Vienna 1900-How Politics Shaped Culture and Created the Modern World

Thomas Kovach
Fall 2018
FRIDAYS |  
10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
October 5 - December 14, 2018. No class on November 23.
Course Format: Hybrid
Location: Main Campus
Tuition: $185

This course will explore how the political developments at the turn of the twentieth century shaped the culture of Vienna. The failure of liberalism after its brief period in power due to the economic crisis of the 1870s, the rise of anti-Semitic parties, and World War I caused vast cultural upheaval that may be seen in the period’s works of literature, music, art, architecture, philosophy of science, Zionism, and psychoanalysis. We will examine how writers, artists, and other cultural figures dealt with the devastation of World War I and the fall of the Habsburg Empire after centuries of rule. Finally, this course will trace how all of these aspects were prophetic of the worst catastrophes that the twentieth century would bring.

Required Reading

1. Schorske, Carl. Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture. Vintage, 1980. ISBN-10: 0394744780. ISBN-13: 978-0394744780.

2. Schnitzler, Arthur. Four Major Plays. Smith and Kraus Pub, 1999. ISBN-10: 1575251809. ISBN-13: 978-1575251806.

3. The Whole Difference: Selected Writings of Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Ed. J.D. McClatchy. Princeton University Press, 2008. ISBN-10: 0691129096. ISBN-13: 978-0691129099.

4. Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Basic Books, 2010. ISBN-10: 0465019773. ISBN-13: 978-0465019779.

Meet Your Instructor

Professor Emeritus

THOMAS KOVACH is Professor Emeritus in the Department of German Studies. He got his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with a German emphasis at Princeton and came to the University of Arizona in 1994, where he headed the German Studies Department from 1994 to 2004. Much of his teaching has centered on German-Jewish issues, both German-Jewish writers and the way Jews have been portrayed in texts by non-Jewish Germans through the ages.

Location

POETRY CENTER
Dorothy Rubel Room
1508 E Helen
Tucson, AZ 85721
United States

Located on the SE corner of Helen Street and Vine Avenue, one block north of Speedway and three blocks west of Campbell Ave.

Street map image of Poetry Center

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