German Studies 232 - Tutorial: Crit. Soc. Thought

Close reading and translation workshop based on texts in German pertaining to GRMST-231: Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Critical Social Thought. An introduction to some of the great critical voices of the nineteenth century. We will explore the ideas of such mutinous thinkers as Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Franz Kafka, focusing on the style as well as the substance of their works and the circumstances that provoked them to write and/or that their writings helped provoke. The course will highlight the tension between appearance and reality, the dialectic of domination and subordination, and the place of reason and irrationality in social life.