Class Review

When I went into this class, I had anticipated learning some about the culture, but a lot about the World Wars and the Nazi control; history like that. I was pleasantly surprised about how the class was conducted and the information we learned about! The class was kept very interesting by group presentations in place of lectures, on topics such as food/culture of various German states, reading the book All Quiet on the Western Front, as well as watching the movie; more group projects on music, theater, men and women of Germany, literature, and more in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I thoroughly enjoyed how entertaining this class was, and how it kept us engaged for the whole time. Once again, I was very pleasantly surprised at how the class was conducted, and would gladly recommend it to others! Thank you very much for a fun semester, Professor Specht-Jarvis! :)

Role of Men and Women in 20th and 21st century Germany

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1cHAgfvpdJy6K7bZKMz8OpZINwp7_x8zQuRu6b-j00yY/edit#slide=id.p

For this presentation, I worked with Krissy using Google drive once again. I was in charge of the men and gendered opinions section, while Krissy focused on women.

18th and 19th Century German Music, Theatre, and Dance

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q4kc5XqKJh7LBTAyYXf6zq26kRCqWrqr_ifoR5NJKcc/edit#slide=id.p

                    For this project, my group members and I used google drive and split up the workload. Krissy was in charge of theatre, Bikash did dance, and Elijah and I handled music. Once again, I recommend Google Drive for it's convenience factor for working in groups. :)

Review of a Character: Paul Bäumer

            In the beginning, Paul and his friends had been rallied by their schoolmaster, Kantorek, and he started out as an enthusiastic, care-free student excited about life. He was convinced about how glorious and patriotic to his country it would be for him to enlist in the army and fight. Once he'd been in the war for a while, however, he soon realizes that not much matters but survival. He learns to use the Earth to protect himself, learns the patterns of the various shells and the correct timing to leap from shell hole to shell hole. The war consumes him, taking away his youth and maturing him to an old man at only the young age of twenty. When he returns to his hometown, he cannot even relate to the ordinary life of his mother, sister, and others in the life of a small town. The citizens have a routine to their lives, whereas his life is chaos and is almost entirely unpredictable. Unfortunately, he would never get over this. What had originally been an exciting adventure to embark upon, turned his life into a nightmare he's inevitably unable to wake up from.

Paul Before the war, listening to Kantorek preach about the glories of war.

He had to endure watching the deaths of all of his friends, including Kemmerich. 

As most soldiers find, they are unable to become accustomed to the ways of normal civilians again. Here Paul is with his sister and ill mother.

“I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.” 
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

Berlin Calling Movie Questions

April Anderson

Berlin Calling Movie Questions

1. What do drugs mean to Ickarus?

When Ickarus takes drugs, he believes he will be able to create more unique beats for his music, making him more marketable and popular in the German party/techno scene. The drugs free his mind and make him able to come up with the new beats for his album.

2. Why, when, and how are his fans taking drugs, and which drugs do they take?

The fans of Ickarus are most commonly seen taking drugs at the clubs where he is the DJ. They typically are crushing pills and snorting the lines, and I believe they take them mostly to “feel” the music and just lose themselves in the moment. To “feel good”. The drugs alter their state of mind, just like Ickarus when making his new album. However, people also sell and do drugs at home. These people are drinking various kinds of alcohol, and lots of different hard drugs like cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine, and more.

3. While we can see that his drug habits get him ill and into a psychosis, and while we witness his relapse and inability to work successfully, why does the subculture Ickarus belongs to focus on drugs?

I think the main reason the techno/party subculture focuses on drugs because the drugs and music make these people feel good, as I mentioned earlier. They ignore the negative side effects to feel good for the moment.

4. Compare the standards you know from your home society with the people you see depicted in this movie. Which are the stark differences and contrasts?

I grew up in a very small town, and was taught at home to never do drugs at all, because they're bad for me and addictive. We are taught in school not to do drugs or alcohol as well. People in my home society also like being in clean environment, whereas these places in the movie seemed dark and kind of dirty. Especially in the bathrooms, where people were doing drugs and having shameless, carefree, and most likely unprotected sex in filthy bathroom stalls. Although this happens in the United States in some certain places too, it just seems so much more “common” in Germany after watching Berlin Calling.

5. Germany is considered a strong industrial nation the world over. Do you think that the youth culture as depicted here could change that? How about work ethics of Ickarus and of Alice, the label director who fires and then re-signs him?

I most definitely do believe the upcoming youth culture depicted in the movie could change the status of Germany in the world. The movie shows that drugs and dirty work are involved in business and so many things, and eventually that’s not going to work out well. If an entire generation of youth grows up with these ideals, and the following generations to come, I could really see that as a downfall. However, I also would not believe that everybody in Germany is under the influence of drugs? I could be wrong, I’ve never been there.

