In addition to the tuition fee, a non-refundable programme fee is applicable. The programme fee, which includes the social programme, is to be paid within one week after registration at the latest, along with the tuition fee.
Ideal for students of humanities and the arts, cultural, political, and social sciences
Please visit our website (www.fubis.org) for an overview of all courses on offer and possible updates to the course programme.
About this course
Urban studies and its discourse on the city draw on scholarship from fields as diverse as human geography, history, anthropology and the arts. Berlin, with its seemingly infinite possibilities for memory, imagination and creative self-fashioning, offers a rich analytical model. It is a city that is as much a fixed place with a distinct topography as it is an imaginary that glides between remembering and forgetting. A measured understanding of the interplay of place, space and memory in Berlin’s cityscape is key for students who are eager to learn about the city’s many pasts and presents. FUBiS invites you to join us as we analyse and explore Berlin.
This seminar brings to the fore connections between Berlin's distinct topography, its radical histories, and its current trajectories as a political and cultural space. That cities are a complex assemblage – multiple constellations existing simultaneously at best – is enabled through perspectives on migration, queerness and postcoloniality, for instance. In-class analysis and discussion of academic and literary texts, podcasts and films about Berlin will prepare participants for course excursions. Our temporal-topographical inquiry will take us to a diverse set of historical sites, cultural places and neighbourhoods in the city (such as the Berlin Wall Memorial, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Schwules Museum, and Sonnenallee).
We will conduct on-site discussions of these places/spaces in historical, spatial and social terms and record the urban with methodical observations. Upon completing the course, students will have compiled a portfolio of short essays reflecting their critical reception of Berlin’s places/spaces as well as their gendered and embodied engagements, observations and memories of the city. The course not only enables an appreciation of how places/spaces are living archives of Berlin’s past and present, but it also invites participants to create their own personal records of Berlin.