G563: German Culture I					
Professor William Rasch
Section: 2986
2:30P-3:45P / MW
BH 317

Political Violence

In Max Weber’s famous words: “The decisive means for politics is
violence.”  Though this view has always been contested and countered
with the belief that the ultimate goal of politics is to establish a
state of “natural innocence” or peace, the aim of this course will
be to examine how the question of the legitimacy of political
violence, whether thought of as warfare, revolution, sovereignty, or
the force of law, is reflected and reflected upon in the German-
language literature (broadly speaking) of the 19th-century.  The
readings will be grouped loosely around four events/time periods:
the French Revolution (1789), the Wars of Liberation (1813-15); the
revolutions of 1848; and the events leading to unification (1870-
71).  In addition to literary texts by e.g. Schiller, Kleist,
Heine, and Fontane, we will read pamphlets, essays, diary entries,
and other genres by a host of authors including e.g. Möser, Kant,
Forster, Wieland, B. von Arnim, Lewald, Grillparzer, and others.
Secondary literature will include sources (e.g. Arendt, Schmitt,
Sheehan) on the political theory and political history of the German-
speaking lands during this time-period.

Writing assignments will most likely be on the order of numerous
shorter position and response papers.

Texts:
Büchner:  Danton’s Tod	Reclam	UB6060

--	  Der Hessische Landsbote  Reclam	UB9486

Grabbe: Napoleon oder die hundert Tage	Reclam	UB258

Heine: 	Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen	Reclam	UB2253	

Kleist:     Die Hermannsschlacht  Reclam	UB348

Schiller:  Wilhelm Tell	Reclam UB12

Marx/Engels: Manifest der kommunistischen Partei Reclam	UB8323