Berlin in British Fiction - Einzelansicht

All through the 20^thcentury and beyond, British writers have been fascinated and inspired by the cultural, political and aesthetic radicalism and the multi-layered historical complications they perceived as typical of Berlin. In the first part of the semester, we will meet regularly on a weekly basis and address some of the most influential representations of Germany’s capital city in British writing, including Christopher Isherwood’s documentary sketches of the last days of the Weimar Republic in his Goodbye to Berlin (1939) to Ian McEwan’s Cold War espionage thriller The Innocent (1990). 

For the second half of the term, participants will form small self-study groups that will work independently on one novel each from a list of contemporary Berlin fiction. At the end of the semester we will reassemble for a two-days excursion around the city (suggested dates: either 15-16 July or 22-23 July), where each group will give an on-site presentation on specific aspects of how their chosen text constructs the urban locale.

Buy and read:

Christopher Isherwood: Goodbye to Berlin

Ian McEwan, The Inncoent.

More material will be made available in the course of the semester.

On-site presentation with documentation