HUMS 236, Goethe’s Faust

Meeting Time: 
M 3:30pm-5:20pm

Course Description:

Goethe’s Faust, with special attention to Faust II and to the genesis of Faust in its various versions throughout Goethe’s lifetime. Emphasis on the work in context of Goethe’s time and in the later reception and criticism, in particular: Faust on the stage (especially Peter Stein’s staging), Faust in music, Faust as an intermedial work, the Faust film of Alexander Sokurov. Reading knowledge of German beneficial but not required.

Led By:

Jan Hagens's picture

Professor Jan Hagens

Jan Hagens’ research focuses on German and comparative drama (1550 to the present), drama theory, and philosophical and theological approaches to literature. He has published articles on seventeenth-century Jesuit drama, dramatic genre theory, theater semiotics, German film, Nietzsche, Freud, and language pedagogy.
 
His current research project, “The Wounded Embrace: An Essay on the Drama of Reconciliation,” examines potentially tragic plays that achieve productive resolution. Hagens’ teaching interests include German literature, film, intellectual history, and comparative drama, as well as theories of forgiveness and reconciliation.
 
He serves on the editorial board of Text and Presentation and the conference board of the Comparative Drama Conference.  At Yale Divinity School, he directs YDS Summer Study, the Visiting Fellows Program, and all international student exchange programs (Cambridge, Copenhagen, Heidelberg, Tübingen, Freiburg, Jerusalem, Hong Kong, and Singapore).
 

Professor Kirk Wetters

Kirk’s current research continues to pursue the intertwined genealogies of literary and critical theory in connection to questions of method in the humanities and social sciences. Under the thematic heading of “illegitimacy,” recent research and teaching have focused on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, J. J. Bachofen, Max Weber, Georg Lukács, Arnold Schoenberg, Paul Kammerer, Karl Löwith, Heimito von Doderer, Theodor W. Adorno, Hans Blumenberg, Nicolaus Sombart, Giorgio Agamben. A second ongoing project focuses on travel writing, historical fiction and biography; authors include Georg Forster, Goethe, Adalbert Stifter, Stefan Zweig, Hermann Broch, and Christoph Ransmayr.