Courses

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

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understanding, production skills, and receptive skills), using a combination of language-oriented work and cultural/historical content, including film and texts.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

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. Taught 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. Taught in German.

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; and 4) to provide intensive practice in spoken and written German. Intended for students who have just completed GER 107, a 200-level course, or the equivalent. Taught in German.

Through careful readings of a wide range of media theoretical texts from the late 19th to early 21st-century, this class will trace the development of critical reflection on technologies and media such as orality, writing and the printed page, pre-cinematic optical devices, photography, film and television, gramophones, telephony, and radio, as well as drones, surveillance and social media. Topics include the relationship between representation and technology, the historicity of perception, the interplay of aesthetics, technology and politics, and the transformation of imagination, literacy, communication, privacy, reality, and truth. Course taught in English. All readings and class discussions in English.

An introduction to foundations of critical thought in the German philosophical tradition, focusing on major figures such as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Adorno, and Arendt. The course offers a survey of German intellectual history based on direct engagement with original texts. Topics include problems in the theory of knowledge and being, moral and political philosophy, aesthetics, and the philosophy of history. Classical sources will be read alongside modern thinkers like Michel Foucault, Angela Davis, or Rahel Jaeggi. Our goal is to introduce key concepts of critical thought and probe their relevance today. Course taught in English, and all readings in English. For students interested in philosophy, history, politics, aesthetics, literature, and critical theory.

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? Of interest to students curious about theory and recent currents in German scholarship. The seminar is open to all students in all fields with the required German-language competence. Taught in English.

The beginning of a story or a novel, marks a delicate threshold. It signifies both the entrance into a fictitious world and the advent of a new order. Narrative openings not only determine a story’s further course and continuation, they also offer fundamental insights into the logic of narration as such. In order to address all of these questions properly, a selection of canonical works of German and European literature will be the basis of discussion. The course will be taught in German and English. Readings are available in German and English.

Time is notoriously difficult to conceptualize. This course explores recent approaches to understanding time that goes beyond simplistic models of cause-and-effect or linear progress. Together we will examine philosophies and theories of temporality, along with their undergirding cultural-political debates and artistic projects. From micro-time and deep time to mythic time and con-temporaneity, we will investigate experiences of continuity, rupture, and crisis. Themes will include utopian imaginaries, nostalgia, and uncanny returns; objects of study will encompass film, art, landscape, literature, ethnography, and scientific instruments. [Taught in English.]

When Theocritus composed Simaetha’s moonlit incantation—a concoction brewed from enchanted spells to compel an unfaithful lover to repent—the literary topos of the “poet-witch” was born. For two millennia, audiences have been seduced – if not bewitched – by the metrical alliance of poetry and magic. This course explores how lyrical seduction, shaped by sound, rhythm, and repetition, continues to exert its power in contemporary verse. Through close readings of poetry and poetic prose, we will trace the enduring traces of magical speech across literary traditions. Taught in English and German.