Teaching
Fall 2009:
German 61a, “Berlin: The Modern Metropolis” (GE Course): This course focuses on the cultural, political, architectural, and urban history of one of the most vibrant and significant cities in the world. As the locus for the two major conflicts of the 20th century (the Second World War and the Cold War), Berlin has played a major role in configuring the modern world. But far from limited to just the 20th century, students will explore Berlin over 800 years using an innovative digital mapping tool called “HyperCities” to understand how Berlin evolved from a fortified mercantile town to a global city. In the process, students will create their own maps using Google and publish hypermedia research projects on the HyperCities platform. No prior computer skills are necessary for this course.
German 261: “Berlin, Space Theory, and Cultural Studies” (Graduate Seminar) Despite its fraught and deeply layered history, Berlin has played a comparatively small role in the development of “space theory” with cultural studies. One need only think of the significance of Paris for thinkers such as David Harvey or Walter Benjamin, or New York for Michel de Certeau, or Los Angeles for Fredric Jameson and Edward Soja. The purpose of this course is to evaluate the significance of Berlin for understanding the “spatial turn” within cultural studies. To do so, we will turn to several different media, including historical maps and topographies, works of literature, art and architecture, and digital representations of the city. Readings include: E.T.A. Hoffmann, Heinrich Heine, Alfred Doeblin, Walter Benjamin, Joseph Roth, Albert Speer, Emine Ozdamar, Daniel Libeskind, with additional studies of particular places within Berlin such as the Holocaust memorial, Potsdamerplatz, the Scheunenviertel, and Marzahn as well as representations in new media such as Google Earth and HyperCities. Students will produce and publish their research projects on the HyperCities website (http://www.hypercities.com)
Winter 2010:
German 59, “The Holocaust in Film and Literature (GE Course)
German 89, “Honors Seminar”
German 112, “The Jewish Question in German Literature” (Seminar)
Keck Introductory Seminar (co-taught), “Digital Cultural Mapping”
Past Classes:
Comp Lit 19 (Fiat Lux Course), “Googlization, Googlized, Google It!” (Spring 2009)
German 260, “The City in the Ages of New Media”
German 260/Art History, “Weimar Visual Culture”
German 261, “War and Media Theory”