This research seminar will focus on recent controversies concerning social, cultural, and political change in the time of Bismarck and Wilhelm II. Among the topics to be considered are state- and nation-building after 1866, regional identities, gender and sexuality, religion, culture, antisemitism and murder in a small town, and British diplomatic reports on the rise and repression of the German labour movement. A combination of secondary literature and primary documents (all in translation and many online) will be discussed each week, beginning with a short student presentation. Among the required texts are James Retallack (ed.), Imperial Germany 1871-1918. The Short Oxford History of Germany (2008) and Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher's Tale. The course will conclude with a discussion of the East German film adapted from Heinrich Mann's biting satire, The Loyal Subject (1918).