GERM 402T(S) Nationalism, Ethnicity and the State: Embattled Identities in the United States, Germany, and the Former Yugoslavia

This tutorial will compare and contrast three different countries, spending 4 weeks on each. We will analyze the upheavals in the Balkans and Germany after the collapse of communism and the end of the era of superpowers and east-west blocs. We will also be looking at patriotism and nationalism in the U.S. today, over fifty years after D-day, in a climate of anxiety about the meaning of cultural sharing and changing demographics. Questions we will investigate are: How does a single state accommodate heterogeneity within its boundaries? What is the notion of a "homeland" and what are the myths associated with it? How might individuals from a diaspora see group identity in their new host country? How is ethnic nationalism expressed and what is its power as ideology? What kinds of national narratives are deployed in times of crisis? We will focus on: German identity before and since unification, the ongoing ideological war about American values, the definition of ethnicity by religious denomination in the former Yugoslavia (the clash between Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim affiliations in the Slavic world). Commemorative events and historical museums will be studied as narratives of national self-understanding. Readings will include: Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia, Branca Magas, The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the Break-up 1980-1992, the anthology Why Bosnia?, Elizabeth Diller and Richard Scofidio, "Suitcase Studies: The Production of National Past," Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism, E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, Gunter Grass, Deutscher Lastenausgleich, Lutz Hoffmann, Die unvollendete Republik, and the anthology Denk' ich an Deutschland. Readings are available in German or English and may be discussed in either language.
Prerequisites: German 202 or permission of the instructor.