ART
397 Special Topics: Art and the Holocaust
Fall Quarter 2002
DePaul University 
Tuesday 5:45-9:00
1150 W. Fullerton, Rm. 204
Paul B. Jaskot
pjaskot@depaul.edu
Office: 1150 W. Fullerton, Rm. 208 (x52567)
Office Hours: Wednesday 10:00-12:00 or by appointment
or drop in (not before class, please!)
webpage: www.depaul.edu/~pjaskot
Course Description: The destruction of the European Jews at
the hands of National Socialist policing forces has been one of the defining
historical events of the twentieth century. This course will analyze the
history of the destruction of the Jews, and its connection to anti-Semitic
art and cultural policy during the Nazi period. With a sound understanding
of the development of oppressive policies against the Jews and the art
and architecture that became part of these policies, the student will be
asked to confront exactly what sort of historical connections have been
made between cultural representation and oppression. Additionally, in a
variety of media (painting, architecture, film, sculpture, installation),
the course will explore post-war art from the United States and from Germany
that has returned to the subject of the destruction of the Jews to comment
on the past but also to participate in contemporary political and artistic
debates. In reference to the scope of the course, the student will be asked
to become familiar with the history of the destruction of the European
Jews and the post-war western debates concerning this event. Further, the
student will be asked to analyse the cultural products that either participated
in the process or those that have used this event as a framework for their
contemporary explorations.
Required Textbooks: Peter Adam, Art of the Third Reich, New York,
Abrams, 1992; Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (New York:
Penguin Books, 1965); Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews,
abridged edition, New York, Holmes and Meier, 1985. The required books
are available in the Lincoln Park Bookstore; additional discussion reading
is on electronic reserve [ER] for this course accessible through the web-page
of the Richardson Library; additionally, all texts are available
on hard reserve [R] at the reference desk.
NOTE: Readings marked with an asterix (**) will be the focus
of that week’s discussion and should be read carefully before the designated
date.
Course Expectations: This is an upper-level art history course
and, hence, will focus on a particular topic in depth. In taking this course,
you will receive: an historical knowledge of National Socialist Germany,
its culture, and the destruction of the European Jews; knowledge of post-war
debates concerning art and politics; intensive work on your writing and
analytic skills; experience in interpreting visual and historical materials.
These aspects of the course will provide you with a basis of knowledge
appropriate not only for art history but for many other disciplines and
endeavors in your life.
What this course expects from you is the following: at least
10 hours per week on average of work for the course; preparation for and
participation in discussions, including providing questions on specific
readings at least twice in the quarter; openness to new ideas and working
through of difficult issues; completion of assignments professionally and
on time.
If you do not feel that you can meet these expectations, you
should strongly consider dropping the course.
Syllabus:
September 17: Introduction: Weimar Art, Political Anti-Semitism
and Hitler’s Rise to Power
-
Adam: 7-21.
-
Hilberg: 5-24.
Recommended reading: Sherwin Simmons, “ ‘Hand to the
Friend, Fist to the Foe’: The Struggle of Signs in the Weimar Republic,”
Journal of Design History 13 (2000), no. 4: 319-39. [ER]
September 24: Early Years of Nazi Rule: Ideological Debates
and NSDAP Control over Art Institutions
-
Adam: 23-69; 238-245.
-
Barbara Miller Lane, Architecture and Politics in Germany, 1919-1945 (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1968): 169-184. [ER]
-
(**) Alan E. Steinweis, Art, Ideology, and Economics in Nazi Germany.
The Reich Chambers of Music, Theater, and the Visual Arts (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1993): 103-146. [ER and R]
October 1: “Degenerate Art” and the “Great German Art Exhibition”:
Anti-Semitic Propaganda and the Intensification of Government Policy Against
the Jews
-
Adam: 92-173.
-
Hilberg: 27-38.
-
(**) Berthold Hinz, “ ‘Degenerate’ and ‘Authentic’: Aspects of Art
and Power in the Third Reich,” in Dawn Ades, et al., eds, Art and Power
(London: Hayward Gallery, 1995): 330-33. [ER and R]
-
(**) Christoph Zuschlag, “An ‘Educational Exhibition.’ The Precursors
of Entartete Kunst and Its Individual Venues,” in Stephanie Barron, ed.,
“Degenerate Art”: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (New York:
Abrams, 1991): 83-97. [ER and R]
October 8: Registration, Separation and Concentration:
Art and Architecture as a Means of Legitimizing and Enacting Anti-Semitic
Policy into the Early Years of World War II
-
Adam: 245-275.
