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From Berlin Bohemia to Hitler: The Weimar Republic's Crisis Democracy & the Emergence of German Fascism

New College of California Humanities/Interdisciplinary Studies Spring 2005 Instructor: Scott J. Thompson

Week 9: March 17, 2005

Avant-garde & Agit-prop in the Taylorized Economy

1926-1927

[Assigned Reading from Weimar Republic Sourcebook]

A New Democracy in Crisis

III. Economic Upheaval: Rationalization, Inflation and Depression

25. Rudolf Hilferding, The Organized Economy (1927) [pp. 68-72]

V. The Rise of Nazism

49. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (1927) [pp. 130-133]

Pressure Points of Social Life

X. The Jewish Community: Renewal, Redefinition, Resistance

104. Edgar Marx, Ideological Self-Determination of Bar-Kochba: The New Year of the Jewish Gymnastics and Sports Association Bar-Kochba (1927) [pp. 262-263]

105. Joseph Roth, Wandering Jews (1927) [pp. 263-267]

Intellectuals and the Ideologies of the Age

XII. Critical Theory and the Search for a New Left

122. Max Horkheimer, The Impotence of the German Working Class (1927) [pp. 316-318]

XIII. Revolution from the Right

131. Berlin Stahlhelm Manifesto (1927) [pp. 339-340]

132. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Literature as the Spiritual Space of the Nation (1927) [p. 341]

133. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (1927) [pp. 342-345]

XIV. Cultural Pessimism: Diagnoses of Decline

142. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1927) [pp. 368-369]

The Challenge of Modernity

XV. Imagining America: Fordism and Technology

154.Siegfried Kracauer, The Mass Ornament (1927) [pp. 404-407]

XVI. Berlin and the Countryside

159. Matheo Quinz, The Romanic Café (1926) [pp. 415-417]

XVII. Designing the New World: Modern Architecture and the Bauhaus

172. Rudolf Arnheim, The Bauhaus in Dessau (1927) [pp. 450-451]

XVIII. Housing for the Masses

179. Dr. N., A Contemporary Garden City (1927) [pp. 465-466]

180. Edgar Wedepohl, The Weissenhof Settlement (1927) [pp. 466-468]

181. Marie-Elisabeth Lüders, A Construction, Not a Dwelling (1927) [pp. 468-469]

Changing Configurations of Culture

XXI. Theater, Politics, and the Public Sphere

221. Bertolt Brecht, Difficulties of the Epic Theater (1927) [pp.539-540]

XXIV. New Mass Media: Radio and Gramophone

251. Otto Alfred Palitzsch, Broadcast Literature (1927) [pp. 600-603]

XXV. Cinema from Expressionism to Social Realism

263. Willy Haas, Metropolis (1927) [pp.623-625]

264. Walter Benjamin, A Discussion of Russian Filmic Art and Collectivist Art in General (1927) [pp. 626-628]

The Transformation of Everyday Life

XXVI. Visual Culture: Illustrated Press and Photography

272. August Sander, Remarks on My Exhibition at the Cologne Art Union (1927) [pp. 645-646]

273. Kurt Korff, The Illustrated Magazine (1927) [pp. 646-647]

XXVII. Visions of Plenty: Mass Consumption, Fashion, and Advertising

285. Vicki Baum, People of Today (1927) [pp. 664-666]

XXVIII. The Cult of the Body: Lebensreform, Sports, and Dance

298. Wolfgang Graeser, Body Snse: Gymnastics, Dance, Sport (1927) [pp. 683-685]

299. Mary Wigman, Dance and Gymnastics (1927) [pp. 685-687]

300. Herbert Jhering, Boxing (1927) [pp. 687-688]

Supplemental Readings [photocopies supplied by instructor]

A. John Willett, Art and Politics in the Weimar Period: The New Sobriety, 1917-1933, Chronology 1927, pp. 246-249.