2014-2015 Academic Catalog

May 05, 2024

2014-2015 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

GERM 205 - The Total Work of Art and Cultural Criticism from Wagner to the Present

This course explores the origins and genealogy of the Wagnerian ideal of a total work of art or Gesamtkunstwerk. We begin by locating the origin of these modern cultural forms and aesthetic experiences in Wagner’s theory and practice. It is our contention that by learning to see Richard Wagner (1813-1883), already in the 19th century, as the first “cinematic” thinker, we can gain renewed critical perspective on key phases of 20th-century culture. By exploring the musical, philosophical and literary precedents of Wagner’s work, the aesthetic and psychological effect of his music dramas, and the long-running, often contradictory ramifications of the Wagnerian legacy, we hope to understand the reasons for his continuing influence throughout the 20th century and up to the present. Topics covered include the classical and romantic precedents to the “total work of art,” Schopenhauer and cultural pessimism, Wagner’s theory and practice of the Gesamtkunstwerk, Wagnerism in the Weimar Republic, Walter Benjamin’s notion of the aestheticization of politics, German émigrés and the transmission of Wagner to Hollywood, Horkheimer and Adorno’s diagnosis of the “culture industry,” and the synthesis of Wagnerian antimodernism and digital art in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.”

Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically

Placement Guidelines
Please visit the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures for the language placement guidelines.