INSIGHTS

The stylistic period between Renaissance and Neoclassicism is called Baroque and lasted from 1575 to 1770. In art history this era is divided in Early Baroque (ca. 1600-1650), High Baroque (ca. 1650-1720) and Late Baroque or Rococo (ca. 1720-1770). Baroque art can be defined as the typical kind of artistic development in the period of Absolutism and Catholic (Counter-)Reform which started its existence in Italy and, then, spread first over the catholic countries of Europe before finally establishing itself in a modified way in protestant regions, too. Thus, still today we find many examples of baroque art in Würzburg, its vicinity and all of southern Germany – a situation, which provides the best opportunities to become acquainted with this style during one’s studies at Würzburg University. The most important tasks architects, painters and sculptors had to fulfil in that epoch were to explain the christian belief to the faithful and allow them, with their artistic means, a first “glimpse into heaven” or, on the other side, to express and emphasise the power and importancce of the absolute princes. In consequence the artists had to build and decorate a plethora of beautiful churches and sumptuous palaces, they also had to project huge symmetrical gardens and to design new geometrical plannings for cities recently founded to glorify the princes. As the greatest achievement of this period might be mentionned its trial to unify the three main branches of fine art – architecture, painting and scultpure – in order to create a unity of the genres. This very impressive fact – called “Gesamtkunstwerk” – evoques a complexity in art that has never been achieved before or after that era. In many cases a kind of melting procedure happens between the artistic branches bringing illusion, imagination and reality to a close contextual situation which is often breathtaking. The projected lecture will exemplify baroque art in all its periodical subdivisions as well as in architecture, painting and sculpture using the vast repertory provided in southern Germany. Thus architects like Balthasar Neumann (1687-1753), Johann Dientzenhofer (1665-1726) and Dominikus Zimmermann (1685-1766), painters like Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), Cosmas Damian Asam (1686-1739) and Johannes Zick (1702-1762) or sculptors like Balthasar Permoser (1651-1732), Ignaz Günther (1725-1775) and Egid Quirin Asam (1692-1750) with all their masterpieces will be in the focus of our interest.

Lecturer: Dr. Peter A. Süß

"True Crime" is becoming increasingly popular. The genre owes its rise in particular to the media coverage, but in doing so, the latter has perhaps also struck a nerve with recipients. On the one hand, the seminar will thus focus on the legal historical development in Germany, but on the other hand, it will also discuss spectacular legal cases. In this way, participants will gain an insight into the German legal and media system. On this journey through such cultures of memory in Germany, the participants will encounter, for example, the "Vampire of Düsseldorf" and assess for themselves whether they would have convicted someone or not. To successfully complete the course, participants will present and write up a well-known case from their home country (optionally a different country).

Lecturers: Dr. Christina Schäfer / Lisa Stolz M.A.

The historical development of Germany during the last two hundred years possesses a great impact on the actual situation of our state. Thus, the lecture that is subdivided into two sections taught in subsequent semesters will cover the past 200 years of German history since the epoch-making French Revolution with all its consequences. On one hand its contents will concern the main conditions, i.e. the essential pre­conditions for the development of our present governmental, societal and eco­nomic system as well as the most important forces, ideas and basic decisions which have facilitated its development. In this context the movement towards a liberal parlia­mentary democracy, which was repeatedly interrupted and which suffered many set­backs, is of central importance. On the other hand, it also concerns the respective decision-making processes as such, and that with the intention of investigating the conditions which render political action possible and at the same time limit it.
So one of the central points of interest is namely the history of parliamentary de­mo­cracy in Germany. Another focal point has to be the sweeping changes resulting from the development of modern industrial society. It is not only a matter of illus­trating this development and of giving a clear idea of its driving forces but of de­monstrating the respective political and social consequences of this process and, in doing so, to give a more exact survey of the contemporary situation, its special prob­lems and immediate tasks, its contradictions and political challenges.
Against this background the causes, the basic factors and the short- and long-term consequences of the decisions made in the various stages of Germany’s historical development in the 19^th and 20^th centuries will be analysed: the radical change in the period from 1806 to 1815, the revolution of 1848, the great constitutional conflict in Prussia and the foundation of the German Reich in 1871, the revolution in 1918 and the creation of the Weimar Republic, its decline and the assumption of power by the Natio­nal Socialists, the deadly enemies of the liberal parlia­mentary-democratic sys­tem and of all its governmental, societal and economic roots, and the successful at­tempt to restore and develop this system in accordance with modern requirements after 1945 until, finally, a reunification of the German nation became possible in 1990. This emphasis on the turning points of the historical process is embedded in certain factors that decisively influenced the character and the intellectual atmosphere of an epoch in the field of art, literature and science, in brief, of the cultural life in the widest sense of the word.