-
Hilberg: 41-96.
-
(**) Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain. The Art World in Nazi
Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000): 215-71. [ER and
R]
VIEWING OF JUD SÜSS TO BE SCHEDULED
ONE-PAGE PAPER TOPIC DESCRIPTION AND 3-SOURCE SAMPLE BIBLIOGRAPHY
DUE IN CLASS!!!
October 15: Deportation and Murder: Art and the Destruction
of the European Jews
-
Hilberg: 157-259.
-
(**) Debórah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt, Auschwitz. 1270
to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1996): 163-196.
[ER and R]
Recommended reading: Paul B. Jaskot, "Architecture and the
Destruction of the European Jews," in The Holocaust's Ghost: Writings
on Art, Politics, Law and Education (Edmonton: University of Alberta
Press, 2000): 145-164. [ER]
October 22: Midterm Exam!
October 22 (Second half of class): Post-War Responses to the Holocaust:
Film as Case Study [Guest Lecturer: Prof. Matthew Girson]
October 29: Continuity or Critique? The Post-War Cultural Response
to the Genocide in Germany
-
(**) Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: 3-55, 234-52.
-
Eckhart Gillen, “Images around 1945: Felix Nussbaum, Karl Hoffer, Werner
Heldt, Otto Dix, Hans Grundig, Horst Strempel,” in German Art from
Beckmann to Richter. Images of a Divided Country, edited by Eckhart
Gillen (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1997): 68-70. [R]
-
(**) Susanne Küper, “Gerhard Richter: Capitalist Realism and His Painting
from Photographs, 1962-1966,” in German Art from Beckmann to Richter.
Images of a Divided Country: 233-6. [ER and R]
November 5: The Cultural Debates Concerning the Relevance of
the Genocide in Contemporary Germany
-
(**) Andreas Huyssen, “Anselm Kiefer: The Terror of History, the Temptation
of Myth,” October 48 (Spring 1989): 25-45. [ER]
-
Lisa Saltzman, “Kiefer: A Painter from Germany,” Anselm Kiefer and Art
After Auschwitz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999): 97-123.
[R]
-
(**) Abigail Solomon-Godeau, “Mourning or Melancholia: Christian Boltanski’s
Missing House,” Oxford Art Journal 21, no. 2 (1998): 1-20. [ER]
-
Michael Wise, “Totem and Taboo. The New Berlin Struggles to Build
a Holocaust Memorial,” Linguafranca (December/January 1999): 38-46. [ER]
Recommended: Martin Beck Matuštik, "The Critical Theorist
as Witness: Habermas and the Holocaust," in Perspectives on Habermas,
edited by Lewis E. Hahn (Chicago: Open Court, 2000): 339-366.
[ER]
Optional participation credit: Visit to “The Last Expression:
Art and Auschwitz” at the Block Gallery, Northwestern University TO BE
SCHEDULED THIS WEEK. For a preview, see: http://tle.northwestern.edu/intro_frameset.htm
November 12: The Contemporary Cultural Response to the
Destruction of the European Jews in the United States: The Holocaust Museum,
Schindler’s List, and Beyond
-
(**) Omer Bartov, Murder in our Midst. The Holocaust, Industrial
Killing and Representation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996): 153-186.
[ER]
-
(**) Miriam Bratu Hansen, "Schindler's List is not Shoah: Second
Commandment, Popular Modernism, and Public Memory," in Spielberg's Holocaust,
edited by Yosefa Loshitzky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1997): 77-103. [ER]
SCHEDULING OF SCREENING FOR SPIELBERG'S SCHINDLER'S LIST
November 19: Conclusion: Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin
-
Adam: 302-305.
-
Dwork and van Pelt, Auschwitz: 354-378. [R]
-
(**) James E. Young, "Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin," At Memory's
Edge. After-Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000): 152-183. [ER]
NOVEMBER 22: PAPERS DUE IN MY MAILBOX IN THE DEPARTMENT OFFICE
BY 4PM! NO EXCEPTIONS, NO EXTENSIONS!!!
November 26: FINAL EXAM, 6:00-8:00 PM!
Grading Policy:
Your course grade will be determined by your exam performance, your
paper and your participation in class discussions. The breakdown
of grades will be as follows:
Mid-term: 20%; Final Exam: 30%
Research Paper: 30%
Discussion: 20%
NOTE: Because of the need to show slides, art history exams cannot
be rescheduled! If you cannot make the final, you should not register
for the course.
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