This course will provide a selective overview of metropolitan popular culture from the early 20th century until the present, comparing the cities of Berlin, Paris and St. Petersburg. Especially in US-influenced Western Europe, popular culture developed towards a true mass culture disseminated by the continuously expanding branches of the mass media. The course deal with many facets that make up contemporary popular culture, but in particular will concentrate on the development of youth culture and lifestyles in relation to popular music such as rock, punk, rap, techno and industrial. The course also touches the development of spectator sports and advertising. The course will examine post-war popular culture in France, the Soviet Union and both parts of Germany and the situation after German unification. Differences and commonalities between German, French and Russian popular cultures with a special focus on Berlin, Paris and St. Petersburg will be discussed. Among other things, the course will explore the specific role of popular music for shaping national identities as well as countercultures.
A variety of subjects and their comparative pop cultural representations will be covered, e.g.:
- Americanization And Anti-Americanism
- National Identity
- Coming To Terms With Nazism And Stalinism
- Sex And Gender
- Left And Right Wing Youth Cultures
- Multiculturalism
- 1968 In West Germany And France
Musical Genres to be covered include:
- Rock’n’Roll
- Alternative Music
- Skinhead Rock
- Punk
- Rap
- Techno
- Industrial
In the course, we will listen to music, watch films and video clips, and visit popular culture events in Berlin. These excursions will be selected according to their accessibility for non-german speakers.
Possible Field Trips (Time and destination to be announced in class)
- Pop Cultural Walk
- Pop Cultural Workshop (Rap And/Or Dj)
- Soccer Game At The Olympic Stadium Or Other Sports Event
- Pop Cultural Event And/Or Relevant Exhibition
Prerequisites:
None
Attendance policy:
Regular class attendance is mandatory. Unexcused absences will negatively affect the grade for participation. Excessive absenteeism will negatively affect the final grade. Field trips are part of class.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the course, students will have gained knowledge about the concept of popular culture, the main tendencies in European popular culture, and about the differences and similarities between German, French and Russian popular culture in the 20th century. On top of that, each student should have gained expertise on at least one artist, group, film or comparable single aspect of German, French or Russian popular culture.
Method of presentation:
Classroom teaching with continuous discussion, video and audio presentations, student assignments, excursions and personal encounters with representatives of German popular culture. Moodle will be used to enhance students' learning experiences.
Required work and form of assessment:
(Percentage Of Final Grade In Parentheses)
- A Midterm Exam (15%)
- Two Papers (5 Pages Each, 2x15%)
- A Final Exam (30%)
- Participation In Class Discussion (25%)
content:
Week 1
Session 1: Introduction and Course Organization
Overview of possible topics for term papers, Introduction to the Berlin pop-cultural scene Personal introduction: Please bring a piece of music, a video clip or anything else that gives an impression of your pop cultural taste and preference. Tell us what you like about it.
Session 2: field trip
Week 2
Session 3: The Roaring Twenties in Berlin, Paris and Bolshevik Russia (St. Petersburg)
Topics to be discussed: Paris and Berlin: twin sin cities, dancing, revues and cabaret; gender trouble, Weimar: life-affirming sex versus decadence, Soviet youth in the Twenties: flappers and foxtrotters, bourgeois dances in communist Russia
Required Reading:
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, In 1926. Living at the Edge of Time. Cambridge, London 1997, pp. 67-73, 303-310.
Timothy W. Ryback, The French in Love and War: Popular Culture in the Era of the World Wars, Yale University Press, 1997, pp. 68-83.
Anne E. Gorsuch, Youth in Revolutionary Russia: Enthusiasts, Bohemians, Delinquents, Indiana University Press, 2000, pp. 116-138.
Films: Berlin in the Twenties, Legendary Sin Cities. Paris and Berlin
Additional films: Cabaret, The three penny opera
Session 4: Youth Culture in Post War Germany: The Impact of American Pop Culture
Topics to be discussed: pop cultural rebellion in Nazi Germany, Conflicts over American popular culture, ambiguities of cultural Americanization, American culture in East and West Germany, German masculinity and female sexuality in the German Cold War, German reactions to Elvis Presley
Required Reading:
Ralph Willett, Hot Swing and the Dissolute Life: Youth, Style and Popular Music in Europe 1939-49, Popular Music, Vol. 8, No. 2 (May, 1989), pp. 157-163.
Uta G. Poiger, Jazz, Rock, and Rebels: Cold War Politics and American Culture in a Divided Germany, University of California Press, 2000, pp. 169-185.
Winfried Fluck: The Americanization of German Culture? E-text (21 p.)
