Culture and Politics in Fin de Siecle Europe
HIST 142E-Spring 2000

Jonathan Petropoulos 
Claremont Mckenna College 
Office Tel.: 909-607-2775 
Office Hours: Mon/Wed. 3-4
Seaman 219 
e-mail: jonathan_petropoulos@mckenna.edu
website: http://newmedia.cgu.edu/petropoulos 

Course Description
This course explores the relationship between politics, culture, and social change in continental Europe and the United Kingdom between 1880 and 1914. The organization is based upon specific countries, although every effort will be made to preserve thematic continuity. Important topics include: new conceptions of gender; the advent of a mass consumer culture; apprehensions about urbanization; the discovery of the unconscious; the advent of Expressionism and art nouveau; and the pronounced incidence of cultural pessimism.

Assignments[top]
5-7 page paper (20%);
10 page paper (30%);
Mid-term (20%);
Final exam (30%).

Reading List (* denotes purchase): [top]

T.J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1984).

Modris Eksteins, The Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age (New York: Anchor Books, 1989).

Geoff Eley, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change After Bismarck (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1980).

* Sigmund Freud, An Outline of Psycho-Analysis (New York/London: W.W. Norton, 1969).

Samuel Hynes, The Edwardian Turn of Mind (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1968).

* Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (New York: Bantam, 1972).

* Thomas Mann, Death in Venice (New York: Norton, 1994).

* Frederick Morton, A Nervous Splendor: Vienna, 1888/1889 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979).

Peter Paret, "The Tschudi Affair" in The Journal of Modern History 53 (1981), 589-618.

* Carl Schorske, Fin de Siècle Vienna: Culture and Politics (New York: Random House, 1980).

* Eugen Weber, France: Fin de Siècle (Cambridge: Harvard U.P., 1986).

* H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (New York:: Bantam, 1984).

* Emile Zola. L'Assommoir (New York: Viking Penguin, 1970).

Note that all of the books and articles noted below have been placed on reserve at Honnold Library.  Those not designated for purchase are on electronic reserve.  Additionally, the following historical overviews are also at your disposal on reserve; J. Kim Munholland, Origins of Contemporary Europe, 1890-1914 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1970); and Heinz Gollwitzer, Europe in the Age of Imperialism, 1880-1914 ((New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969). You might also wish to consult the anthologies, John Stokes, ed., Fin de Siecle/Fin du Globe (London: Macmillan, 1992); and Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, eds., Fin de Siecle and its Legacy (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1990).
 

Week 1: 
Introduction. 
19 January: Overview.
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Week 2: The Spirit of Fin de Siècle: (Kafka, entire; Morton, 1-110).
24 January: Kafka.
26 January: The Habsburg Empire.

Suggested: Mark Anderson, ed., Reading Kafka: Prague, Politics, and the Fin de Siecle; and Klaus Wagenbach, Kafka's Prague.
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Week 3: Austria (Morton, 111-317).
31 January: The Habsburg Empire II.
2 February: Vienna Suggested: Paul Hoffmann, The Viennese (1988).
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Week 4: Austrian Cultural History (Schorske, xvii-xxx, 24-115 & 323-66).
7 February: The Ringstrasse.
9 February: Klimt and Kokoschka.

Suggested: William McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist, Politics.
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Week 5: Austria and Psycho-Analysis (Freud, entire; Schorske, 181-207).
14 February: Freud in Theory.
16 February: Freud in Practice.

Suggested: Peter Gay, Freud for Historians; and Peter Gay, Jews and Other Germans.
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Week 6: France (Weber, 1-129; Zola, 1-135).
21 February: Historical Context.
23 February: Haussmannization.

Suggested: David Pinckney, Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris.
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Week 7: French Cultural & Social History (Zola, 136-423).
28 February: Midterm Exam.
1 March: The Culture of Protest & the Dreyfus Affair (Discuss Zola).

Suggested: Theodore Zeldin, France 1848-1945: Anxiety and Hypocrisy; and Deborah Silverman, Art Nouveau in Fin de Siècle France: Politics, Psychology, and Style.
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Week 8: France and Modernity (Clark, 4-78, 206-68).
6 March: The Eiffel Tower.
8 March: Cubism and Picassso.

Suggested: Theda Shapiro, Painters and Politics: The European Avant Garde and Society.
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Week 9: Spring Break.

Week 10: The United Kingdom (Hynes, pp. 3-131). 
20 March: Historical Context.
22 March: Bloomsbury and Beyond.

Suggested: Quentin Bell, Bloomsbury.
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Week 11: Modernity and the U.K. (Wells, entire). 
27 March: London: Urban Challenges.
29 March: Anxiety (Discussion of Wells).

Suggested: Judy Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society.
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Week 12: Germany (Eley, 1-98).
3 April: Historical Context.
5 April: Sonderweg and Social Imperialism.

Suggested: David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley, The Peculiarities of German History, and Konrad Jarausch, Students, Society, and Politics in Imperial Germany.
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Week 13: German Art (Paret, 589-618).
10 April: The Kaiser's Kunstpolitik.
12 April: The Quest for Change: the Blaue Reiter.

Suggested: Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky, eds., The Blue Rider Almanac; and Peter Paret, The Berlin Secession (1989).
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Week 14: German Prose (Mann, entire; Steiner, 1-1-25) 
17 April: Nietzsche, Hofmannsthal, and the Brothers Mann.
19 April: Malaise (Discuss Mann).

Suggested: Nigel Hamilton, The Brothers Mann.
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Week 15: The Origins of World War I (Eksteins, 1-94, 170-91).
24 April: The Prelude to War.
26 April: Combat in World War I.
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Week 16: World War I and the End of an Era (Steiner, 29-141).
1 May: August 1914 as a Turning Point.
3 May: Conclusions.

Final Exam: Friday May 12 at 8:00 a.m.
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