Courses in German
Note: This page contains all of the regular courses taught by this department. Not all courses are offered every year. Check the searchable schedule to see which courses are being offered in the upcoming semester.
GERM 111Y Intensive Introductory German
Credit: 0.75
This is the first half of a year-long course for students who are beginning the study of German or who have had only minimal exposure to the language. The first semester comprises an introduction to German as a spoken and written language. The work includes practice (in class, in scheduled drill sessions with an apprentice teacher, and in the Language Learning Center) in understanding and using the spoken language. Written exercises and elementary reading materials serve as a basis for vocabulary-building and discussion. During the second semester there is more advanced practice in the use of the spoken and written language, and literary and cultural materials are introduced with a view to developing techniques of reading. The class meets four and one-half hours per week with the professor, and an additional three hours per week with an apprentice teacher. Offered every fall semester.
Instructor: Gebhardt, Riegert
GERM 112Y Intensive Introductory German
Credit: 0.75
This is the second half of a year-long course for students who are beginning the study of German or who have had only minimal exposure to the language. As in the first semester, the work includes practice (in class, in scheduled drill sessions with an apprentice teacher, and in the Language Learning Center) in understanding and using the spoken language. There will be more advanced practice in the use of the spoken and written language, and literary and cultural materials are introduced with a view to developing techniques of reading. The class meets four and one-half hours per week with the professor, and an additional three hours per week with an apprentice teacher.
Instructor: Gebhardt, Riegert
GERM 213Y Intermediate German Language
Credit: 0.5
This first-semester middle-level course is designed to develop German reading, writing, and speaking skills beyond GERM 111Y-112Y. A grammar text is used for reviewing systematically different aspects of German grammar. We will apply this review to the reading of short literary and journalistic texts, to gaining a basic understanding of films in the original German, and to conversation in German with a partner or in groups. These texts and films will serve as a point of departure for short compositions as well. Keeping a diary in German is also an integral component of the course. An apprentice teacher or language assistant will conduct a fourth weekly meeting, in addition to the three regular classes.
Instructor: Gebhardt, Riegert
GERM 214Y Intermediate German Language
Credit: 0.5
This second-semester middle-level course is designed to develop German reading, writing, and speaking skills beyond GERM 111Y-112Y. See course description for GERM 213Y. Offered every spring semester.
Instructor: Gebhardt, Riegert
GERM 321 Advanced Composition and Conversation
Credit: 0.5
In this course, we will explore a wide array of topics in contemporary German culture, in order to provide advanced students with the opportunity to strengthen their abilities to write, read, and speak German. Topics may include the impact of reunification on contemporary Germany; religious life and popular music. Material for conversation and composition will be provided by articles from the current press in German-speaking countries, films, other media, and Web sites. Students will develop fluency in German in order to perform linguistically and culturally appropriate tasks. The composition component will seek to improve the ability to write clearly and coherently in German. To foster these goals, the course will also provide a reviewof advanced grammatical structures.
Instructor: Gebhardt, Riegert
GERM 323 German Women Writers
Credit: 0.5
Literature in German written by women can no longer be regarded as a marginal creative force. This course will offer an introductory glimpse into the wealth of texts by women authors while keeping in mind that this creative force has not always been recognized in its true importance. We will read poetry (Droste-Hülshoff, Ricarda Huch, Else Lasker-Schüer, Gertrud Kolmar, Ingeborg Bachmann, for example), as well as prose. The course will be organized mainly around thematic blocks. One such theme will be the critique of society--for example Elfriede Jelinek's Liebhaberinnen (Austrian society) or Monika Maron's Die Überläuferin (the socialist society of the GDR). Father figures, family histories, and childhood will be another thematic block. From this perspective we will analyze texts by Birgit Vanderbeke (Das Muschelessen, 1997), Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (Die Judenbuche), and Ingeborg Bachmann ("Jugend in einer österreichischen Stadt"). Questions related to these themes will serve as springboards which will naturally lead to a discussion of constructions of gender. The course will be conducted in German, and will be suited for students that have completed GERM 321 (or the equivalent), as well as more advanced students. Normally offered every other year.
