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Heinrich von Kleist was one of the most intriguing literary figures of the early nineteenth century in Germany. Neither Classicist nor Romanticist, he developed a unique style that combines such different elements as complex rhythmicality, drastic imagery, and philosophical precision. His novellas, plays, and nonfiction prose explore questions of gender, colonialism, the tragic, and of innocence and double dealing. Among the texts we will read together are "The Betrothal in St. Domingo" (Kleist’s literary response to the Haitian revolution), "Penthesilea" (the play about lovers who can find each other only in war ends in a splatter scene), and "Marquise of O" (the story of a woman whose father rejects her because she finds herself pregnant, and yet she has no memory of the sexual intercourse that must have led to her current situation). Language of Instruction: German