Cold War Cultures in Divided Korea and Germany, 1945–2000

This course introduces students to the history of the Cold War through the comparative study of its front lines: divided Korea and Germany. Germany and Korea shared little in common—culturally, geopolitically, and historically—before 1945. And yet for both nations, the end of the Second World War and the onset of the Cold War brought with it the near parallel division of their societies into two mutually antagonistic states, each allied with the opposing ideological camp. To what extent did the experience of division and marginality in the bifurcated world order give both Germanys and Koreas simultaneously unique and yet similar experiences of the conflict? To answer this question, we will examine how the Cold War shaped conflicts over culture, consumption, and power in all four states while following how each positioned themselves on the international stage vis-à-vis each other, the superpowers, and the "Third World." This course requires neither background knowledge of Korean or German languages, nor these regions' histories, nor previous coursework in history.