Courses

SEMESTER I, FALL 2008

Primarily for Undergraduates

GRMN 0100 -- Beginning German
Jane Sokolosky and Staff

A course in the language and cultures of German-speaking countries. Four hours per week plus regular computer and listening comprehension work. At the end of the year, students will be able to communicate successfully about everyday topics. This is the first half of a year-long course whose first semester grade is normally a temporary one. Neither semester may be elected independently without special written permission. The final grade submitted at the end of the course work in GRMN 0200 covers the entire year and is recorded as the final grade for both semesters.
Enrollment Limited to 20
11677 Sec. 01 D hr (M, W, F 11-11:50) + Tu 12-12:50
11679 Sec. 02 E hr (M, W, F 12-12:50) + Tu 12-12:50
11681 Sec. 03 F hr (M, W, F 1-1:50) + Tu 12-12:50

GRMN 0300 -- Intermediate German I:
Jane Sokolosky and Staff

Focuses on deepening students' understanding of modern German culture by reading texts and viewing films pertinent to Germany today. Intended to provide a thorough review of German grammar and help students develop their writing, reading, listening, and speaking skills. Frequent writing assignments. Four hours per week.
Prerequisite:GRMN 0200 or placement.
11691 Sec. 01 C hr (M, W, F 10-10:50) + Th 12-12:50
11693 Sec. 02 G hr (M, W, F 2-2:50) + Th 12-12:50

GRMN 0500E -- The Presence of the Past: German Literature and Film (1945-present day)
Aminia Brueggemann

Exploration of ways in which the German past, through cultural materials, including literature in film, played a role in the construction and deconstruction of the Berlin Wall, the two Germanys, and contemporary Germany. German oral/written skills are furthered while deepening participants' understanding of present-day Germany. Grade based on portfolio, essays, midterm, final exam, homework, oral presentations, and class participation. Prerequisite: GRMN 0400.
15327 Sec. 01 C hr (M, W, F 10-10:50)

GRMN 1090 -- Advanced Written and Spoken German
Carol Poore

Designed to increase the range, fluency, and accuracy of idiomatic expression through written and oral practice. Students shall acquire familiarity with various textual styles and genres, and reproduce these styles and genres in their own written and oral work. Prerequisite: GM 60 (GRMN 0600) or permission of instructor.
11732 Sec. 01 F hr (M, W, F 1-1:50)

GRMN 1340J -- The Works of Franz Kafka (In German)
Zachary Sng

We will read a selection of texts by Kafka (including short stories, a novel, and journal entries) in order to explore his importance for the aesthetics of modernity. Topics include: representation of the law, literature and religion, the role of the paternal, and guilt. Frequent short papers based on close reading of texts, and a longer final paper.
Prerequisite: GRMN 0600 or permission of instructor.
15324 Sec. 01 J hr (Tu, Th 1-2:20)

GRMN 1660A -- Amazons and Other Gender Benders in German Literature and Letters (In German)
Approval pending
Lara Kelingos

This course will study the German subject or literary figure who subverts the conventional binary of masculinity/femininity in order to study the workings of gender in three distinct cultural contexts: Part I of the course will concentrate on the figure of the Amazon and her importance to the ideals of German Classicism. Part II will consider how gender is constructed in the fields of sexology and psychoanalysis at the turn of the twentieth century, and we will read Aimée Duc’s account of the “third sex” as well as selections from the memoir of the gender-bending schizophrenic judge Daniel Paul Schreber. Part III will turn to Blitz aus heiterm Himmel, a volume of stories exploring imagined sex-changes commissioned in the 1970’s GDR and including works by Christa Wolf, Sarah Kirsch, Günter de Bruyn, and others.
K hr (Tu, Th 2:30-3:50)

GRMN 1660C -- Culture in the Nazi Era (in English)
Approval pending
Lara Kelingos

This course will explore the variety and the contexts of German cultural production during the Nazi era. We will examine and situate the various modes of party sanctioned mass-mediated culture in the Third Reich (literature and popular literature, film, radio, theater, and public spectacle), as well as cultural productions that were “unofficial,” “resistant,” or “decadent,” including exile literature, literature of “inner emigration,” concentration camp poetry, and postwar memoirs of persecution. Additional related topics include the study of intellectual life and the academy, the cultural mediation of gender and sexuality, cultures of childhood, and Jewish culture in the Nazi era.
H hr (Tu, Th 9:00-10:20)

GRMN 1660U -- What was Socialism? From Marx to "Goodbye Lenin" (In English)
Carol Poore

The international socialist movement was born in Germany, and many of Germany's most important cultural figures were attracted to its striving for social justice. But socialism seems to have come to a tragic end. Course includes theoreticians such as Marx and Luxemburg, writers such as Heine, Brecht, and H. Müller, and a focus on East German culture (film, art, literature) and its aftermath since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
15322 Sec. 01 I hr (Tu, Th 10:30-11:50)

GRMN1970 -- Independent Study Arr.

Primarily for Graduates

GRMN 2340B -- Poetik der AutorInnen (In German)
Thomas Kniesche

This course will examine postwar literary aesthetics as put forth in the so-called “Poetikvorlesungen” or lectures on poetry which several universities in German-speaking countries have instituted since 1959. These lectures have featured important contemporary authors who have talked about their work as writers in modern and postmodern society – from poetic practices and aesthetic theories to biographic considerations and the technicalities of writing literature in today’s world. Authors to be discussed include Ingeborg Bachmann (Frankfurt 1959/60), Heinrich Böll (Frankfurt 1964), Christa Wolf (Frankfurt 1982), Peter Bichsel (Frankfurt 1981/82), Paul Nizon (Frankfurt 1984), Peter Sloterdijk (Frankfurt 1988), Jurek Becker (Frankfurt 1989), Sten Nadolny (München 1990), Wolfgang Hilbig (Frankfurt 1995), Marlene Streeruwitz (Tübingen 1996), Yoko Tawada (Tübingen 1997/98), and Hans-Ulrich Treichel (Frankfurt 1999/2000). By closely reading and analyzing these texts that are situated on the border of the theory and praxis of literature, one can arrive at a better understanding of the role and functions of literature in postwar German-speaking countries. Student will need to purchase their own books. Click HERE for the list.
15326 Sec. 01 K hr (Tu, Th 2:30-3:50)

COLT 2820P -- Aesthetics and the 18th Century Subject
(In English)
Zachary Sng

The debates about taste, judgment, beauty, sentiment, and sensation in the eighteenth century gave rise to the discourse of aesthetics as we know it today, but they also exerted a powerful influence on how knowledge, virtue, and subjectivity were imagined in the post-enlightenment period. In this course, we will examine some of the founding texts of aesthetic theory from the era (including Locke, Smith, Burke, Lessing, and Kant), and then turn to consider how aesthetic questions informed and were taken up by Goethe's narrative of subject-formation in his Bildungsroman, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.
15215 Sec. 01 M hr (M 3-5:20)

The following non-departmental courses may be counted towards the concentration (see Concentration for details)

Fall 2008 Courses in other departments

COLT 1810N Freud: Writer and Reader
COLT 1810V Marx and Modern Literature
HIST 1370 Germany, 1914 to the Present
HIST 1972T German Culture
PHIL 0400 Marxism
PHIL 1720 Kant: The Critique of Pure Reason
PHIL 1740 Nineteenth-Century Philosophy
MUSC 0051 Mozart
MUSC 0920 Baroque and Classic Music
RELS 0060 Religion and Its Critics in the Modern West
SOC 1010 Classical Sociological Theory