GERST 1122

FWS: Love and Death in Vienna

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2021-2022.

Singing boys. Dancing horses. Waltzing debutantes. Those fortunate enough to live in a city where each day begins with a pastry and ends with a two-liter bottle of wine must live a charmed existence! Not according to Freud. After decades of treating the morbid Viennese, he concluded that human nature must be torn between two warring forces: a love instinct and a death drive. In this FWS we'll explore both sides of Vienna's enigmatic character, its life-affirming hedonism and its self-destructive nihilism, through the lens of narrative fiction on page and on screen. Along the way, we'll learn to read and view more critically by writing our way through the best literature and cinema of the multi-ethnic metropolis on the Danube.

When Offered Fall, Spring.

Satisfies Requirement First-Year Writing Seminar.

Comments No knowledge of German is expected.

View Enrollment Information