Recommended Reading:
David Looseley, Popular Music in Contemporary France: Authenticity, Politics, Debate, Berg Publishers, 2004, pp. 21-33.
Films: Die Halbstarken (the would-be toughs), Berlin under the Allies
Week 3
Session 5: Film Screening: Changing Skin
Session 6: Youth Culture in East Germany
Topics to be discussed: Rock and rebellion in the GDR, youth counterculture and alternative life styles, Punk in the GDR: non-conformism and provocation, Right wing youth cultures: Skinhead Rock, popcultural nostalgia for East Germany
Required Reading:
Mark Fenemore, Sex, Thugs and Rock 'N' Roll: Teenage Rebels in Cold-War East Germany, Berghahn Books, 2007, pp. 219-230.
Michael Boehlke, Henryk Gericke: Punk in the GDR - Too much future? pp. 81-103.
Ulrich Plenzdorf, The New Sufferings of Young W
Timothy S. Brown: Subcultures, Pop Music and Politics: Skinheads and "Nazi Rock" in England and Germany. In: Journal of Social History, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 164-171.
Films: Punk in the GDR - Too much future? Skinheads
Week 4
Session 7: Pop Culture in Leningrad and St. Petersburg: From Soviet times to post-Soviet Russia
Topics to be discussed: The St. Petersburg Rock community, irony and provocative performances, counterculture, music and politics: between rebellion and indifference, money and music, the cult of money, Russian encounters with the West, Rock as a vocation: indifference towards success and politics
Required Reading:
Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, Princeton University Press, 2005, pp. 146-155, 185-190, 193-202, 239-246.
Thomas Cushman, Notes from Underground: Rock Music Counterculture in Russia State University of New York Press, 1995, pp. 263-264, 268-273, 281-285, 293-297, 298-302.
Recommended Reading:
Thomas Cushman, Notes from Underground: Rock Music Counterculture in Russia State University of New York Press, 1995, pp. 56-58 66-70, 92-95, 98-102, 106-107, 109-119, 119-133, 150-152, 157-165,165-169.
Clips: Leningrad, "Holy Rus"
Session 8: Unification Day, no class.
Week 5:
Session 9: Midterm Exam
Week 6
Session 10: 1968 and its Impact on German and French Pop Culture: Sex, Gender and Politics Topics to be discussed: Youth rebellion and popular culture, the life style of counterculture and its musical representation, the sexual revolution: sexuality makes you free, the morality of pleasure, Pop cultural representations of sex and gender, Commercialization, liberalization and politicization of sex, playing with gender: machismo and the new (soft) man, the Red Army Faction (RAF)
Required Reading:
Dagmar Herzog, Sex after Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany, Princeton University Press, 2007, pp. 141-148.
Catherine C. Fraser, Dierk O. Hofmann: Pop Culture Germany, ABC Clio 2006, pp. 61- 64.
Robert Merle, Behind the Glass. Simon and Schuster, New York 1970, pp. 25-36.
Slogans of May 1968 protests in France (e-text)
Recommended Reading:
Barbara Sichtermann, Femininity. Polity Press, 1986, pp. 7-16.
Session 11: Pop Cultural Workshop Rap and/or DJing
Week 7: Pop Music Genres
Session 12: Film screening: Berlin Calling
Session 13: Electronic Music, Industrial and Hard Rock
Topics to be discussed: Love Parade in Berlin, the electronic music scene in Berlin, Daft Punk: Creativity and show business, New German Rock: Rammstein
Required Reading:
David Looseley, Popular Music in Contemporary France: Authenticity, Politics, Debate, Berg Publishers, 2004, pp. 189-197.
Susanne Binas: East-West breakthroughs: The significance of the GDR pop underground today (e-text, 7 pages)
Rammstein: Lyrics and excerpts from interviews
Recommended Readings:
Hugh Dauncey & Steve Cannon (editors), Popular Music in France from Chanson to Techno: Culture, Identity, and Society, Ashgate Publishing, 2003, pp. 225-242.
David Looseley, Popular Music in Contemporary France: Authenticity, Politics, Debate, Berg Publishers, 2004, pp. 55-58.
Films: Einstürzende Neubauten: Listen with pain, Kraftwerk, Daft Punk
Week 8
Session 14: Popular Culture and Politics
Topics to be discussed: Pop cultural propaganda, contested national identities: pride and shame, nationalism and multiculturalism, coming to terms with Nazism, pop cultural references to former glory: visions of a spiritually charged Rus, playing with fire: popcultural representations of Nazism
Required Reading:
Adele Marie Barker (Editor), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society since Gorbachev, Duke University Press, 1999, pp. 110-138.
