The Magic Mountain: Your Travel Guide to a Great Novel

In this course, students will read their way through one of the great German novels, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg, 1924) an epic stock-taking of European thought and sensibility between the world wars. Students will meet and discuss the novel weekly, each time under the guidance of a different tour guide Stanford faculty, superfans and professors from other institutions. No final paper, no readings other than the novel required. All readings in German (though an English translation will be made available), class discussion in English.