German Film Since the Wall: Identity, History and Belonging

This course will focus on recent German cinema, particularly films produced since the year 2000, analysing various themes affecting contemporary German society through a visual as well as narrative framework. These include questions of identity, "otherness,” and intercultural encounter, as well as themes of "Heimat" (sense of home) and dealing with the past. In particular, the course explores: - how ideas of home and identity are destabilized by experiences such as exile, emigration, or political change; - what constitutes contemporary “German” and “European” identity; - how ideas about national identity intersect with other social identities, including cultural, ethnic, regional, and transnational affinities, as well as identities based in class, gender, and sexuality; - how contemporary films provide a means of coming to terms with Germany’s turbulent 20th-century past, including the horrors of the Third Reich, and the country's forty-year division into East and West. The German-language version of this course aims specifically to equip students with an active and specialized vocabulary in German for talking about and analyzing films beyond the level of narrative analysis, as well as a theoretical understanding of important social issues.