GERST 3560 - [Metropolis: Urban Sites in Literature]

(crosslisted) COML 3700
(LA-AS)

Fall or Spring. Next Offered: 2020-2021. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Readings and discussions in English (texts will be available in German).

A. Schwarz.

An interdisciplinary study of metropolitan life focusing on Berlin and Vienna (1890-1999) and on contemporary global mega-cities as major contexts of artistic modernity and historical change. Topics of investigation include: the city as both the product and source of artistic production; the interrelationship between literary concepts of montage, collage, and their architectural counterparts (Bauhaus et al.); the tension between private and public spaces, and the status of crowds, anonymity, and the flaneur. We will also analyze the rise of an avant-garde movement in an urban environment. Additional topics: artificial construction of new cities; is the concept “city” still valid? Can we imagine new forms of habitation in our digital world? Focus on short fiction, architectural theory, sites and art history, film, political and literary manifestos. Authors include: Fontane, Broch, Benn, Benjamin, Döblin, Simmel, Krakauer, Johnson, Rilke, Kohlhaas, Vidler, Eisenman, Poe, Blanchot, Certeau, Kafka, Heidegger, Derrida.