Twentieth-Century Berlin: An Urban Historical Perspective - Detailseite

ECTS Points: 5

Language requirements: min. English B2

Urban history is a form of historical inquiry that enriches our understanding of cities and urban landscapes, often using an interdisciplinary approach.  This course is an introduction to specific points of interest in the political, social and cultural developments in Berlin between the 1920s and the 1990s, showing how they illuminate German twentieth-century history. It links city sites, monuments and buildings to collective memory and political debates.

We learn about the fascinating stories of twentieth-century political events, places, people, buildings and monuments in Berlin presented by three urban historians, and we also learn the basic principles and approaches of urban history. We make urban history come alive through audio-guide narrated city walks, develop our own piece of micro-history by researching neighborhoods, and take part in an urban preservation project — restoration of the Alexander Haus in Groß Glienicke — that brings this city’s urban history into the present.

Ash, T. G. (2013) “The New German Question”, The New York Review of Books, Aug. 15.

Ewen, S. (2015) What is Urban History? Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Harding, T. (2015) The House by the Lake. London: Windmill.

Judt, T. (2005) Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945. NY: Penguin.

Ladd, B. (1997) Ghosts of Berlin. Chicago: U of Chicago Press.

Large, D. C. (2000) Berlin. NY: Basic Books.

Richie, A. (1999) Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin. NY: Harper Collins.

This seminar carries 5 ECTS.

For international incoming students and HU students.

Language requirements English B2 minimum.

NO registration via Agnes.

Application via Berlin Perspectives ONLY: BP Module application

Internationale Programmstudierende / International exchange students.

HU-Studierende im ÜWP.