Do you prefer to read the book or watch the movie first? Given the superabundance of filmic adaptations of literary texts, it's a question as old as cinema itself. This course explores adaptations of classic German-language novels and novellas by German directors from DEFA, the New German Cinema, and the Berlin School. We will discuss the complex relation between film and literature, the narrative conventions that govern each medium, the practice of and creative license involved in adaptation. Film theory, genre studies, and close readings and viewings will ground our analysis. Writers may include Boll, Grass, Handke, Jelinek, Kastner, Musil, Seghers, Wolf, Zweig. Directors may include Fassbinder, Haneke, Petzold, Schlondorff, von Trotta, Wenders, Wolf. All readings and viewings will be available in German and English.
3-5 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit
Do you prefer to read the book or watch the movie first? Given the superabundance of filmic adaptations of literary texts, it's a question as old as cinema itself. This course explores adaptations of classic German-language novels and novellas by German directors from DEFA, the New German Cinema, and the Berlin School. We will discuss the complex relation between film and literature, the narrative conventions that govern each medium, the practice of and creative license involved in adaptation. Film theory, genre studies, and close readings and viewings will ground our analysis. Writers may include Boll, Grass, Handke, Jelinek, Kastner, Musil, Seghers, Wolf, Zweig. Directors may include Fassbinder, Haneke, Petzold, Schlondorff, von Trotta, Wenders, Wolf. All readings and viewings will be available in German and English.
Offered in Winter 2026 at Stanford University.