1A: Introduction
- Eva Kolinsky and Wilfried van der Will, “In Search of German Culture: An Introduction” in The Cambridge Companion to Modern German Culture, eds. Eva Kolinsky and Wilfried van der Will (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1 – 19.
- Key Themes:
- Expectations for culture and the influence on the formation of a united German state;
- Anxieties over unity in culture;
- A cultured individual as a necessity for a civil society;
- Culture as the great equalizer (“all” have access);
- The various ways a “German” culture has been instituted across Germany’s national history.
- Key Themes:
- Hans Belting, “Introduction to the English Edition,” The Germans and Their Art: A Troublesome Relationship, trans. Scott Kleager (New Haven: Yale University 1998), 1 – 32.
- Key Themes:
- Wariness towards the visual arts;
- Suspicion of “pictorial art’s real-world images”;
- Idealism versus materialism;
- At the same time, an emphasis on functionality in art (self-improvement);
- Anxieties over unity in culture.
- Key Themes:
Clickable map of Germany in 1871
Exercises