Instructor: Gebhardt
GERM 325 Survey: German Literature and Culture
Credit: 0.5
This course is designed as a first introduction to the study of German literature. It will provide an overview of different periods in the history of German, Swiss, and Austrian literature on the basis of representative textual and cinematic examples. Another central goal is gaining practice in the close reading of texts. We will read samples from various genres--an Enlightenment drama, prose from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a post-war novel, and lyric poetry from virtually all epochs of German literature. Authors to be studied may include Walther von der Vogelweide, Lessing, Tieck, Frisch, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Judith Hermann. Gaining a basic German vocabulary in order to engage in the criticism of German literature, and interacting with works of secondary literature, will also be important components of this course.
Instructor: Gebhardt, Riegert
GERM 361 Images of the German Family
Credit: 0.5
Some of the greatest masterpieces of German literature thematically explore family relationships, harmonious or dysfunctional. In this course, we will look at images of the family in German and Austrian literature and film. Three masterworks from the Age of Goethe will be juxtaposed with novels, short fiction, and films from the early and late twentieth century. Schiller's Intrigue and Love, Goethe's Elective Affinities, and Heinrich von Kleist's Earthquake in Chile provide surprisingly different approaches to the family theme in the earlier period. Discussion of these works will provide a basis for exploring later texts, such as excerpts from Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, Kafka's shorter works The Metamorphosis and The Judgment, and Thomas Bernhard's 1986 novel Extinction, which shares with Kafka's texts the outsider status of its protagonist within his family. Films may include Fritz Lang's silent movies based on the Nibelungen myth, Margarethe von Trotta's Marianne and Juliane, and Tom Tykwer's The Princess and the Warrior. We will analyze these works from different perspectives--for example, family history as a mirror for economic development (Mann), the family in the face of terror (Schiller, Kleist, von Trotta), and the juxtaposition of family intimacy with totalitarian power (Schiller). We will trace connections between different family images while also exploring theoretical considerations, such as the influence of the family theme on narrative structure. All readings and discussion will be in German.
Instructor: Gebhardt
GERM 362 Contemporary German Fiction
Credit: 0.5
In a special journal issue on emerging German writers, Frank Finley and Stuart Taberner write: "What is most immediately striking about the German literary market since unification, and in particular since the mid-1990s, is its sheer diversity." In this course, we will read and interpret exemplary works from the wealth of texts that form this new literature. Among the authors are emerging writers, as well as well-established writers, such as Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass. Our focus for discussion will shift a number of times during the semester. We will explore issues of German history and German identity with respect to Grass' novel Im Krebsgang and Thomas Brussig's satirical alternative 'history' of the fall of the Wall, Helden wie wir. More aesthetic and philosophical problems, such as intertextuality and memory, will guide our discussion of W.G. Sebald's Schwindel. Gefühle. Sebald's book is related to Judith Hermann's Nichts als Gespenster through the theme of the travelogue. Likewise, we will discuss the poetics and narrative strategies of Hermann's stories. We will investigate questions of popular literature, and generational issues ("Generation Golf") by looking at Christian Kracht's Faserland (which--like the Hermann and Sebald texts--can be read as a travelogue) and Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre's Solo-Album. The novels Helden wie wir and Solo-Album will also be discussed in the context of their respective motion picture versions. The format of the course will be seminar-type discussion complemented by occasional presentations by students and the instructor. All readings and discussion are in German.
