Unit Three: Total Control: Art and Culture in Nazi Germany
Guiding Questions
- How did the art and visual culture of the Third Reich achieve a Gesamtkunstwerk?
- How did Nazi-era cultural policies instrumentalize art?
- In what ways do Nazi critiques of modern art as “degenerate” rely on racial typologies and prejudice, as well as idealistic or utopian visions of a perfected Aryan race?
- What connections can be—carefully—made between some of the ideas of “spirit” or cultural renewal that we have discussed in terms of Romanticism and Expressionism?
- Is it possible to divorce form from content? What about in politically volatile circumstances? In other words, can a Nazi-era cultural artifact be interpreted purely for its aesthetics? Why or why not?
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Assignment Information
25% of final grade; due on the first day of Unit Four at the beginning of class
Unit Schedule
- Session 7A: The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany: Premises
- Session 7B: Third Reich Totalities: Film
- Film screening: Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl, 1934, 120’
- Session 8A: “Beauty without Sensuality”: Nazi Aesthetics
- Session 8B: Utopia and Eternity
- Session 9A: Nazi Time
- Session 9B: “Degenerate” Art