs. the Collective• Social tensions and class stability• Mass Consumption & Modernisation• Technology and its repercussions
Avant-Garde Movements
Bruno Taut’s Glass Pavilion
The First International Dada Fair, Berlin, 1920
Dadaism
Expressionist Architecture
The Einstein Tower in Potsdam (1919-20),designed by Erich Mendelsohn
The Chilehaus in Hamburg (1922-24),
designed by Fritz Höger
Expressionist Film
Scenes from Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari (1920)Nosferatu (1922), directed by F. W. Murnau
The ‘Tower of Babel’ from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927)
Expressionist Theatre• Ernst Toller, Die
Wandlung (Transformation, 1919).
• George Kaiser, Die Koralle (1917), Gas (1918) & Gas II (1920).
The director and impressario Max Reinhardt(1873-1943) did much to popularize an Expressionist
aesthetic in the theatre of the Weimar Republic
Union of Art and Technology
Bauhaus, 1919-1933
Bauhaus, Dessau
Social Critique in the Arts
Neue Sachlichkeit / New Objectivity
Otto DixSkat Players
1920
Großstadt (Metropolis) Triptych (1927-28) by Otto Dix
Life in the Big City
The Pillars of the Establishment (1926) by George Grosz
Three Whores (1926) by Otto Dix
Industriebauen (1920) by Georg Scholz and Deutsche Familie (1932) by Adolf Uzarski
Satires of Middle Class Life
Mass Culture and Entertainment
Der Blaue Engel / The Blue Angel, 1930
• Directed by Joseph von Sternberg
• Starred Emil Jannings & Marlene Dietrich
• The sexually liberated woman!
Metropolis, 1927
• Directed by Fritz Lang• Heady embrace of
technology and the machine world alongside its threat to humanity
• The logical conclusion: harmonization of labor and capital
Revue Nègre
Josephine Baker
Tiller Girls
Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, 1936
Book ReviewDue: Monday in Lecture, Week 1, Term 2
• You may choose any book that is at least 200 pages and has been published since the year 2000.
• The purpose of a book review is to provide a summary of the work, evaluate its strengths and weaknesses, and, most importantly, present your overall assessment of the work.
• Towards this assessment, you should discuss one or more of the following: the book’s audience, its usefulness (for scholars, students, the general public), and its contribution to the field.
Sample Book ReviewAvailable on Jstor:
Hannah Schissler, “Review: Rebuilding West German Society: A Gendered View”, Reviewed work: Protecting Motherhood: Women and the Family in the Politics of Postwar West Germany by Robert G. Moeller
Central European History, Vol. 26, No. 3 (1993), pp. 326-334
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4546350
Linda Gordon, “Review: Nazi Feminists?”, Reviewed work: Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics by Claudia Koonz
Feminist Review, No. 27 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 97-105http://www.jstor.org/stable/1394813?&Search=yes&term=feminists&term=gordon&term=linda&term=nazi&list=hide&searchUri=
%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Fq0%3Dlinda%2Bgordon%2Bnazi%2Bfeminists%26f0%3Dall%26c1%3DAND%26q1%3D%26f1%3Dall%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26Search%3DSearch%26sd%3D%26ed%3D%26la%3D%26jo%3D&item=2&ttl=321&returnArticleService=showFullText
Robert Gellately, “Review: [untitled]”, Reviewed work: Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Mar., 1997), pp. 187-191http://www.jstor.org/stable/2953473?&Search=yes&term=gellately&term=hitler
%27s&term=executioners&term=willing&term=robert&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Fq0%3Drobert%2Bgellately%2Bhitler%2527s%2Bwilling%2Bexecutioners%26f0%3Dall%26c1%3DAND%26q1%3D%26f1%3Dall%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26Search%3DSearch%26sd%3D%26ed%3D%26la%3D%26jo%3D&item=1&ttl=28&returnArticleService=showFullText
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