Mar 29, 2024  
2021-2022 Catalogue 
    
2021-2022 Catalogue [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

GRMN 22809 - Hygiene: Bodies, Bacteria, and Moral Pan

Course Credit: 1
Maximum Credit: 0
Hygiene: Bodies, Bacteria, and Moral Panic in Germany, 1900-1945 In this course, students study the rise of the modern social hygiene movement in Germany from the turn of the 19thcentury through the Nazi period. Broadly defined as the health and wellness of the individual, hygiene was embraced by doctors, politicians, and everyday citizens to improve the individual for the benefit of the state. Hygiene not only encompassed modern living conditions-the management of sewage and clean water, the cleanliness of city streets and living quarters-but also daily concerns, from personal nutrition and clothing, to sport and the risk of disease, to more intimate issues of sex, marriage, and child-rearing. Analyzing medical treatises, popular literature, and films for “public hygiene enlightenment,” students will assess hygiene’s biopolitical implications. We explore how proponents of the social hygiene movement championed nudism, espoused “racial hygiene,” condemned prostitution, launched smoking-cessation campaigns, and backed the budding science of sexology, using hygiene to lay claims to the body for the supposed benefit of society. We will also consider hygiene’s manifestations in contemporary Germany, using the lens of hygiene to explore discussions surrounding immigration, sexuality, body optimization, and medical surveillance. [AH, C]