Fall 2008 SLAVIC/COMPARATIVE LITERATURE/JEWISH STUDIES
C565/365 INTERWAR CENTRAL EUROPE:
CULTURAL FLORESCENCE AND APOCALYPTIC VISION
Professor Bronislava Volková volkova@indiana.edu
T R 4-6
The years between the two wars presented a curious paradox in the heartland of Europe - Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland. This area was characterized both by a particularly rich cultural florescence and an especially by an acute apocalyptic perspective.
The course adopts an interdisciplinary approach and links the political threats hanging over the area with the scientific, scholarly and artistic achievements of the period. Special emphasis is laid on the role of the Jews in the crosspollination of the intellectual climate. The issue of human values is explored in an integrative picture of these years. The authors read present a delightful smorgasbord of geniuses like Freud, Musil, Th. Mann, S. Zweig, K Capek, Kafka and Witkacy.
