Session 4: “Goodbye, Lenin! and Hello, Berlin!” taught by Dr. Heather Perry
June 16 and 18; June 23 and 25
10am – 12pm

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was sudden, swift, and … hilarious? GOODBYE, LENIN!, the German blockbuster from 2003, is a satirical film telling the sometimes comic, sometimes tragic story of Germany’s reunification after the Cold War. While most people welcomed the collapse of Communism and the end of the Cold War, the reality of re-unification created numerous challenges for the two Germanys that had existed from 1949-1989.

This course starts with a screening of the internationally popular film — and then uses the film as a lens through which to examine the collapse of the GDR, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the rocky reunification of two peoples and lands into the new Germany of the 21st century.

Meet your instructor: Heather R. Perry is an Associate Professor of History at UNC Charlotte whose research focuses on the social, cultural, and medical histories of modern warfare.  She has published on the histories of war and medicine; technology and the body; disability studies; and most recently food, health, and nutrition on the German WWI home front.   Her books include, Recycling the Disabled: Army, Medicine, and Modernity in WWI Germany, and the two co-edited volumes, The Central Powers in Russia’s Great War and Revolution: Enemy Visions and Encounters, 1914-1922 and Food, Culture, and Identity in Germany’s Century of War.  Her ongoing work in Public History and Digital Humanities includes the international, bi-lingual project, The German Studies Collaboratory and Carolina in the Trenches – a digital project focused on North Carolina’s experiences during the Great War.  She currently co-edits the journal First World War Studies and is researching the transnational experiences of German war-time internees.