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This course is offered as a joint seminar for students of NYU Berlin and HU Berlin. The course is structured in three components: one section, taught to NYU students, focuses on German Romanticism—its core features, philosophical foundations, and cultural particularities. A second, taught to HU students, emphasizes American Romanticism and its unique forms of expression. In the seminar sessions held together, we will adopt a comparative mode and look at the reception of predominantly German Romanticism in American culture.
By focusing on Romanticism, the course investigates one of the most enduring and influential movements in cultural history, tracing the ongoing relevance of Romantic thought across more than two centuries of cultural production. Our inquiry is structured around three interwoven themes, each highlighting a distinct aspect of the Romantic imagination: Romanticism approached nature not as a passive backdrop, but as a spiritual, moral, and philosophical force. From landscapes filled with longing and awe to radical meditations on humanity’s place in the cosmos, we will examine how Romantic thinkers and artists imagined nature as a site of mystery, redemption, and existential crisis. In light of the current climate emergency, these questions gain renewed urgency. The Romantic narrative section explores Romanticism’s infatuation with intense feelings and how it shaped notions of love, longing, fantasy, and the irrational. We will also look at the role of fairy tales within Romantic narrative and their later transformation in American popular culture. Though Romanticism was international in scope, it developed distinct national characteristics—and in Germany, these took particularly complex and ambivalent forms. It contributed to early German national identity, whose ideals were later partially used, co-opted, distorted, or weaponized—notably by the Nazi regime. American Romanticism, by contrast, developed along a distinctly different trajectory—emphasizing individualism, the spiritual significance of the American landscape, and the fight for freedom, justice, and national inclusion.
Authors, philosophers, writers, artists, composers, and filmmakers considered will include, among others:
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Novalis, Joseph von Eichendorff, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Heinrich Heine, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schlegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Caspar David Friedrich, Richard Wagner, Lotte Reininger, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Jacobs, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Cole, Frederick Edwin Church, Walt Disney, Terrence Malick.
All readings will be provided in English (translation). The seminar will include an optional field outing, either to a museum or the opera. Enrollment is strictly limited to 20 students. Due to this, binding registration at the beginning of the semester is required for both NYU and HU students. Please note that HU students cannot take a Modulabschlussprüfung (MAP) at the end of this seminar. |
