Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Vienna-Berlin, 1890-1930 (Unknown Date) (Whitman College), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

"Fin de siècle Vienna and Berlin in the era of the Weimar Republic were centers of a great flowering of culture and art. In this course, we will look at the literature from these places and try to get a sense of the new perceptions developing in them."

Sexuality And Textuality (Fall 2014), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

"Sexuality and Textuality" serves as an introduction to gay and lesbian literary studies and queer theory. It looks at questions of sexuality and literature in ancient and early modern texts (from the Hebrew, Greek and English traditions), as well as in modern texts (from German, French, Spanish, Japanese, and English traditions). In addition to literary texts, students will work with a number of cinematic representations of queer sexuality. Besides these primary texts, students will work with important secondary literature about sexuality."

A photo of this Fall 2014 class was taken as part of Professor Bob Tobin's ongoing class photo tradition.

German Film And The Frankfurt School (Spring 2012), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

German Film and the Frankfurt School is an introduction to German cinema and media criticism. It will introduce students to important German films that have had a global impact, significant theoretical approaches to those films (especially those from the “Frankfurt School”), and the historical and cultural contexts in which these films and film theories arose. The class is cross-listed in German, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Screen Studies. It provides a survey of an important art-form in German cultural history. Although National Socialism, the Holocaust and the Second World War are not the only themes of the course, they are …

The National Imagination (Spring 2010), Robert D. Tobin, Belen Atienza, Alice Valentine

Syllabi

What images make people think of the United States of America? Cowboys? The flag? And are there similar icons in other cultures that help define cultural identity? The National Imagination explores the concept of a national community as constructed and critiqued through literary and cinematic narratives, as well as other cultural texts.

Our underlying premise is that national languages and cultures promote the identity of particular communities. We are interested in examining those subjective expressions of culture—images, symbols, narratives—that lead people to feel that they are members of the communities we call nations. We are also interested in discovering points …

German Film And The Frankfurt School (Spring 2009), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

This course is an introduction to German cinema. We will study masterpieces of German film, important critical and theoretical discussions of them, and the contexts in which they were produced and received. As a critical lens, we will rely heavily on psychoanalytic and Frankfurt School criticism, focusing on writings by Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer and Theodor Adorno. By the end of the semester, students should know the history of German film, have a better understanding of German culture, and have developed a critical understanding that is useful for their appreciation of all cinematic form.

A photo of this Spring 2009 …

German Film (Spring 2002) (Whitman College), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

This course was taught by Robert Tobin at Whitman College. Professor Tobin worked at Whitman for 18 years as associate dean of the faculty and chair of the humanities, and was named Cushing Eells Professor of the Humanities. Several of the courses he developed at Whitman would make the transition to Clark, where they continued to evolve.

"This course is an introduction to German cinema. Students will study masterpieces of German cinema, important critical discussion of them, and the context in which they arose."