Learning outcomes

The course aims at introducing the students to the most important periods and trends of German 19th Century literature: Impressionism, Expressionism, exile literature, German literature after reunification. .

At the end of the course students are required to possess a deep knowledge of the topics we dealt with, with regard to both the literature-historic aspects as well as the works in German; moreover they are required to be capable of analyzing and understanding these texts.

Program

The German literature of South Tyrol
There is a German literature written in Italy, that is the German literature of South Tyrol. During the last year several authors of South Tyrol , such as N.C.Kaser, Franz Tumler, Jospeph Zoderer, Oswald Egger and Roberta Dapunt, obtained important recognition in the German-speaking countries. The course will focus on the German literature written in South Tyrol during the 20th Century.

Program;
The history of South Tyrol
The literary history of South Tyrol
• Impressionism: Stefan George (Komm in den totgesagten Park)
• Expressionism: Jakob van Hoddis (Weltende), Gottfried Benn (Kleine Aster, Schöne Jugend)
• Exile literature: Klaus Mann, Thomas Mann (Die Budenbrooks, Tonio Kröger, Der Tod in Venedig + film), Anna Seghers Das siebte Kreuz (novel and comics)
• Shoah and literature: Stanley Milgram (Obbedienza all’autorità), Art Spiegelman (Maus)
• Luchino Visconti, La morte a Venezia
Compulsory readings:
N.C. Kaser, Stadtstiche (Meran, Bozen, Trento)
Joseph Zoderer, Die Walsche (edizione in lingua originale)
Claudio Magris, Antholz (in: Microcosmi 1999, pp. 189-229)

Part of the texts will be handed out as photocopies. Further teaching material will be available on the e-learning platform related to the class.
Non-attending students are requested to agree with the docent upon part of the literature-history programme and to focus the second part of the programme on the study of works representative of the 19th Century literature.


Texts for non-attending students*:
• Introduzione a Stanley Milgram, Obbedienza all’autorità di Adriano Zamperini, pp. IX-XLV.
• Da Rappresentare la Shoah a cura di Alessandro Costazza il saggio di Marco Castellari, Documento e allegoria, 203-221.
• Massimo Salgaro, Il fumetto di La settima croce di Anna Seghers e la fine dell’esilio del fumetto in Tristia. Scritture dall’esilio a cura di Anna Maria Babbi, Verona 2013.
• Bernhard Arnold Kruse, Wider den Nationalismus – oder von den Schwierigkeiten eines interkulturellen Lebens, 2012, pp. 186-248.

Examination Methods

The final exam will be oral and held in Italian. The oral exam will be on the whole program and it will consist in a conversation aimed at testing:
- the depth and the wideness of the acquired knowledges
- the ability to analyze and understand the literary texts in the program
- the argumentative ability and the ability to link knowledges in a historical-cultural and critical-literary reflection
The final mark will be in 30ths.