Lecturer: Dr. Peter A. Süß

In the last decades and in the course of worldwide cultural but also economic linking-up, events like Halloween or Valentine’s Day arrived in Germany and Europe. Formally, those originally American festivities were not known in Germany and the rest of Europe. However, this does not mean that these countries did not have their own customs and traditions. Actually, each of them looks back on a huge amount of different local, regional and even nationwide customs for any kind of event: practices for annually repeating feasts like Christmas and Easter or saints’ days, e.g. processions or parish fairs, as well as modes for special and individual festivities as weddings, baptisms and funerals. Furthermore, customs and traditions are still instrumentalised and interpreted for political and economic purposes today. With this in mind, it is also worthwhile to look at the way customs have changed in the recent past. The course will give an overview over different German regions and their churchly and worldly customs as well as a pass through the ecclesiastical year with its most important rites and traditions. It can help students from abroad, but also students from different German regions to understand the different practices they might see during their stay in Germany and maybe even participate in them to experience centuries-old traditions in different locations.

Lecturer: Luise Stark M.A.

Currently consisting of twenty-seven member states with supranational and intergovernmental features, the European Union has not only created a political and economic community but also a single market by a system of laws which apply in all member states, guaranteeing the freedom of movement of people, goods, services, and capital.
In this course, we will look at the development of the European Union from the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), an administrative agency established by the Treaty of Paris in 1952 to integrate the coal and steel industries in western Europe, to the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, the inofficial EU constitution, and beyond. In particular, we will focus on Germany's role in the history of European integration. Topics presented include (but may not be limited to) decision-making in the EU, the various EU institutions such as the Commission, the Council of the EU, the EU Parliament, the EU Central Bank etc.; immigration and asylum; foreign and security policy; Brexit and Euroscepticism, the European Green Deal. Additionally, we will study and discuss national particularities such as the German social security system, the German labor market etc.

Lecturer: Sabrina Hüttner, M.A.

It is a commonplace around the globe: every nation possesses buildings of outstanding importance for its history. Churches, castles, palaces, houses, memorials that have played a more or less important role in the state’s development feature the materialised past of a people, and are – if not appreciated – at least recognised or known by all fellow countrymen. Sometimes such buildings even have an iconic value and are highly esteemed by every native as utterances of a nation’s sovereignty and will plus its ups and downs.

Therein, Germany likewise makes no difference from the rest of the world. Many famous buildings encompass the chequered history of the German state through the centuries. From Middle Ages through early modern times up to the recent period: always events, decisions and developments are closely linked to monuments that hence remain in our people’s memory, be it – just to mention a few – Charlemagne’s palatine chapel in Aachen (800), Speyer Cathedral built by Emperor Konrad II^nd (1025), Nuremberg Castle mentioned in the “Golden Bull” of 1356, Wittenberg’s palace chapel at whose door Martin Luther is said to have published his 95 thesis in 1517, town halls of Münster and Osnabrück where the Thirty Years’ War finally came to an end in 1648, Regensburg City Hall which for over a century was the place of assembly for the German Imperial Diet (until 1806), Wartburg and Hambach Castles which both mark the steps towards democracy (1817/1832) as St. Paul’s Church in Frankfurt does as well (1848), Berlin Reichstag Building where the country turned into a republic in 1918, Feldherrnhalle in Munich where a first National Socialist attempt to seize power was stopped (1923), the Museum Koenig in Bonn where the fathers of the actual German Constitution met in 1948, or iconic Brandenburg Gate in our capital where Germany’s reunification of was celebrated in 1990.

This short survey cannot claim to be complete but might already underline how manifold the possibilities are to combine German history with its stone remnants in a lesson. In short, the projected class will help provide a concise synopsis of German history as well as an overview of the most important artifact testimonies of its past.

