Theater and Language: Staging the 20th Century

Catalog description

Germany's relationship to theater has been intimate since its beginnings, and the events shown on its stages have close ties to the country's social, political, and economic conditions. In this course, students will improve their language skills and cultural knowledge by reading Germany’s social and political history through the lens of some of its most fascinating theatrical moments: death scenes. Whether gruesome, suspenseful, uneventful, or unexpected, death fascinates an audience like almost nothing else, and the greatest German-language playwrights of the twentieth century—including Brecht, Wedekind, and Dürrenmatt—knew this well. Their works feature everything from friendly executions to grisly serial killings, which students will both read and watch against a background of German cultural history. Taught in German.