Heinrich Böll: Short Stories, Novels, and Film • 6 two-hour sessions • $200 per person • Register by September 6
Mondays, Sept 16 -  Oct 21, 2024, 10:00 am-12:00 pm • In-person •  TBD: Berkeley or Oakland, CA   

This interactive seminar will explore selections from one of the twentieth century's most famous (West) German authors. Heinrich Böll (1917-1985) became well known for his short stories and novels, examples of Trümmerliteratur (rubble literature), after World War II. Much of his writing in the immediate postwar years graphically articulates the wounding and trauma experienced during the war. We’ll discuss three of Böll’s critically acclaimed short stories (1950s), as well as excerpts of his novels The Clown (1963) and The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum or: How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead (1974). We’ll watch Volker Schlöndorff’s and Margarethe von Trotta’s 1975 film adaptation of Böll’s latter novel, portraying the destructive power of the tabloid press during the political climate of panic over terrorism in 1970s West Germany.

Böll received many prestigious awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. See the class syllabus here.