AIS: Country Behind the Curtain: Public Institutions & Private Life in the German Democratic Rep.

Catalog description

During its 40-year history, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), aka East Germany, was divided from its western counterpart by ideologies, alliances and institutions - and, after 1961, by a fortified border that came to symbolize the Cold War. Through interaction with post-1989 oral histories, prose and poetry from East German authors, and pre- and post-unification films, students in this AIS will explore the fundamental paradoxes between public institutions and private life in the GDR, wrestling with the central irony that private convictions and aspirations became a key factor in its dissolution.