16845

WiSe 15/16: Glocal Berlin: In/Outsider Narratives

Gautam Chakrabarti

Additional information / Pre-requisites

Englischkenntnisse: B2 (CEF)

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"Ihr Völker der Welt... Schaut auf diese Stadt und erkennt, dass ihr diese Stadt und dieses Volk nicht preisgeben dürft, nicht preisgeben könnt!" ("People of this world… look upon this city and see that you should not and cannot abandon this city and these people!")-Ernst Reuter, Lord Mayor of Berlin during the Soviet Blockade (speech during a public meeting on 9th September, 1948) The Second World War has been one of the radically-transforming influences-if not the most-on mid/late-twentieth-century European cityscapes, nowhere more intensely than in Berlin, which was subjected to political ideologies and military manoeuvres that led to the near-total physical destruction of the city; it would be quite appropriate to observe, as Bertolt Brecht had done, after 1945, that Berlin was "ein Trümmerhaufen bei Potsdam" (a rubble-heap near Potsdam). In the proposed course, we will seek to analyse the rather ambiguous relationship of fiction and contemporary historical processes, through a comparative study of post-WW2 literary and cinematic texts, by both long-time Berliners and immigrants and travellers, who had first-hand experience of the processes that have shaped Berlin as a poly-centric frenetically-cosmopolitan 'global' city with a 'local' Kiez or Bezirk-centered sensibility that resists obsolescence. From this perspective, it becomes important to look at the breaches of normalcy caused by WW2 and the Cold War, as not only capable of destroying lives, built heritage and infrastructure, and tearing asunder pre-existent norms of conduct and restraint-as will be seen in Marta Hillers' novel (if she, indeed, is the real author of Eine Frau in Berlin)-but also opening the doors to new forms of socialisation and political-cultural outreach, consensual or forced. We will look at how post-1945 discourses of "shame" and "guilt", in the context of the colossal human rights' abuses, on all sides, during and soon after WW2, led to the evolution of certain kinds of literary and cinematic discourses dealing with the horrors of WW2 and the Cold War that are still being processed within European societies, which are now facing new and momentous challenges through the current "Flüchtlingsflut" (flood of refugees). We will study short excerpts from the selected novels by German, British, Russian-German and Mexican-American writers- cf. texts mentioned below- and watch films that encapsulate and explore defining moments and experiences in post-WW2 Berlin, from the liberating-yet-dehumanising military occupation from 9th May, 1945, to the ecstatic euphoria during and after the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9th November, 1989, using them as reference-points for broader forays into the cultural and socio-political contexts of today's cosmopolitan and trend-setting city. We will see how, despite the over-arching descriptive similarities in felt life, as described in many of the texts, both literary and cinematic, on Berlin, significant variations in the experience of war, military occupation, Cold-War espionage and superpower-brinkmanship and the diverse socio-cultural phenomena of the later twentieth century, emerge in the different texts, depending on authorial orientations and narrative styles. There will also be documentaries, presentations by invitees, who are involved with interdisciplinary Berlin Studies, and mutually negotiable trips and field-work, as and when possible. Key Texts: Excerpts from the following texts: Hillers, Marta(?), Eine Frau in Berlin (1945/54/2003); Deighton, Len, Funeral in Berlin (1964); Kaminer, Wladimir, Schönhauser Allee (2001); Aridjis, Chloe, Book of Clouds (2009). The films Deutschland Jahr Null (dir. Roberto Rossellini, 1948), Der Himmel über Berlin (dir. Wim Wenders, 1987), Berlin is in Germany (dir. Hannes Stöhr, 2001), Good Bye, Lenin! (dir. Wolfgang Becker, 2003), Berlin Calling (dir. Hannes Stöhr, 2009). Other literary and cinematic texts may be suggested and discussed in the course of the semester. Evaluation: Regular and interactive participation in class-activities, quizzes with mutually-negotiable frequency, verbal presentations, also mutually-negotiable, and a mandatory end-semester written examination (90 minutes); regular and active attendance will factor as a positive incentive, in terms of grade-weightage for active regularity, and not in a punitive sense. close