Courses

All courses carry 3 credits unless otherwise specified.

583 Problems and Methods of Teaching German
Introduction to varied methods of teaching a foreign language based on recent developments in the theory of second language acquisition and proficiency-oriented approaches to language learning. Prerequisite: advanced proficiency in German.

584 History of German
Introduction to history of the German language.

585 Structure of German
The phonology, morphology and syntax of German.

591F German Film in Teaching and Research

597 Special Topics

Documentary Film

East German Cinema

Film and Fascism

German Film Studies
An overview of German film history, an introduction to methodology in film studies, and the major contemporary issues in German film studies. Familiarization with resources and methods for teaching a college-level course in German film studies and preparation to undertake graduate research projects in the field. Case studies include “Berlin to Hollywood,” a survey of German film; fascism and film; history and film; the cinema of the German Democratic Republic.

History of Film

Jews and German Culture
An exploration of antisemitism and philo-semitism from the enlightenment to the post-Holocaust present, alongside a study of Jewish acculturation in the German-speaking lands. Topics include assimilation, dissimilation, Zionism, modernism and Jewish culture in Weimar Germany, and responses to the Holocaust.

1968 and Film Culture
Includes reflection on “40th anniversary” commemorations and current academic study of “1968” as an international cultural phenomenon. Focus on the film culture of the year itself. Topics traced through 1968 film examples include the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the student movement, and struggles over popular culture and media representation.

Interrogating Germanness: Minority Voices in Germany, 1960-Present
Examines cultural production by minorities in Germany since the 1960s. A central question concerns how texts by minorities from different backgrounds not only voice alternative perspectives on Germany's present, but also develop unique ways of accessing and reconstructing its past. While the main focus is on literature, music and visual objects will be considered as well. Course materials will be theorized as staging various cultural, national, ethnic, and political contexts thereby altering the parameters of established discourses, on key issues such as integration, German national identity, memory and remembrance. In addition to the primary sources, course materials include theoretical texts on concepts of diaspora, exile, and transnationalism as well as secondary sources on minority writing, music, and the history of labor migration.

597 Special Topics in Scandinavian Studies

Nordic Voices: Love and Nature in Scandinavian Writing
Readings, in translation, by writers of the Nordic countries, examining their distinctive view of nature, human love, and their societies’ accommodation of these strong and unpredictable forces. H.C. Andersen, Ibsen, Strindberg, Undset, Hamsum, Dinesen, Laxness, others.

Scandinavian Mythology
The myths and religion of the Scandinavians during the first millennium. Nordic beliefs and stories explored through written sources, archeology, and visual arts. Taught in English.

Ultima Thule: Polar Exploration and the Heroic Imagination
How early polar expeditions were planned, executed, and endured; explorers’ interaction with indigenous populations, especially in Greenland; and the spectacular, dangerous and life-sustaining landscapes today profoundly threatened by global warming.

Vikings and Their Stories: Saga Literature
Readings, in translation, of Old Icelandic sagas—nonfiction narratives about families, battles, and politics in a pre-Christian blood-feud society. Discussed in terms of literary, historical and cultural context.

601 Middle High German
Aims to develop a thorough knowledge of the Middle High German language and to introduce students to medieval literature, culture, and society. Basic MHG phonology and grammar based on selected medieval texts, used to draw some conclusions about the wider context of the Middle Ages and develop a deeper understanding of modern Germany. Knowledge of modern German required. Course conducted in English.

697 Special Topics

1968 and Film Culture

Brecht and World Cinema

DEFA Films

Exile in L.A.
An interdisciplinary study of German refugees from Nazism in California from the 1930s through the 1950s, focusing on anti-fascist aesthetics between the competing poles of modernism, political literature, notions of high culture and Western tradition, and critiques of the "culture industry." Philosophical readings from Horkheimer and Adorno, literature by Thomas Mann and Brecht, music by Eisler and Schoenberg, films by Wilder, Lang, Lubitsch, Sirk, Ulmer.

German Poetry from Goethe to Celan

Modern German History
Various interpretations of modern Germany’s troubled past, with emphasis on the often bitter controversies and competing historical approaches. How the exile of intellectuals and the collaboration of historians with the Nazis in the 1930s produced a so-called Atlantic divide between American and German scholars. The Sonderweg debate on whether the Nazi dictatorship was the result of developments unique to Germany before 1914. Overview of classic “problems” of early 20th-century German history: the worker’s movement; origins of World War I; the 1918 revolution; the rise of the Nazis; the fall of the Weimar Republic; and the place of women and gender in all these developments. Special focus on the explosive disputes over Nazism and the genocide. East German history written by the Cold War victors and recent challenges to this narrative.

