German Studies 300st - Topics in German Culture and Society-Streik!

This course asks what it means to be a worker in a capitalist society and what modes of resistance are available in this context. Students read excerpts from key texts by the most prolific German-speaking writers on class and labor (Marx, Luxemburg, Weber), acquiring a toolkit for social, political, and economic analysis. Literary texts further illustrate class relations and resistance movements during burgeoning capitalism, while also familiarizing course participants with the main literary epochs of the 19th century and early 20th century. The second half of the course builds on this foundation as as the class reads (predominately) literary works depicting individual refusal as well as collective strike actions in response to patriarchal structures and capitalist exploitation in the 20th and 21st century. (E)