New RC Humanitites course culminates in performace, Berlin study trip
RC German Program Director Janet Hegman Shier announces her new course on Crossing Internal and External Borders:
In this cross-disciplinary course, we will do scene work and discuss scenes from contemporary German-language plays and first person narratives that deal with diaspora, identity, and re-presentation of the Self and the Other. We will explore issues related to crossing external and internal borders, and we will ask ourselves: What “borders” did 20th and 21st Century German history create and how did these impact on perceptions of identity? For example, how did the Berlin Wall as a physical border ultimately create hierarchies among dominant and non-dominant communities, even after its fall? To what extent has the so-called “Wall in the Head” contributed to our enhanced or diminished access to Germans and their sense of identity? We will view the role of the Wall, not only as a physical border that existed between East and West, and a temporal border separating past, present and future, but also as a perceptual border that continues to define and distort conceptions of the Other.
This course will culminate in an optional partially-subsidized two week study trip to Berlin in May where students will meet with and learn first-hand about various communities studied in the course, and where they will witness theater efforts to spark discussion about current issues surrounding identity.
HUMS 334.003 Special Topics in the Humanities: Cultures in Dialogue: Crossing External and Internal Borders; Monday 7-10, Wednesday 7-10. Course website.
Posted on 30 Nov 08 by Matt Hampel