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The course will focus on the aesthetics and discourse of “New Objectivity” in Weimar German literature. The ideals of sobriety and coldness called for a direct and unadorned view of the routines of modern work and love and found proponents not only among writers of the avant-garde but also, and with less fanfare, among authors who worked in popular genres like adventure novels. In this course, we will investigate how the desire for objectivity responded to a cultural crisis in the aftermath of World War I and how it guided the choice of genres (biography, reportage, non-fiction, modernist novel) as well as encouraged factographic styles of writing. Authors to be discussed include Egon Erwin Kisch, Joseph Roth, Siegfried Kracauer, Ilja Ehrenburg, B. Traven, Irmgard Keun, Gabriele Tergit, and Marieluise Fleißer. Class discussion will be in English or German depending students’ preferences. Reading will be in German.