New Spring Course: German 82.10 Of Spirit and Ghosts in German Literary Modernism, Dist: LIT, WCult: W
10A, Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor Ulla Lenze
In German, Geist has many meanings, from mind to spirit and ghost; it can even be an alcoholic beverage. All of them mean journeying into other, unknown realms. The seminar deals with the engagement of German writers at the beginning of the 20th century with occult practices, the medium of writing, and its influence on literary modernism. The seminar also has a creative writing component, in the genuine sense of literature as a practice of transgressing into ghostly spheres. Taught in German
Ulla Lenze was awarded the Literature Prize of the Cultural Circle of the German Economy in 2016 and the Lower Rhine Literature Prize in 2020. In 2020, she published her first historical novel, The Radio Operator, which focuses on the life of a German immigrant in the United States and his involvement in the Nazi spy network during World War II. The novel, with twelve translations to date, was published in the U.S. by HarperVia in 2021.