Lecuterer: Dr. Peter A. Süß

Germany is dotted with historical monuments of all decades – and so is Würzburg. The big mystic fortresses built during the Middle Ages that survived the centuries still haven’t ceased to fascinate contemporary visitors. Their stones may impress, but can they talk? Can they tell us how their inhabitants lived, what they thought and cared about? Places and buildings may take our bodies and eyes on an imaginary time travel, but only scripts and books of those times can take our minds back into the past and bring them close to the minds of former writers and poets.

We are going to set out on that journey, will dive into medieval literature written in Old and Middle High German and discover the oldest written testimonies about knights and heroes, courtly love and wild adventures. After the Reformation the next important step of the Early Modern Period is the Baroque era. The traumatic experience of the Thirty Years’ War is reflected in profund and rhetorically influenced poetry full of symbols worth explanation and interpretation.

The great authors of the Enlightenment, among them Immanuel Kant, the philosopher, or Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, the founder of humanitarianism, focus on human ‚ratio‘ to build a better world.

The second half of the 18th century is coined by the Sensibility, – its ultimate bestseller Goethe’s ‘Die Leiden des jungen Werthers’ – and by the movement of the highly emotional ‘Sturm and Drang’ as an opposition to the rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment. The protagonists – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich von Schiller both moved on to the Weimar Classicism, the most fertile and famous epoch in German literature.

In the late 18th and early 19th century, the pendulum swung back towards the idea of an idealized world of the Middle Ages and towards the rather irrational and supernatural facets of the human mind during the Age of Romanticism. 

Biedermeier and Vormärz, Poetic Realism and Naturalism – all oft hem focussing the material base of human existence – close the 19th century. The 20th opens with fresh ideas in Symbolism, Expressionism or Dada. During the National Socialist regime there were several movements in literature: the official propaganda, the literature of the ‘internal emigration’ and the works of authors who went into exile to write against the war and the Nazi regime, men like Bertolt Brecht or Thomas Mann.

Post-war literature dominates the decades after the end of 2nd World War. The situation in East Germany (GDR) is an important factor in both history and literature. Contemporary literature finally brings us back to the days of our lifetime.

Lecturer: Michael Burigk

As the impacts of the climate crisis intensify, sustainability is increasingly moving to the center of global attention. Yet its meaning is far from universal: it is interpreted, negotiated, and practiced in diverse ways across cultures, societies, and media. What one context regards as sustainable may be understood very differently in another, highlighting the cultural and communicative dimensions of ecological issues.

This course examines how sustainability is narrated, communicated, and understood in German literature, media, and everyday life, situating these perspectives within wider cultural and global contexts. Using methods from literary studies, media studies, and linguistics, the course investigates how ecological ideas are shaped by discourse, how media both promote and obscure sustainable action, and how cultural contexts influence our perception of ecological crises. By analyzing texts ranging from poetry and films to advertising and everyday communication, students will develop analytical and intercultural skills to critically engage with sustainability discourses. The seminar fosters intercultural dialogue, critical thinking, and creative reflection, inviting participants to analyze and co-create sustainability narratives from German and global perspectives alike.

Lecturer: Michael Rudolf

What food is typically German? Everybody could name some traditional dishes like Sauerkraut, sausages, pretzels or Schweinebraten. But why are these dishes the traditional dishes of Germany? How and when were they created? And does really every German eat them? In this course, we will follow the history of German food. Our journey will start with the first inhabitants of the country we call Germany today and will follow the food through the markets of the Middle Ages to our supermarkets today. The German cuisine is rich in regional variations, which are not only due to geographical and climatic reasons but also influenced by the special German history. Besides the history of some German dishes and typical ingredients, you will also learn a good bit about German’s history and its (food-)culture. This course will also take a look at the ways food is prepared and how and when food is eaten in Germany.

Lecturer: Dr. Christina Schäfer

这门课的内容包括德国的地理与气候，行政区划，政治体制以及世界遗产。

教师：Birgit Herrmann

这门课的内容包括德国的人口变化，家庭与妇女，教育与创新，工作与休闲，宗教与节日以及饮食文化。

教师：Birgit Herrmann