Meeting times: MWF 11:00-11:50
Location: 154 Straub
Instructor: Ian McNeely
Email: imcneely@darkwing.uoregon.edu
Phone: 346-6161
Office: 317 Grayson
Office hours: W 1:00-2:30 and by appointment

Website:  http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~imcneely
Note: course announcements and assignments, including study questions for the exams and guidelines for the paper, will posted at this site.
 

Description

What was it like to live in a small European town before television, before electricity, before railroads? How did the pre-modern community react to—and participate in—the changes which heralded the birth of the modern age in Europe?

This course draws on the experience of German Central Europe for answers to these questions. First, it reconstructs life in the German "home town" in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War, the most devastating conflict in Central Europe before World War I. It then asks how classic patterns of pre-industrial life were transformed between Napoleon’s invasions and the Revolution of 1848.

Along the way, we will learn about the economic basis of small-town life, family and gender roles, emotional and religious experience, changes brought by the state and by war, nostalgia and the romanticization of community life, and the early manifestations of movement and modernity which came to the German home town by 1850. We will also devote sustained attention to German intellectual and cultural life, focusing on the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Finally, we will consider the position of Jews in German society.

Generally, there will be two lectures per week, with the third weekly class meeting devoted to discussion of readings.
 

Course requirements and deadlines
 

Midterm	Fri., Feb. 2	20%
Biographical essay (5-6 pp.)	Mon., Mar. 12	30%
Final exam	Tue., Mar. 20 (10:15-12:15)	35%
Class participation		15%

The biographical essay may be on any person who lived in German-speaking Central Europe during the period treated by this class. I will post suggestions and guidelines for the paper on the course website after the midterm.

Your class participation grade will be based on your performance in class on the nine designated discussion days. Attendance on these days, and at all other times, is essential. Students who are extremely averse to speaking up in discussions may instead submit four 1-2 page reaction papers over the course of the term, which I will use as a basis for the class participation grade.
 

Texts for purchase

The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
Mack Walker, German Home Towns: Community, State, and General Estate, 1648-1871
Heinrich von Kleist, The Marquise of O— and Other Stories (for "Michael Kohlhaas")
Coursepack (items indicated by an * below)

All the texts, including the coursepack, are on reserve at Knight Library. A copy of Karl Marx. Early Writings, which we'll be reading in the last two weeks of class, will also be placed on reserve there. (The two readings from Marx can also be found in The Marx-Engels Reader, edited by Robert C. Tucker, also on reserve at Knight.)
 
 

Jan. 8-12: The Holy Roman Empire in 1648

(M) Introduction to the course
(W) Germany in the European state system
(F) Discussion: Treaty of Westphalia

Walker, 1-33
*Treaty of Westphalia
 

(M) Martin Luther King Day – no class meeting
(W) Guilds, property, and citizenship
(F) Emotional connections

Walker, 34-144

Jan. 22-24: City and country

(M) The Baroque court and capital
(W) Peasants, lords, and agrarian life
        Guest lecture by Prof. David Luebke

Jan. 26-31: Religious life

(F) Discussion: the Jews in German social life

Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln

(M) Protestantism, the Bible, and literacy
(W) Devotional practices in Catholic Germany

*David Sabean, Power in the Blood, 113-143
*James van Horn Melton, "From Image to Word: Cultural Reform and the Rise of Literate Culture in Eighteenth-Century Austria"

Feb. 2 (F): Midterm examination
 
 

Feb. 5-9: The state

(M) Fiscal and social discipline
(W) Popular politics: the righteous German
(F) Discussion: Michael Kohlhaas

Walker, 145-184
Kleist, "Michael Kohlhaas"

Feb. 12-16: Enlightenment

(M) The philosophy of the Aufklärung
(W) Freemasonry and the public sphere
(F) Discussion: Kant and Schiller

*Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life, 321-335
*Immanuel Kant, "What is Enlightenment"
*Friedrich Schiller, "Letters Upon the Aesthetic Education of Man" (selections)

Feb. 19-23: Romanticism

(M) "Natural supernaturalism"
(W) Discussion: Goethe
(F) Discussion: Beethoven and Mozart

Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
Listen to Wolfgang Mozart's Symphony No. 40 and Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 (These symphonies are available on CD in the Douglass Library, with call numbers CX265 and CX905, respectively.)

Write a brief essay (1-2 double-spaced pages) comparing and contrasting Beethoven and Mozart

Feb. 26-Mar. 2: War

(M) Napoleon
(W) German nationalism
(F) Discussion of Herder and Fichte

Walker, 185-216
*Johann Gottfried Herder, "Yet Another Philosophy of History" (excerpts)
*Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation (Nos. 8 and 9)

Mar. 5-9: Social development

(M) Reforms and constitutions
(W) Bourgeois society, civil society
(F) Discussion: Jewish civil emancipation

Walker, 248-306
(RESERVE) Karl Marx, "On the Jewish Question," in Karl Marx. Early Writings, 211-242

Mar. 12 (M) Biographical essay due

Mar. 12-16: Political mobilization

(M) Pauperism and emigration
(W) The revolution of 1848
(F) Discussion: Karl Marx and German history

Walker, 307-404
(RESERVE) Marx, "A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Introduction," in Karl Marx. Early Writings, 243-258