GERST 3025

Making Futures

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

What forms can and should the future take? How do futures emerge in thought and action, and what is the role of reflection on past events for imagining future horizons? How can art and fiction disrupt habits of thought to bring alternative futures into view? This course will investigate seemingly disparate tools for imagining possible worlds: technology, poetic language, and cultural difference. By looking closely and critically at futurity (or its absence) in science fiction, magical realism, visual art, and new media, students will explore how historical ruptures and social violence test imaginations, and the creative forms that push back. Taught in German. Viewings and readings may include Akomfrah, Arendt, Benjamin, Berlant, Bloch, Edelman, Gaiman, Haraway, Kafka, Kaléko, Kant, Klee, Lubinetzki, Nietzsche, Sebald, and others. Taught in German.

Prerequisites one German course at the 2010-2499 level or equivalent. This course may be counted towards the requirement for 3000-3209 level language in the major and minor.

Distribution Requirements (ALC-AS, FLOPI-AS)

Last 4 Terms Offered 2025FA

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