German Studies 269tf - Colloquium: Topics in Transnational German Studies-The Forest

This course studies the forest as a literary construct, cultural asset, economic resource and key ecological player. German social movements in the 19th century were conspicuously invested in the forest as a national symbol. This obsession with the “German forest” serves as a starting point to explore the significance of the forest on both sides of the Atlantic. Cultural artifacts like the Grimm’s fairy tales and German Romantic poetry influence American literature and art; mechanisms of exclusion and belonging, destruction and profiteering shape discourses on the natural world across the globe. A recent rise in narratives of interconnectedness may herald a paradigm shift in how both the US and German-speaking world thinks about the forest. (E)