Questions from
Britannica (CR 35-44)
1. Who
were the revolutionaries in
2. Who are Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg?
3. Who is Friedrich Ebert and what does he want?
4. What are some of the most important provisions of the Treaty of Versailles?
5. What is the Kapp Putsch?
6. Why
would the author of the Britannica text call the cultural and intellectual
developments of the 1920s the Weimar Renaissance? What do you know about the
Renaissance that could be used to describe culture and the arts in
7. What triggered the hyperinflation?
8. What are the main characteristics of the artistic movement called Expressionism?
9. What was the economic impact of the Great Depression?
10. Why do you think President Hindenburg would resist making Hitler chancellor in late 1932?
11. What do Nazis and German Communists have in common?
Spartacus Manifest
(CR 45-7)
12. How does the Manifesto explain the First World War?
13. Why do the Spartacists not like Socialists who are part of the Second International? What is the Second International?
14. How
do the Spartacists think they can achieve a successful revolution in
En Avant Dada (CR, 48-51)
15. Why do the Dadaists dislike Expressionism?
16. The Dadaists wanted to make a political revolution, but in many ways they were also irreverent about politics. In the lit of things Dadaism wants (50-51), which ones do you think are realistic demands and which ones are meant to be ironic and playful?
The Art Scab (CR 56-8)
17. Why are Grosz and Heartfield so critical of Kokoschka?
Program of the
Bauhaus
18. As Professor Lupton explained, Shakespeare was suggesting in MSND that the creative work of the playwright was on a higher plain than the manual labor of the Rude Mechanicals. What is the relationship between manual labor and artistic creativity that is outlined in the Bauhaus Program?
Art is a Weapon! (CR,
63-5)
19. Friedrich Wolf argues very explicitly that art should be used to intervene directly into politics. What do you think of his argument? Should makers be just makers? Or must a maker be a doer if what s/he makes is to have any significance or meaning?
Photomontage as a Weapon in Class Struggle
20. Look at the Heartfield images in the outline for Professor Moeller’s second lecture. Can you find anywhere in print an interesting image from the current presidential primary campaigns? If not in print, on the web? Bring examples with you to class.
Conquer Film (CR, 70-1)
21. According to Münzenberg, what function should film play for a revolutionary political movement?
22. What made it more difficult for Communists to produce films than to produce an illustrated press?
Kuhle Wampe (CR,
72-83)
23. Why does Young Bönike commit suicide?
24. Why does Young Bönike take off his watch before he leaps from the window?