Instructor: Gebhardt
GERM 363 From Nietzsche to Kafka
Credit: 0.5
Nietzsche and Kafka stand out as two of the most important prose stylists of the German language. At the same time, the period between the beginning of Nietzsche's productive career around 1870 and Kafka's death in 1924 is one of fundamental historical change: it starts with the rise of the German nation state and ends after the downfall of both the German and the Austro-Hungarian monarchies. Not surprisingly, the literature of this era in the German language is marked by similar radical transformations. We will attempt to trace these changes by beginning with a discussion of Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra (1883-85) and concluding with Kafka's fragmentary novel Der Proce? . From the perspective of the changing role of literature in response to societal and historical realities, or as a depiction of states of human consciousness, we will investigate a number of additional works: for example, Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Ein Brief, Gerhart Hauptmann's Bahnwarter Thiel, Lou Andreas-Salome's Fenitschka, and Arthur Schnitzler's Leutnant Gustl, as well as poetry by Rilke, Trakl, and Benn. All readings and discussion are in German.
Instructor: Gebhardt
GERM 365 Politics and Gender in German Cinema
Credit: 0.5
Contemporary German cinema has been criticized for its presentation of "characters whose primary sense of person and place is rarely an overt function of their national identity or directly impacted by Germany's difficult past" (Eric Rentschler). Politics seem to disappear more and more from the German screen, whereas the New German Cinema from the 60s to the early 80s often used film explicitly as a means of coming to terms with the past. This course presents major trends in German film since 1989 (beginning with Heiner Carow's Coming Out, a queer movie and one of the last DEFA films). We will try to reassess the often repeated claim of the disappearance of the political. Indeed, we will look at a number of films dealing with gender and queer issues by directors such as Monika Treut (My Father is Coming) and Kutlug Ataman (Lola and Billy the Kid), among others. Moreover, Ataman, along with director Fatih Akin (In July, Head On), will serve as an example for a breakthrough in Turkish-German film production. Discussing the work of Tom Tykwer (Winter Sleepers, The Princess and the Warrior, and Perfume) will form one thematic block in this overview of the past eighteen years of German film. Another group of movies that deals with the German division and re-unification, such as The Promise, Good-Bye Lenin, and Go For Zucker, will be included, as well. The course also introduces students to the tools of film analysis. No previous knowledge of German or film is required. Taught in English. No prerequisites. May be taken for credit towards the German major; please consult with instructor regarding arrangements for German credit. Normally offered every two to three years.
Instructor: Gebhardt
GERM 374 Uncanny Love Stories: Theories of Love in German Literature from the Enlightenment to the Present
Credit: 0.5
The purpose of this course is twofold: to provide an overview of the development of German literature from the eighteenth century to the present; and to focus on the ways different writers and thinkers (and later, filmmakers) represent the fundamental human experience of love in exceptional or "uncanny" ways. The course begins with a consideration of the role of the emotions versus reason in the German Enlightenment. We then turn to the literary works from major German authors, from Goethe to Kleist, Kafka, and Thomas Mann, in which love is marked by loss, violence, and tragedy and/or elevated to the realm of the aesthetic. Freud's theory of love as outlined in his psychoanalytic writings informs the course in general. The course will conclude with a selection of films from the postwar era. Readings and discussion are in German. The course will be conducted in German.
GERM 375 Freud in German Literature
Credit: 0.5
It is impossible to imagine modernity without the theories of Sigmund Freud. Freud's education mandated that he be familiar with all the important works of the German canon, and indeed references to Goethe, Schiller, and others are to be found in his work. In this course we will be examining the impact that the reading of German literature had on Freud's thinking. We will also investigate the relation of Freud to German writers who were his contemporaries. We begin with Freud's major work Die Traumdeutung. As a companion piece, we will read selections from Goethe's autobiography Dichtung und Wahrheit. Next we will turn to Freud's Totem und Tabu, which deals with the place of psychological structures in the construction of culture. We will read Schiller's play Die Räuber, as an exemplary text used by Freud as one of the models for this construction. We will also examine Freud's essay "Das Unheimliche." Freud uses Hoffmann's story "Der Sandmann" as a model for this text, and we will read this tale as well as another of Hoffmann's gothic stories to illuminate Freud's theory of the uncanny. Next we will examine the relation between Freud and two of his contemporaries, Arthur Schnitzler and Franz Kafka, in light of their correspondence, diaries, and short stories.
