Undergraduate Courses

Fall 2024

Language Courses

GER 100Y1 (GER) Introduction to German

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101 -online-	MW 9-11	L. Cote-Pitre
L0201	MW 11-1	M. Harutyunyan
L0301	MW 4-6	H. Robinson
L0401	TR 9-11	M. Harutyunyan
L0501	TR 11-1	L. Reitz
L0601	TR 4-6	J. Evjen
L5101	MW 6-8	V. Shewfelt
L5201 -online-	TR 6-8	E. Lange

This introductory German course is for students with no prior knowledge of the language. It is a year course divided into two sections. Based on a communicative and task-based approach, it is designed to develop proficiency in oral and written communication skills while providing students with knowledge and understanding of the societies and cultures of German-speaking countries. Students will develop their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills through a variety of stimulating off- and on-line activities, both during live meetings and on the reliable online platform accompanying the textbook. Topics cover areas such as introducing and talking about oneself, shopping, telling time and recounting a day, family life, describing and renting an apartment, travel, health and fitness or studying abroad. Vocabulary will be presented in the context of culturally significant issues. Additionally, the course will provide students with a foundation in a number of basic grammatical structures and concepts. Live online sessions will be devoted mostly to communicative and interactive exercises. In addition to preparation at home, regularly participating in and attending the online sessions is paramount in order to successfully complete the course.

GER 200Y1 (GER) Intermediate German I

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	MW 10-12	L. Lackner
L0201	TR 10-12	R. Laszlo
L5101 -online-	MW 6-8	S. Gargova

This intermediate German language course builds on skills acquired in beginner’s German. It is a year course divided into two sections and is designed to provide students with genuine communication experiences while reviewing and further developing participants’ linguistic and cultural competencies. Students will have a chance to practice and enhance their German speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills by engaging with a variety of texts and media during live classes, as well as on the reliable online platform accompanying the textbook. The themes in the textbook provide a springboard for various online activities, assignments, and vocabulary building tasks. All class readings, videos, projects, and presentations will explore historical, social, political, and popular topics while aspects of Germanic and North American cultures are being compared. Learning strategies and self-assessment are part of every chapter, allowing for differentiation among various types of learners. Students will further practice grammatical structures and acquire vocabulary that will allow them to express opinions, agreements, and disagreements in communicative situations encountered in work, school, and travel. By learning about German, Austrian, and Swiss cities featured in the textbook and supporting materials, students will get to explore regional differences in German-speaking countries. Regular online meetings will be devoted mostly to communicative and interactive exercises and group work. In order to successfully participate in these activities, independent work and preparation are paramount.

GER 300Y1 (GER) Intermediate German II

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	MW 10-12	F. Geddes
L0201	TR 4-6	F. Roessler
L5101	TR 6-8	A. Flicker

This intermediate German language course builds on GER200Y. It is a year course divided into two sections and focuses on effective oral and written expression, hearing and reading comprehension, in-depth review of grammar as well as the study of more complex structures. Through engagement with a variety of readings, videos, and films on important historical, cultural, social, and political topics in German-speaking countries, students will have the opportunity to practice grammar and vocabulary in embedded and culturally relevant contexts. The aim of this course is to equip students with the skills to understand extended speech, to read articles on contemporary problems, to describe personal experiences and to explain viewpoints on topical issues in speech and in writing. The textbook offers engaging culture topics, authentic readings, contextualized grammar and a reliable online platform. Regular online meetings will be devoted to communicative and interactive exercises and group work. In order to successfully participate in these activities, independent work and preparation are paramount.

GER 400HF (GER) Advanced German I

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	TR 10-12	E. Boran

This course is aimed at students with a high level of competence in German. Building on material covered in GER 100/200/300, it offers advanced studies of German language, including text-based analysis and with a focus on improving communication skills. It includes a systematic review and expansion of grammar and stylistics, and additional emphasis lies on vocabulary building. The course is partly based on newspaper articles, literary texts, films and websites.

