GERM3332
Nuremberg: The Imaginary Capital
20 credits

Module manager Professor Stephen Brockmann
Email: gllsjt@leeds.ac.uk

Taught Semester 1 View Timetable

Year running 2007/08

Pre-requisite qualifications
German A Level or equivalent

This module is approved as an Elective

Module summary
The module aims to introduce students to the cultural history of Nuremberg veneration over the past five centuries, with the understanding that Nuremberg serves as an urban synechdoche for Germany itself. During the course of the module, students will examine a number of key Nuremberg texts and discuss the ways in which texts about Nuremberg are used to imply and define the nation as a whole. We will be exploring Nuremberg as a crucial German city seen as a secret capital in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and we will explore the way that notions of time and space come together in the imagination of Nuremberg as a cultural capital. In the final part of the module we will examine contemporary Nuremberg?s attempts to come to terms with its past.

Objectives
The module aims to introduce students to the cultural history of Nuremberg over the past five centuries, with the understanding that Nuremberg serves as an urban symbol for Germany itself. During the course of the module, students will examine a number of key Nuremberg texts and discuss the ways in which texts about Nuremberg are used to imply and define the nation as a whole. We will be exploring Nuremberg as a crucial German city seen as a secret capital of the nation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and we will explore the way that notions of time and space come together in the imagination of Nuremberg as a cultural capital. In the final part of the module we will examine contemporary Nuremberg's attempts to come to terms with its past.

Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, students will be familiar with a number of key Nuremberg texts and be able to place them within the social, political and cultural context within which were created.

Skills outcomes
By the end of this module, students will be able to critically analyse cultural texts, place them within their broader social, political, cultural and historical context, and also debate key issues surrounding the relationship between art and society.

Syllabus
We will read, watch, and/or listen to three key Nuremberg texts in their entirety: Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; Leni Riefenstahl's film Triumph des Willens; and Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg. In addition, we will read Hans Sachs's long poem 'Ein Lobspruch der Stadt Nuernberg,' Susan Sontag's essay 'Fascinating Fascism,' David Wagner's essay 'Auf dem Reichsparteitagsgelände: Nürnberg'; an excerpt from Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder's and Ludwig Tieck's Herzensergießungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders, Claude Ollier's Disconnection, and extracts from my own book Nuremberg: The Imaginary Capital.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
In Course Assessment	1	0.50	20.00
Seminar	10	2.00	20.00
Private study hours			160.00
Total Contact hours			40.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			200.00

Private study
Students will need to read the texts, read secondary literature and prepare for class in their private study. They will do ten hours of private study a week (11 weeks + five non-teaching weeks * 10 hours = 160 hours). They will spend a further 18 hours writing a literature review and an assessed essay in semester one.

Progress monitoring
In class, with informal presentations and submission of essay plans.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	3,000 words	80.00
Literature Review	1,000 words	20.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

Reading list
The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 31/03/2008

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