GERM 363 - Crime and the Fantastic

This course explores the modern fascination with the uncanny, the mysterious, the magical, and the demonic in two related genres: murder mysteries and tales of the supernatural. We will ask why both of these genres were invented in German Romanticism and what function they play in later contexts. Course materials include stories of the uncanny by E.T.A. Hoffmann and Tieck; Goethe’s “Faust”; Grimm’s fairy tales; the fantastic realism of the nineteenth century; Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”; German TV crime drama. Taught in German. Requirements: weekly reading responses; three short papers with revisions. Offered fall term of even-numbered years. (4 Credits)