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. 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 production. Conducted 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understanding, production skills, and receptive skills), using a combination of language-oriented work and cultural/historical content, including film and texts. Conducted 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. 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, and 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. Taught in German.

“It seems certain,” wrote Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) in 1929, “that we do not feel comfortable in our present-day civilization.” Maybe you’ve sometimes come to the same conclusion about how we live today. Freud thought he knew why. Our drives and desires as human animals, and as sexual beings especially, are at odds with the demands of cultural development. This course provides an introduction to Freud’s writings, from his founding of psychoanalysis in the 1890s, to his epochal Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, to his reflections on culture and civilization as at once achievements of human creativity and constraints on our happiness. Taught in English

This course introduces the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, from his early work on ancient Greek tragedy and his reflections on modern opera and literature to his major critiques of morality, religion, and modern culture. Reading The Birth of Tragedy and On the Genealogy of Morality as well as several of his experimental and often open-ended aphoristic texts, this course examines how Nietzsche challenges inherited values, questions the purpose of historical reflection, and redefines the task of philosophical thought. Taught in English.

How do the activities of research and interpretation differ when the object is a poem, a 17th century canvas, a radio broadcast or a film, an urban renewal plan, or the draft of a new state constitution? This introduction to the wide range of approaches and methods for the study of German literature, culture and media will hone the research and writing skills necessary to develop a substantial piece of independent scholarship. Through close readings of theoretical texts and primary sources the seminar will focus on issues of authorship and argument, the “gay sciences” of the archive, and the subtleties of producing clear and persuasive prose. The seminar is open to all students in all fields with the required German-language competence. Taught in English.

The Frankfurt School developed Critical Theory as a multidisciplinary response to one central insight: that modern capitalism is not just an economic system but a force reshaping consciousness, desire, and perception itself. This seminar explores their influential analyses of entanglements between enlightenment and myth, aesthetics and politics, entertainment and social control. We work through key concepts and debates — from the culture industry to the authoritarian personality and instrumental reason — while asking what they illuminate about surveillance capitalism and the return of authoritarian politics today. 

Franz Kafka was once called an expert on questions of power. That peculiarity is the focus of this seminar. Guided by exemplary topics - the machine and the apparatus, guilt and the law, animal figures, family dramas, the world of strange objects - we will primarily discuss Kafka’s short stories as attempts at a literary analysis of power. At issue, therefore, is the relationship between narrative strategies and the political dimension of this literature. The seminar also is conceived as an introduction to the writing and thinking of one of the most prominent authors of the 20th century. Taught in German.

Why is it harder to read a book than watch a video? Can perception be changed by a text? How do theories translate into images? This seminar traces the deep history of this media (in)compatibility through exemplary cases and interactive assignments from the classics to our digital age. We will discuss readings, images, and films from media studies, art, literature, philosophy, reading science, and psychology. In self-experiments, we will engage with crossovers such as diagrams, tutorials, ekphrasis, gamification, and GUIs to investigate contemporary understanding and imagining. Our goal is a critical media anthropology of today. Taught in English.