Courses

Courses

Fall 2008

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101. Elementary German I
Steven Cerf M 8:30 - 9:25, W 8:30 - 9:25, F 8:30 - 9:25
German 101 is the first course in German language and culture and is open to all students without prerequisite. Facilitates an understanding of culture through language. Introduces German history and cultural topics. Three hours per week. Acquisition of four skills: speaking and understanding, reading, and writing. One hour of conversation and practice with teaching assistant. Integrated language laboratory work.

101. Elementary German I
Steven Cerf M 1:30 - 2:25, W 1:30 - 2:25, F 1:30 - 2:25
German 101 is the first course in German language and culture and is open to all students without prerequisite. Facilitates an understanding of culture through language. Introduces German history and cultural topics. Three hours per week. Acquisition of four skills: speaking and understanding, reading, and writing. One hour of conversation and practice with teaching assistant. Integrated language laboratory work.

151. The Literary Imagination and the Holocaust
Steven Cerf M 10:30 - 11:25, W 10:30 - 11:25, F 10:30 - 11:25
An examination of the literary treatment of the Holocaust, a period between 1933 and 1945, during which eleven million innocent people were systematically murdered by the Nazis. Four different literary genres are examined: the diary and memoir, drama, poetry, and the novel. Three basic sets of questions are raised by the course: How could such slaughter take place in the twentieth century? To what extent is literature capable of evoking this period and what different aspects of the Holocaust are stressed by the different genres? What can our study of the Holocaust teach us with regard to contemporary issues surrounding totalitarianism and racism? No knowledge of German is required.

203. Intermediate German I
Birgit Tautz M 8:30 - 9:25, W 8:30 - 9:25, F 8:30 - 9:25
Continued emphasis on the understanding of German culture through language. Focus on social and cultural topics through history, literature, politics, popular culture, and the arts. Three hours per week of reading, speaking, and writing. One hour of discussion and practice with teaching assistant. Language laboratory also available. Equivalent of German 102 is required.

203. Intermediate German I
Birgit Tautz M 1:30 - 2:25, W 1:30 - 2:25, F 1:30 - 2:25
Continued emphasis on the understanding of German culture through language. Focus on social and cultural topics through history, literature, politics, popular culture, and the arts. Three hours per week of reading, speaking, and writing. One hour of discussion and practice with teaching assistant. Language laboratory also available. Equivalent of German 102 is required.

205. Advanced German Texts and Contexts
Jill Smith T 10:00 - 11:25, TH 10:00 - 11:25
Designed to explore aspects of German culture in depth, to deepen the understanding of culture through language, and to increase facility in speaking, writing, reading, and comprehension. Topics include post-war and/or post-unification themes in historical and cross-cultural contexts. Particular emphasis on post-1990 German youth culture and language. Includes fiction writing, film, music, and various news media. Weekly individual sessions with the Teaching Fellow from the Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität-Mainz. Equivalent of German 204 is required.

315. Realism, Nation and Popular Fictions of Community in Nineteenth-Century German Culture
Birgit Tautz M 11:30 - 12:25, W 11:30 - 12:25, F 11:30 - 12:25

Explores the ways in which German culture popularized the ideas of ethnicity, nation, and communities in the 19th century. Considers literary fiction as well as philosophical, political, pedagogical and psychological writings and visual materials in their appropriate context. Materials examined respond to historical events and reflect upon life-altering conditions of exile and emigration, the advent of technology, and the rise of mass culture; they exemplify modes of representing reality that ultimately led to the aesthetic phenomenon labeled Realism. Authors include, among others, the Grimms, Busch, Nietzsche, Marx, Otto-Peters, Lewald, von Ebner-Eschenbach, Hoffmann, Heine, Herz, Storm, and Fontane, as well as many anonymous writers of the popular and emigrant press. Discussion, short analytical or interpretive papers are combined with an individual project, guest lectures, and the resources of art museum and the library’s special collection.


317. German Literature and Culture since 1945
Jill Smith T 1:00 - 2:25, TH 1:00 - 2:25
An exploration of how successive generations have expressed their relationship to the catastrophe of the Nazi past. Examines representative texts of East and West German writers/filmmakers in Cold War and post-unification contexts. A discussion of “Germanness” and German identity from several perspectives, including Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit, the influence of the United States and the Soviet Union, the cultural significance of the American West and American popular culture, gender in the two Germanys, terrorism, and African-German and Turkish-German voices. Grass, Böll, Wolf, Müller, Dörrie, Fassbinder, Brussig, Ayim, Schlink, among others.