Courses in the City: German Cultural History II (1933-Present)

Professor Britt Abel
City partners: Upper Midwest Jewish Archives; Preserve Minneapolis; Minneapolis Historical
Distance from campus: 5.3 miles

Course Description
This course prepares students for upper-level courses in German Studies through the critical investigation of important political, social, and aesthetic topics in the context of German cultural history from 1945 through the present. Such topics include the tension between consumer culture and Vergangenheitsbewältigung in the West Germany of the 1950s, the theory, and practice of collectivism in East Germany, the significance of the Wall, political upheaval and terrorism in West Germany, real existierender Sozialismus in the East, German unification, multiculturalism, and contemporary topics such as environmentalism and sustainability. In addition to historical sources, students read literary and autobiographical texts, view films, and investigate examples of material culture from a variety of periods. 

What do you hope students will learn?
“The students read German history and examine authentic texts (art, photos, buildings, novels, poems, films, political posters, personal narratives, advertising, etc.) to understand how cultural production is shaped by and reflects the socio-historical context in which it’s produced.”

What project are you doing in the city?
“Students are researching synagogues in Minneapolis, many of which were influenced by German-Jewish immigration. They will write brief histories of those buildings for the Minneapolis Historical website. Students will also present their findings at an evening forum sponsored by Preserve Minneapolis. As preparation for this research, we visited the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives at the University of Minnesota to learn about archival research and explore the Flori Loew papers, a collection that belonged to a Jewish woman who fled Germany from the Nazis in 1938.”

Tala Tabishat ’23 (Stuttgart, Germany and Monmouth, Ill.)
Environmental studies and German studies double major 

“We were all shocked by the number of documents the Upper Midwest Jewish Archives had available. Our studies will focus on Jewish communities in the Twin Cities, so this experience was very informative. We had the chance to read correspondences, flip through passports, and even hold telegrams. It was a great introduction to working in an archive.”