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HIST7312: European Fin-de-Siècle. A Cultural and Social History

Dr Axel Körner

When people called the period around 1900 the ‘Fin-de-siècle’ the term not only meant ‘end of the century’, but the end of an era or perhaps even the end of time. The period was characterised by a profound consciousness of crisis, based on the experience of rapid change and a general sense of decline, seemingly in contrast with the period’s technological advances and the belief in progress. The course will focus especially on two metropolitan centres of European culture - Paris and Vienna. The first half of the course will look at social and political aspects of the European Fin-de-Siècle (urbanisation, mass-culture, the new role of women, new ideologies), while the second half of the course examines the arts, music and literature of the period.

Weekly Topics:

1. Introduction and Organisation

2. Before the Fin-de-siècle: Change in European Society

3. Contemporary perceptions of modern nervousness

4. France and Austria 1870-1914: ‘Politics in a New Key’

5. The Electrical Century and the Arts

6. Mass-Consumption and Mass-Culture

7. Nietzsche

8. Beyond the Conscious

9. Writing decadence: Proust, Zweig, Mann

10. Fin-de-Siecle: A general assessment