Topics in German Culture and Society: Civic Storytelling: Political Novellas

Modern citizens’ struggle for liberty produced a radical literary tool of defense: the novella. Part everyday life, part sudden event, these short forms gave advice to those fighting the Man: How can outcasts question authority? What is a feminist plot? Can resistance be a reader response? We will discuss and read how these stories organize, formulate, and intensify real-world arguments through fictional protagonists in examples from the Americas and Europe, esp. 19th-century Germany. Alongside key theories, we will assess how novellas clarified and complicated issues of civil liberties, politics, religion, racism, gender, law, and the media.