Approaches to Germ Lit/Culture - bmc.GERM.B245.001.F26
Section outline
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GERM 245: Under Surveillance (COML, HART, JWST)Literature and Visual Culture from the Enlightenment to the Present
Taught in English with additional German-speaking session
T/Th 2:40 - 4:00
OL 116
This course investigates different cultures of hyper-visibility and shifting notions of the power of the gaze and spectatorship as tied to techniques of social observation and control. Starting in the eighteenth century, physiognomy emerges not only as a technique of reading faces, but as a popular pastime whose sinister afterlife becomes a foundation for Nazi racial science. Haunting tales from Romantic and Gothic authors invoke a supernatural surveillance that give rise to compelling genres and allow readers to visualize a modern, uncertain depth of subjectivity and nature of reality. Towards the beginning of the twentieth century, the flaneur's ambulatory gaze mobilizes a new experience of city life as other visual technologies like photography and film become more ubiquitous. Around the same time, the hyper-visibility of hysterical women inspires innovative forms of narration that intertwine exhibitionism, voyeurism, and a gendered critique of the gaze. And finally, the mass surveillance by the state - both real and imagined - prompt us to look more carefully at the powers afforded to visibility and invisibility, and the literary and filmic depictions of those powers.
Learning Objectives:
-deepen your knowledge of visual culture, its dimensions, and its role in reflecting and shaping historical shifts and practices in eighteenth through twenty-first centuries in European and North American transnational and comparative contexts
-investigate the ways in which the gaze has been deployed and mobilized in maintaining or navigating structures of social power and control, and as a tool of marginalization
-explore literature as a mode of self-reflection and medium in dialog with other artistic media, scientific culture, and other cultural practices
-enhance your interpretive skills through reading, discussing, and analyzing a variety of literary genres and theoretical texts
-grow your presentational skills through preparation of course assignments
-gain exposure to a variety of textual genres and visual practices of the eighteenth – twenty-first centuries
-scrutinize the shifting valences of surveillance studies, as applied to literary and artistic thought and practices
Dr. Margaret Strair
Lecturer of German, Bryn Mawr College
mstrair@brynmawr.edu
Office Hours: F 1:30 - 3:30 pm in OL 139 or via Zoom and by appt
Book an appt in office hours: https://calendly.com/m-strair
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(reformatted version forthcoming)
121.0 KB · Uploaded 08/25/26, 22:58 -
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Topic-specific links and resources will be added over the course of the semester. Please use the links and resources here to further familiarize yourself with the historical context and content of some of the works we will encounter of the course of the semester. Please be advised that some of these materials contain descriptions of violence, and provide histories of racist practices and institutions.
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Do you know of a resource (scholarly article, film, work of art, song, other work of literature) that touches on course themes? Post information about it here as well as a c. 7 sentence summary and connection to course topics.
An entry on the forum earns you 5 extra credit points for the term. You may post up to three times in the semester.
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A meeting time for an additional German-speaking section will be determined in the first two weeks of classes. The German section will provide an opportunity for speakers of German (and course participants seeking a German credit) to engage with course content in German. This may include close readings of passages from texts in their original German, engaging with German-language media on topics related to the course topic, or creative activities. We will also use the time to build skills across all modes of communication, review grammar, and practice active and passive vocabulary.