Eliot Borenstein, Overkill: Sex and Violence in Contemporary Russian Popular Culture, Cornell University Press, 2007, pp. 61-70, 93-97.
Recommended Reading:
Vladimir Vysotsky: Hamlet with a Guitar, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1990, pp. 14-28.
Video clips: Russian propaganda clips, Laibach: Birth of a nation, Moers Bunker, Die Prinzen, right wing clips, punk clips
Session 15: Pop culture in the global age: New media and the Internet
Topics to be discussed: digital dating, facebook and youtube, chat cultures, sex on the internet, computer games
Required Reading:
Kaveri Subrahmanyam and Patricia Greenfield: Online Communication and Adolescent Relationships. In: The Future of Children, Vol. 18, No. 1, Children and Electronic Media (Spring, 2008), pp. 120-140.
Erich R. Merkle and Rhonda A. Richardson: Digital Dating and Virtual Relating: Conceptualizing Computer Mediated Romantic Relationships. In: Family Relations, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), pp. 187-191.
Week 9
Session 16: field trip
Session 17: Fashion and Advertising
Topics to be discussed: Differences and commonalities in national advertising and fashion cultures
Required Reading:
Alastair Duncan: Advertising culture in France: no Coca-Cola please, we’re French! In: Contemporary French cultural studies. pp. 178-191.
Hilary Pilkington et al (edts.), Looking West? Cultural Globalization and Youth Cultures. Pensylvania UP 2000, pp. 165-174.
Katherine Pence and Paul Betts (edts.), Socialist Modern. East German Everyday Culture and Politics. University of Michigan Press, 2008, pp. 333-338.
Week 10
Session 18: Jazz Club
Session 19: Closing Session and Revision
Week 11
Session 20: final exam
Recommended films (partly screened in class):
- Run Lola Run
- Changing Skin
- Die Halbstarken – Teenage Wolfpack
- Christiane F. - We Children from Bahnhof Zoo
- Threepenny Opera
- Good Old Daze (Le Péril Jeune)
- Legendary Sin Cities - Paris and Berlin
- Ostpunk! too much future
- Berlin Calling
- Skinheads
- Mall Girls (Galerianki)
This course will provide a selective overview of metropolitan popular culture from the early 20th century until the present, comparing the cities of Berlin, Paris and St. Petersburg. Especially in US-influenced Western Europe, popular culture developed towards a true mass culture disseminated by the continuously expanding branches of the mass media. The course deal with many facets that make up contemporary popular culture, but in particular will concentrate on the development of youth culture and lifestyles in relation to popular music such as rock, punk, rap, techno and industrial. The course also touches the development of spectator sports and advertising. The course will examine post-war popular culture in France, the Soviet Union and both parts of Germany and the situation after German unification. Differences and commonalities between German, French and Russian popular cultures with a special focus on Berlin, Paris and St. Petersburg will be discussed. Among other things, the course will explore the specific role of popular music for shaping national identities as well as countercultures.
A variety of subjects and their comparative pop cultural representations will be covered, e.g.:
- Americanization And Anti-Americanism
- National Identity
- Coming To Terms With Nazism And Stalinism
- Sex And Gender
- Left And Right Wing Youth Cultures
- Multiculturalism
- 1968 In West Germany And France
Musical Genres to be covered include:
- Rock’n’Roll
- Alternative Music
- Skinhead Rock
- Punk
- Rap
- Techno
- Industrial
In the course, we will listen to music, watch films and video clips, and visit popular culture events in Berlin. These excursions will be selected according to their accessibility for non-german speakers.
Possible Field Trips (Time and destination to be announced in class)
- Pop Cultural Walk
- Pop Cultural Workshop (Rap And/Or Dj)
- Soccer Game At The Olympic Stadium Or Other Sports Event
- Pop Cultural Event And/Or Relevant Exhibition
None
Regular class attendance is mandatory. Unexcused absences will negatively affect the grade for participation. Excessive absenteeism will negatively affect the final grade. Field trips are part of class.
By the end of the course, students will have gained knowledge about the concept of popular culture, the main tendencies in European popular culture, and about the differences and similarities between German, French and Russian popular culture in the 20th century. On top of that, each student should have gained expertise on at least one artist, group, film or comparable single aspect of German, French or Russian popular culture.
Classroom teaching with continuous discussion, video and audio presentations, student assignments, excursions and personal encounters with representatives of German popular culture. Moodle will be used to enhance students' learning experiences.
