Topics in Modern Languages

Courses in specific topics, such as culture, literary movements or genres, linguistics or film. Taught in English. May be repeated for credit with a different topic. May count towards European Studies minor.

Current Semester Information

295A: Tps:Women/Nazi Germany

Tps:Women in Nazi Germany

Even though Nazi ideology relegated women to the home, some women gained great influence and power during the Third Reich: Leni Riefenstahl, "Hitler's filmmaker," Magda Goebbels, wife of the Minister of Propaganda and the unofficial "First Lady," and Ilse Koch, the "Bitch of Buchenwald." This course investigates the motivations of these women (why did they join the Nazis?) and the contradictions between Nazi ideology and lived reality. Moreover, we will ask how they are portrayed, and what investment the various historians had writing about Nazi women. We will also take a look at women in the resistance movement, including Marlene Dietrich, who joined the American Forces, and young Sophie Scholl, who was executed at age 22 for distributing anti-Nazi flyers. Material to be discussed in class includes excerpts from autobiographies, Nazi propaganda, and film.