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| Campus | Bryn Mawr |
| Semester | Fall 2025 |
| Registration ID | GERMB320001 |
| Course Title | Topics in German Lit & Culture-Ethics of Innovation-German Cn |
| Credit | 1.00 |
| Department | German |
| Instructor | Shen,Qinna |
| Times and Days | MW 10:10am-11:30am
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| Room Location | |
| Additional Course Info | Class Number: 2492 This is a topics course. Course content varies. Taught in German. Recent topics include: Die Erzählkunst des Krimis; Funny Germans.; This course, taught in German, explores the complex interplay of politics, ideology, and ethics in German-language fictions of scientific innovation and discovery. Historical novels such as Daniel Kehlmanns Measuring the World (2005) about Alexander von Humboldt and Friedrich Gauss investigate eighteenth-century innovations and the exploration of the new world. Plays such as Bertolt Brechts Life of Galileo (1938/1943) and Friedrich Dürrenmatts The Physicists (1961) address if and how scientists can speak truth to power. Robert Oppenheimers Manhattan Project and his struggles with the ethical consequences having created the nuclear bomb will be examined by comparing Heinar Kipphardts play In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (1969) and the East German film Father of a Thousand Suns (dir. Joachim Hellwig, 1989). The role of women in the history and retelling of scientific innovations will be analyzed through Margarethe von Trottas film Vision from the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009) and Maria Schraders science fiction romance film Im Your Man (2021). By examining how mathematicians and scientists have navigated moral choices in the past and how their decisions impacted history, society, and themselves, the course also invites reflection on the ethics of science and innovation today. Approach: Writing Attentive; Haverford: A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts) (A), Humanities (HU) This course is taught in German. |
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