While problems of data protection played almost no role in Germany's 2013 election campaign, the "Handygate" affair intensified discussions about the use of "big data" in politics, economics and social life on the one hand and the nature and future of the German-American relations on the other. The class will explore both historical and intellectual presuppositions of German reactions to controversial uses of information technologies. In addition to privacy and transparency concepts, phenomena like Americanism/Anti-Americanism, heroism, and public intellectual will be considered. The reading list includes political, journalistic and theoretical texts in German and English. Language: German, requirement: one year of college German or equivalent.