Unit information: Weimar Women: Representing Modernity in 2015/16

Unit name	Weimar Women: Representing Modernity
Unit code	HARTM0321
Credit points	20
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Professor. Price
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History of Art (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit will explore the specific role and contribution of women to the visual culture of Weimar Germany. It will consider women as both subjects and objects of visual representation in painting, photography, film, dance and design. It will focus on specific case studies including but not necessarily restricted to concepts of the Neue Frau; Women in Dada; Women at the Bauhaus; Weimar Women Photographers; Kuenstlerehepaar (artists couples) and Women in film.

Unit Aims:

• To develop students' critical awareness of the role of gender in the production, display and consumption of visual culture in Weimar Germany

• To enable students to produce critical analysis of a range of key themes concerning the role of women in Weimar visual culture

• To enable students to situate individual artists within the specific socio-economic and cultural contexts of Weimar Germany

• To enable students to develop an advanced understanding of the major art historical approaches to the analysis of gendered visual production in Weimar Germany

• To enable students to effectively determine and employ a range of relevant primary sources to their study of visual art in Weimar Germany

• To develop students' advanced skills in oral presentations, group discussions and essay writing.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Students completing this unit will:

• Have developed an advanced critical awareness of the role of gender in the production, display and consumption of visual culture in Weimar Germany

• Be able to produce advanced critical analysis of a range of key themes concerning the role of women in Weimar visual culture

• Have the ability to situate individual artists within their socio-economic and cultural contexts

• Have an advanced understanding of the major approaches to an analysis of gendered visual production in Weimar Germany

• Have a familiarity with and an ability to deploy relevant primary sources with different methodological approaches to the study of visual art in Weimar Germany

• Have developed advanced skills in oral presentations, group discussions and essay writing.

Teaching Information

1 x 2 hour interactive lecture per week

Assessment Information

One summative coursework essay of 5000-words (100%). This will assess ILOs 1-5

Reading and References

• Hemus, Ruth Dadas Women Yale University Press, 2009

• Kaes, Jay, Dimendberg (eds.) The Weimar Republic Source Book Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994

• Meskimmon, M. We Weren't Modern Enough: Women artists and the limits of German Modernism (London, IB Tauris, 1999)

• Meskimmon, M. & West, S. (eds.) Visions of the Neue Frau: Women and the Visual Arts in Weimar Germany, (Ashgate, 1995)

• Schoenfeld, C. (ed.) Practicing Modernity: Female Creativity in the Weimar Republic, Wuerzburg, Koenigshausen and Neumann, 2006

• Von Ankum, Katherina (ed.) Women in the Metropolis: Gender and Modernity in Weimar Culture Berkeley, California University Press, 1997