GER 260 CC: GLOBAL CREATIVITIES

Global Creativities in the German-Speaking World:  How do artists and their work circulate globally and why do certain artists choose to create art in the German-speaking world? How do we choose to represent ourselves and what is meaningful to us through visual art, film, literature and music? With an emphasis on cultural exchange among non-native artists, writers, public intellectuals and filmmakers who choose to create their works in the German-speaking world, we will explore questions of identity, equity, sustainability and migration together. We will focus on the key terms globalization, transnationalism and intersectionality to analyze the ways in which countries, cultures and peoples are imagined across borders. These key terms will frame our studies as we engage with the works of authors, artists and filmmakers whose biographies are punctuated by crossing linguistic and cultural borders. Students will learn to disrupt assumptions around gender, race, and class expressed through art and literature in this course by questioning what defines culture and who has the power to determine what is or is not a part of a culture. Students will learn first-hand how this process works by engaging in the co-creation of course content and by curating artists engaged in this work. Together we will question how cultural knowledge is constructed and how the individual situates themselves inside and outside of national and cultural identities through art as we learn how German Studies connects to other disciplines in the liberal arts like Film Studies, Art History, and Gender, Sexuality and Intersectionality Studies.