(Percentage Of Final Grade In Parentheses)
- A Midterm Exam (15%)
- Two Papers (5 Pages Each, 2x15%)
- A Final Exam (30%)
- Participation In Class Discussion (25%)
Week 1
Session 1: Introduction and Course Organization
Overview of possible topics for term papers, Introduction to the Berlin pop-cultural scene Personal introduction: Please bring a piece of music, a video clip or anything else that gives an impression of your pop cultural taste and preference. Tell us what you like about it.
Session 2: field trip
Week 2
Session 3: The Roaring Twenties in Berlin, Paris and Bolshevik Russia (St. Petersburg)
Topics to be discussed: Paris and Berlin: twin sin cities, dancing, revues and cabaret; gender trouble, Weimar: life-affirming sex versus decadence, Soviet youth in the Twenties: flappers and foxtrotters, bourgeois dances in communist Russia
Required Reading:
Films: Berlin in the Twenties, Legendary Sin Cities. Paris and Berlin
Additional films: Cabaret, The three penny opera
Session 4: Youth Culture in Post War Germany: The Impact of American Pop Culture
Topics to be discussed: pop cultural rebellion in Nazi Germany, Conflicts over American popular culture, ambiguities of cultural Americanization, American culture in East and West Germany, German masculinity and female sexuality in the German Cold War, German reactions to Elvis Presley
Required Reading:
Recommended Reading:
Films: Die Halbstarken (the would-be toughs), Berlin under the Allies
Week 3
Session 5: Film Screening: Changing Skin
Session 6: Youth Culture in East Germany
Topics to be discussed: Rock and rebellion in the GDR, youth counterculture and alternative life styles, Punk in the GDR: non-conformism and provocation, Right wing youth cultures: Skinhead Rock, popcultural nostalgia for East Germany
Required Reading:
Films: Punk in the GDR - Too much future? Skinheads
Week 4
Session 7: Pop Culture in Leningrad and St. Petersburg: From Soviet times to post-Soviet Russia
Topics to be discussed: The St. Petersburg Rock community, irony and provocative performances, counterculture, music and politics: between rebellion and indifference, money and music, the cult of money, Russian encounters with the West, Rock as a vocation: indifference towards success and politics
Required Reading:
Recommended Reading:
Session 8: Unification Day, no class.
Week 5:
Session 9: Midterm Exam
Week 6
Session 10: 1968 and its Impact on German and French Pop Culture: Sex, Gender and Politics Topics to be discussed: Youth rebellion and popular culture, the life style of counterculture and its musical representation, the sexual revolution: sexuality makes you free, the morality of pleasure, Pop cultural representations of sex and gender, Commercialization, liberalization and politicization of sex, playing with gender: machismo and the new (soft) man, the Red Army Faction (RAF)
Required Reading:
Recommended Reading:
Session 11: Pop Cultural Workshop Rap and/or DJing
Week 7: Pop Music Genres
Session 12: Film screening: Berlin Calling
Session 13: Electronic Music, Industrial and Hard Rock
Topics to be discussed: Love Parade in Berlin, the electronic music scene in Berlin, Daft Punk: Creativity and show business, New German Rock: Rammstein
Required Reading:
Recommended Readings:
Films: Einstürzende Neubauten: Listen with pain, Kraftwerk, Daft Punk
Week 8
Session 14: Popular Culture and Politics
Topics to be discussed: Pop cultural propaganda, contested national identities: pride and shame, nationalism and multiculturalism, coming to terms with Nazism, pop cultural references to former glory: visions of a spiritually charged Rus, playing with fire: popcultural representations of Nazism
Required Reading:
Recommended Reading:
Video clips: Russian propaganda clips, Laibach: Birth of a nation, Moers Bunker, Die Prinzen, right wing clips, punk clips
Session 15: Pop culture in the global age: New media and the Internet
Topics to be discussed: digital dating, facebook and youtube, chat cultures, sex on the internet, computer games
Required Reading:
Week 9
Session 16: field trip
Session 17: Fashion and Advertising
Topics to be discussed: Differences and commonalities in national advertising and fashion cultures
Required Reading:
Week 10
Session 18: Jazz Club
Session 19: Closing Session and Revision
Week 11
Session 20: final exam
Recommended films (partly screened in class):
- Run Lola Run
- Changing Skin
- Die Halbstarken – Teenage Wolfpack
- Christiane F. - We Children from Bahnhof Zoo
- Threepenny Opera
- Good Old Daze (Le Péril Jeune)
- Legendary Sin Cities - Paris and Berlin
- Ostpunk! too much future
- Berlin Calling
- Skinheads
- Mall Girls (Galerianki)
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