Studies in Modern German History
Introduction to the social, cultural, and political history of the German lands from 1750 to the present and an intensive study of the historiography of a period or topic to be decided by the students.

Special Topics in Scandinavian Studies

Viking Revival: National Romanticism and the Nordic Ideal
Interdisciplinary course exploring 19th-century historical consciousness, Darwinism, and the romantic imagination on the development of the “Nordic ideal,” with its disastrous political consequences in the 20th century. Uses literature, art, and music to reflect the way Scandinavians idealized the Vikings, both as part of the Romantic past and the Modernist cult of masculinity, in order to re-imagine themselves in an era of intense nationalism.

Weimar Republic
The tumultuous rise and fall of the Weimar Republic between 1919 and 1933. The political, social, and economic contexts for its cultural achievements. The value of that culture in its own right. Why a majority of Germans voted to dissolve this progressive regime and a plurality opted to support National Socialism. Focus on the Constitution, Weimar culture, sex and youth reform, Communism and right paramilitary violence, the legacy of World War I and the Revolution, and the mass mobilization by the Nazi Party.

699 Master’s Thesis
Credit, 6.

702 Old High German
Grammar and reading of prose and poetry; an introduction to Old High German dialects.

703 Gothic
Grammar and reading of texts, consideration of historical importance of Ulfilas’ biblical translation.

704 Old Norse
Grammar and reading of selections from the Icelandic sagas.

705 Old Saxon
Grammar and reading of selections from the Heliand.

715 The Heroic Epic
The “sources” and stages of development of the Nibelungenlied, the most important heroic epic in German. The meaning of the poem in the context of the early 13th century. How the epic has been understood and used since the 18th century as an instrument of nationalist politics in Germany. Knowledge of modern German very helpful. Course conducted in English.

716 Courtly Lyric Poetry
Introduction to formal study of Minnesang and Spruchdichtung from the Kürenberger to Konrad von Würzburg with emphasis on Walter von der Vogelweide and social and historical context of the period. Prerequisite: GERMAN 601.

717 The Courtly Epic
Comprehensive literary analysis of selected epics by Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Strassburg. Prerequisite: GERMAN 601.

718 Narrative and Didactic MHG Literature
Didactic narrative from 11th to 13th century. Prerequisite: GERMAN 601.

743 From Empfindsamkeit to Storm and Stress

751 Goethe’s Faust
Comprehensive review of the Faust theme in literature, music, and film, with a thorough analysis of Goethe’s Faust.

763 19th-Century Poetry and Prose
Poetry by writers such as Heinrich Heine, Eduard Mörike, and Annette von Droste-Hülshoff and prose by writers such as Heinrich Heine and the writers of Biedermeier and Das Junge Deutschland.

764 19th-Century Drama
Grillparzer, Büchner, Grabbe, Hebbel.

775 20th-Century Drama
From Wedekind to Handke.

779 Post-World War II Literature
Literature in the shadow of the Wall: focus on paired texts of East and West German literature written from the late fifties to 1989, exploring how text is rooted in, supports, critiques, and/or subverts the social order from which it derives and how literary texts from both Germanies responded to similar issues in very different ways.

782 Special Topics in Philology and Medieval Studies

783 Special Topics in the Literature of Classicism

784 Special Topics in the Literature of Romanticism

785 Special Topics in the Literature of the 19th Century

786 Special Topics in the Literature of the 20th Century

791A Buechner

793 Expressionism

795T Transnational Theories and Methodigy

797 Special Topics

18th-Century Drama

Colonialism

First, Second, Third Sex: Gender and Sexual Identity in Twentieth-Century Germany
Exploration of representation of gender and sexual identity in German literary texts from World War I to the present, situated in their specific historical context.

German Social Theory

German Studies/Cultural Studies
Focus on approaches that comprise new interdisciplinary methods under the heading of “German Studies.” Cutting-edge theory and applications, mostly developed in an Anglo-American context, that focus on gender, queer, national, race and ethnic, and postcolonial questions and how these perspectives relate to German cultural production.

Migrant Literature

Race Theory

888 History and Problems of Literary Criticism

891 Seminar in Philology

892 Seminar in Medieval Literature

893 Seminar in Literature

897 Special Topics

899 Doctoral Dissertation
Credit, 10.