Courses

The course lays a foundation for functional acquisition of German.   Class time is devoted to language tasks that will foster communicative competence and will emphasize listening and reading strategies, vocabulary acquisition, authentic input, and oral production.  Conducted in German.

Continues the goals of GER 101, focusing on increased communicative proficiency (oral and written), effective reading strategies, and listening skills. Emphasis on vocabulary acquisition and functional language tasks: learning to request, persuade, ask for help, express opinions, agree and disagree, negotiate conversations, and gain perspective on German culture through readings, discussion, and film.

Develops deeper proficiency in all areas (production skills and receptive skills), using a combination of language-oriented work cultural/historical content, including film and texts.

Continues improvement of proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing using texts, online media, and other sources as a basis for class discussion. Grammar review is included.  Conducted in German.

This course will tackle exemplary works of modern German society and culture, including literature, art, film, essays, speeches, and autobiographies. It offers an introduction to the most important events and issues from the first half of the century: the foundation of the German state, the German Colonial Empire, Berlin as a modern metropolis, World War I, the rise of National Socialism. Intensive practice in spoken and written German with an emphasis on vocabulary acquisition and complex syntactical forms.

This course has four goals:

1) to introduce students to key authors, genres, and movements in German literary history between 1770 and the present;

2) to provide an opportunity to deepen interpretive skills through reading and discussion of representative texts;

3) to encourage students to explore theoretical approaches to cultural material;

4) to provide intensive practice in spoken and written German.

An introduction to the thought of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. Organized thematically rather than chronologically, the course will bring these thinkers into dialogue on six themes: interpretation, history, subjectivity, politics, religion, and art. By concentrating on such pivotal issues, we will seek not only to delineate the origins of much modern thought, but also to develop resources for reflecting on our contemporary moment. Taught in English.

This introduction to methods for the study of German literature, media, and culture will hone the research skills necessary to develop a substantial piece of independent scholarship. Combining methodological reflection with practical training and experimentation, we will probe such questions as: What is at stake in “reading” texts and other media closely or at a distance, historically or with an eye to form? How does one find, organize, distill, and respond to extant scholarship? What distinguishes a strong research question or hypothesis? And which intermediate steps lead from the cursor blinking on a blank page to a polished research paper?

Focusing on the relation between theater and politics, this seminar will deal with some of the most important dramas and theoretical texts by Friedrich Schiller. Taught in German.

What do poems do? What distinguishes lyric poetry from other literary genres, from prose, or from other art forms? What does lyric have to do with emotion, affect, or personal experience? What about politics? Or the mediality, effects, and limitations of language? This introduction explores the variety and history of poetic forms, functions, theories, and practices in the German-speaking world from the 17th century to the present. Beyond those named in the sample reading list, poets may include, among others: F.G. Klopstock, Hölderlin, Gottfried Benn, Hugo Ball, Bertolt Brecht, Eugen Gomringer, Sarah Kirsch, Friederike Mayröcker, Ann Cotten.

What is film? How does it produce meaning?  What is cinematic “realism? Is film a language, and if so, of what sort?  If we “read” films what is meant by “cinematic literacy”? In what sense is cinema political?  Can films be philosophical and, if so, how?  What is an “essay film”? Is there such a thing as “responsible” or “critical” viewing? In order to answer these and many other questions of increasing urgency for our media culture, this seminar will examine a wide range of canonical and contemporary works of film theory and aesthetics, which will be discussed in relation to weekly screenings of narrative, documentary and avant-garde films. Taught in English

The course will introduce students to recent theories of instructed second language acquisition (SLA) by way of critical reading and discussion, and to pedagogical practice in language teaching by way of participating in one-on-one ESL tutorials with community members, in collaboration with ProCES, during the semester. There are also plans for a collaborative project with ESL teachers during the 2023 Wintersession, subject to COVID-related travel restrictions.

No text in the German tradition has impacted World Literature as much as Goethe’s Faust. The first half of this seminar will engage in a close reading of the play’s first and second parts, exploring key themes that have shaped modern society: the quest for knowledge, erotic desire, the invention of paper money, the human destruction of the environment, and war. In the second half of the seminar, we will study landmark “adaptations” of the Faust story, including texts by Valéry, Pessoa, and Mann as well as films by Murnau and Szábó. Taught in English