GERM 381 Faust and Faust Legends in Literature and Film
Credit: 0.5
This course presents a close examination of Faust and the Faust legend in German and European literature from the Renaissance to the present, with all its implications for modern times. The Faustian pact with the Devil, your heart's desire in exchange for your soul, has clear reference for modernism. The birth of the blues as well as fascism share in the myth. Reading in this class will trace the roots of this myth in the Volksbuch von Doktor Faust, Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, Goethe's Faust, and The Master and Margarita. The course will also include a number of films that deal with the Faust themes, such as Angelheart, Faust, Mephisto, andThe Last Temptation of Christ. Readings are in English. The course may be taken for credit toward the German major; students should consult with the instructor regarding requirements for German credit.
GERM 385 Weimar Film and Beyond
Credit: 0.5
This course will examine German film from its beginnings to the present. The films we will view and analyze in this represent four epochs of German film: (1) the Weimar era, which produced film classics such as Nosferatu, Metropolis, and The Golem; (2) examples of films produced during the Third Reich; (3) the films of the New German Cinema, which include such works as The Marriage of Maria Braun, by Rainer Maria Fassbinder, and Heart of Glass, by Werner Herzog, as well as films by directors such as Maragethe von Trotta and Wim Wenders; and (4) films produced in the last decade. The films shown in this class are in the original German. The course will be conducted as a seminar.
GERM 387 Rilke, Celan, and Theory
Credit: 0.5
In this course, we will attempt to gain an understanding of some of the most complex poetry in German in the twentieth century. At least two of the poets we will study -- Rainer Maria Rilke and Paul Celan -- have made it into the canon of what some call "World Literature." Our approach will be theoretical in that we will start with a seminal work in German aesthetics, Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy, and throughout the semester, we will discuss the poems side by side with philosophical and critical essays on the poems in question. German twentieth-century poetry has resonated in extraordinary ways with writers in theoretically and philosophically oriented criticism. Theoretical work we will discuss in this course will include Martin Heidegger's essays "What are Poets for?" and "Language," Hans Georg Gadamer's essays on Rilke and Celan, Werner Hamacher's "The Second of Inversion," Adorno's "The Lyric and Society," and Paul De Man's "Tropes (Rilke)." In addition to Rilke and Celan, we will study poems by Else Lasker-Schüler, Stefan George, Georg Trakl, Gertrud Kolmar, and Gottfried Benn. The readings will open up perspectives on the central aspects of criticism on poetry, namely the relationship between philosophical thought and poetry, the relationship between poetry and language, the problem of self-reference, and questions of history and memory. Open to students of all levels. No German language proficiency required, as all readings will be in English. Normally offered every two to three years.
Instructor: Gebhardt
GERM 395 Myth of Nation: German Film from Nosferatu to Hitler and Beyond
Credit: 0.5
This course will examine the construction of national identity through the medium of film. For Germany, which historically looked to its writers to define its national identity, film became a very important medium for expressing this goal. This course also aims to provide students with the socio-historic background to be able to understand and evaluate the role that films played in both shaping and reflecting cultural ideals. The films viewed in this course will represent three distinct historical epochs: (1) the Weimar period, which produced some of the greatest silent films ever made, such as Nosferatu, The Golem, Dr. Caligari, and Dr. Mabuse; (2) the Nazi period, for which we will view the artistically unequaled propaganda film The Triumph of the Will, as well as examples of Hollywood-inspired Nazi propaganda films; (3) the post-World War II period, for which we will view films made by members of the New German Cinema like Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun, Aguirre: the Wrath of God by Werner Herzog, and Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders. No prerequisites. The course will be conducted in English. Normally offered every two to three years.
Instructor: Riegert
GERM 493 Individual Study
Credit: 0.5
This course offers an opportunity to study on an individual basis in special-interest areas, literary or linguistic, under the regular supervision of a faculty member. This course is normally available to majors or, in unusual cases, to prospective majors.