GRM 295-01 - Special Topic: Coca-Colonization? Americanization and anti-Americanism in West Germany after 1945

1 or 2 credits (Fall)

Americanization and Anti-Americanism in West Germany after 1945. This course will survey the reception of US culture in West Germany after WWII, throughout the Cold War, and in today’s unified Germany, although the emphasis of the class lies on the Cold War period. We will begin by considering the basic nature of cultural exchanges, with a brief review of US-German relations after WWII and by considering what terms such as “culture”, “consumer society” and “popular” mean, and how they shape our everyday lives. Moving from 1945 onward, we will then scrutinize diverse cultural domains such as film, journalism, newsreels, literature, critical essays, and politics in order to gain an overview of how profoundly West German popular, consumer, and political culture was and continues to be influenced by the powerful transatlantic former Cold War ally. A survey of US-critical and anti-American movements will map out German efforts to emancipate itself from ostensible “Coca-Colonization,” and will cast into relief points of cultural conflict and political disagreement, as for example during the student movement of the late 1960s, and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s merging out of President George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” during the Iraq invasion of 2004. Taught in English or German.

Prerequisite: None.
Note: Dates: October 24 to December 5. Half-semester deadlines apply.
Instructor: Uelzmann