Constellations: HAA 2400 Special Topics Modern - Art and Humanism in World War II
This seminar will explore the intersection between art, German exile, and the crisis of humanistic thought in the World War II era. We will begin with an analysis of the 'origins' of this crisis in the 1920s (precipitated by the events of World War I, the post-war rise of industrial technocracy, and the emergence of mass politics and culture) and its impact on German art and architecture of that era. We will also consider the famous Expressionism debates between Adorno, Benjamin, Bloch, Brecht, and Lukacs of the mid-1930s that assessed the relationship between art, (Marxist) humanism, rationality, and the rise of fascism. Our attention will then turn to the works of German exile artists and intellectuals in the United States, including Thomas Mann, George Grosz, Erwin Panofsky, Max Ernst, Siegfried Kracauer, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, Bertolt Brecht, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Hannah Arendt, and others, as they reflected in word and image on the humanistic tradition they felt themselves to represent and the fate of that tradition in a world transformed by the realities of dictatorship and war. In his recent call for the revival of a critical humanism (Humanism and Democratic Criticism, 2003), Edward Said drew attention to the changing character of humanistic thought, study, and practice in the post-World War II era. His writing also underscored the evermore urgent need for a recovery of humanism's pre-World War II critical potential, as well as its promise of a non-hegemonic universalism appropriate to our current global crisis. The writings and works to be considered in this course will be evaluated in light of Said's observations while providing us with a vivid archeology of humanistic thought before, during, and after World War II. In particular, our readings and discussions will also prompt us to consider humanism's relationship to the claims and purposes of art then and now. Participants will engage in weekly discussion of assigned readings, produce a research paper relevant to the course theme, and present the results of that research in a formal class presentation at the end of the term.