6. Which similar "cult movies" of US origin have you seen, if any?

Off the top of my head, I’m not remembering all of the “cult” movies I’ve seen. One that probably could fit into this category, however, would be The Town, which is relatively new and a movie that I absolutely love. There are drugs involved, much like in Berlin Calling, and it’s about men involved in robberies with past histories together and revenge. I highly recommend watching this. 

Ecstasy












Cocaine

Ketamine

German Cuisine

German cuisine has evolved over time through:

• Social Changes
• Political Changes

The taste in cuisine varies from different regions in Germany as well. 

-Main meats include:

• Pork
• Beef
• Poultry

-Average person consumes 134lbs of meat in a year, the most common being bratwurst. 

(Bratwurst)

-Vegetables are generally used in stews, vegetable soups, or side dishes. 

(Spargel with Hollandaise sauce and potatoes)

-Pasta/Noodles are usually made of flour and eggs.

-Common deserts are a variety of cakes and tarts.

(Black Forest Cake)

***BREAD is incredibly significant to German cuisine.

Germany's most popular breads:

1. Rye-wheat 
2. Toast bread 
3. Whole-grain 
4. Wheat-rye 
5. White bread 
6. Multigrain, usually wheat-rye-oats with sesame or linseed 
7. Rye
8. Sunflower seeds in dark rye bread 
9. Pumpkin seeds in dark rye bread 
10. Roasted onions in light wheat-rye bread

Meals:

-Breakfast, Lunch (main meal), then a smaller dinner.

Drinks:

-BEER,  wine, and coffee are all common. MANY types of beer available. 

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cuisine

Book Review: Evolution of the Soldiers

               

Before enlisting in the war.

                 Throughout the young soldiers' journey in All Quiet on the Western Front, they go through major changes in their mentalities. Before enlisting, they were taught to be excited and enthusiastic about the war. They were still children, immature to the realities the war would instill upon them. When thrown into the crossfires of the battlefield, they experienced pain, death, and numbness. These teens were quickly forced to mature into old men in their minds, as well as evolve physically into fighters. While on leave, they're unable to accommodate to a normal citizen's daily schedule. The war is fought in a disarray of random events, so they are no longer able to sympathize with their families' routine lives. These soldiers are no longer teenagers with hope for their future, they are men. Men who struggle to make it to the next shell hole, and hope to make it through the next day; for that's all they can see.

Despair during the war. The events will change the soldiers forever. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/16FcHK89_8Z9MMNRfegopb5aJUIR0LbrGY0xYxx-YqpI/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000



        My group members were Denae and Nathaniel, and we were in charge of interpreting chapter one. We used Google Drive, which I highly recommend, and I created the presentation to share with the others. The slides I created were the title page, Intro to the Characters, and the "What's Going On" slide.

Group Presentation on Die Grünen- Germany's Green Party

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1kPOFEIhoMe0o9XmdTqFaKlaRKq8JW1YaZnsFYjSq-OY/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000


          For this group presentation, our task was to research the German Die Grünen (the Greens) Party and present the information to the class. I set up the project and emailed it to the group via Google Drive, which I highly recommend other groups to utilize, located meaningful images, as well as generated the extra facts slide. My group members were Krissy, Greg, Nicole, Elijah, and Zach. We completed the task by collaborating together on Google Drive.

Brandenburg Presentation

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1svIFctTOsJL_E6Gjz2BWahkQC3dgBujn3gCu-_CYOI4/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000




       My task in this presentation was initially to start up my group's presentation and share it with everyone involved in the group so we could all work on it. The site we utilized for our presentation was Google Drive. After it was set up, we split into three sets of two partners, so two of us were working on one of the three separate states. I handled the first three slides for the state of Brandenburg. My group members were Krissy, Zach, Elijah, Nicole, and Greg. We all worked together to divide the work load evenly amongst ourselves. I would strongly suggest groups to use Google Drive to create their future presentations, because group members can all make edits to the project simultaneously as well as chat with each other on Drive. Very handy website with lots of options available, as well as easily accessible.

My Expectations for German 110

    My interests in this German Culture class stem mostly from my heritage, where my mother's entire side of the family is from Germany. I have no idea which part of Germany, but I'd like to try and find out so I am able to learn more about the culture and history. My hopes and expectations are to learn about the history, culture, literature, and food of Germany, and have fun doing it! I expect to do well in this class, because I'm driven and interested.

                 







German Cuisine!

German Culture!

German History