KRUPP-FLEX: Work-Life Balance in Today's Germany

This class is being offered in collaboration with Stanford in Berlin, Bing Overseas Studies Program. This course will accompany and deepen the experience of Krupp Interns living and working in German cities and towns in summer 2021. Their participant observations in the workplace and in Germany's rich leisure culture, as well as critical consideration of their own assumptions and experiences in the context of cultural exploration, will be recorded in a reflective Arbeitsjournal (critical journal -- genre and language at the discretion of the student). These reflections will be informed by regular reading of the German press (print or online) around themes on which students choose to focus -- be that the history behind the extensive rights and social services that support labor in Germany; or habits, mores and modes of personal interaction in and outside the workplace; or attitudes toward diversity, gender, class in contemporary German culture; or topics of immediate socio-political concern that lend themselves to comparative reflection with home-country culture (e.g. immigration and asylum, structure of systemic and social responses to COVID 19, environmental awareness, vocational training); or religion, or sport culture, or indeed the specific professional sector of the internship itself. Students will submit their completed journals with an annotated reading list at the end of the summer and will give a short presentation during the mandatory Internship Seminar in late August of 2021. Permission code required. You will receive a permission code from Cornelia Kastelan - ckastelan@stanford.edu. This course is restricted to Krupp Internship students in the Program for Stanford Students in Germany.