GER 260Y1 (YID) Elementary Yiddish

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	M 10-12/W 10-11	M. Schwartz

This course is an introduction to the Yiddish language and culture of Ashkenazic Jews. It will begin to prepare you to be able to express yourself in Yiddish, acquire strategies to learn Yiddish independently by developing your ability to understand the structure of the language and to cue in on the features of spoken and written Yiddish.

Topic Courses

GER 194HF (ENG) Our Vampires, Ourselves
*FYF (First-Year-Foundation) seminars exclusively for first-year students*

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	F 10-12	E. Boran

Vampires are among the most fascinating figures of popular culture. Since Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) – and, in fact, well before that – they have been haunting the human imagination in various shapes and forms. But, of course, vampires have existed much longer than that – first in folktales and later, well before Stoker’s ominous Count, in German poetry. This course examines the figure of the vampire as a potent cultural metaphor showing how every age embraces the vampires it needs and gets the vampires it deserves. The goal is to teach students to reflect critically and independently on issues of self and society and to develop a structured approach to critical thinking in general. While focusing on what may be called the “Stoker paradigm”, we will go far beyond the portrayal of vampires as the absolute other. Students will have the opportunity to research individual topics to be presented in class.

GER 195HF (ENG) Cities – Real and Imagined
*FYF (First-Year-Foundation) seminars exclusively for first-year students*

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	W 12-2	H.-S. Kim

Cities have been described as places of desire and places of fear. They pulse with life, bringing together people from different class, gender, and ethnic backgrounds, simultaneously giving rise to a sense of freedom and oppression, a sense of belonging and alienation. This course will explore the city as a physical reality that shapes our lives, but is also a projection of our deepest imaginings. Through readings of philosophical and sociological texts by influential theorists of the city, we will consider various ancient and modern conceptions of urban space and subjectivity. Alongside these theoretical readings, we will also examine literary and filmic representations of the city as a space of desire, memory and power.

GER 210HF (ENG) Poets and Power: Art, Media and the Nazis

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	M 3-5	J. Zilcosky

To the surprise of many, aesthetics played a vital role in the lives of Nazis and their politics. Hitler was a failed painter, Goebbels a poet, and Göring a collector; other high-ranking officials likewise fashioned themselves as artists. In this course, we will examine how these personal predilections transformed into an aesthetic vision of politics: through the fascist cult of physical perfection, the theatrics of political media, anti-Semitic entertainment films, and the eroticization of the Führer-figure. We will investigate this marriage of beauty and violence and ask how it helped to make the “Third Reich” attractive to many Germans. Beginning with the great avant-garde experiments of the pre-Nazi era, we will analyze why Hitler banned this “degenerate” art – even though he adopted some of its style in propaganda posters. We will continue by examining the Nazis’ glorification of Greek and Roman images of beauty and their aesthetic justifications for genocide. Throughout the course, we will consider some of the high points of German culture – in philosophy, music, and literature – and ask: How did a society that produced such works of genius also create Nazism and the Holocaust? Is high culture necessarily a bulwark against barbarism? And do we have similarly seductive combinations of culture and politics in our world today? How might we notice such allures yet still mark their dangers, maintain our critical distance, and resist?

NOTES: Taught in English, open to students across disciplines.

GER 275HF (ENG) Marx, Nietzsche, Freud

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	W 3-5	W. Goetschel

This is an introductory course to the thought of Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud and their pioneering contributions to the understanding of the individual and society in modernity. Readings include selections from writings of the early Marx, the Communist Manifesto, and Capital, Nietzsche’s critique of culture, academe, and nationalism, and Freud’s theory of culture, his views on the psychopathology of everyday life, on the meaning of dreams, symptoms, the return of the repressed, and what it might mean to live in a free society.

NOTES: Taught in English, open to students across disciplines

GER 305HF (GER) Masterpieces of German Literature 2

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	M 1-3/W 1-2	J. Noyes

Prerequisite: GER 205H

Building on GER 205H, this course provides an introduction to German literature and culture from the 18^th to the 21^st century. Within a chronological and thematic framework, we will read and analyze excerpts from representative works of major German writers. Students learn to read critically and to consider the literary qualities of the German language. The course is required for majors and specialists; it should be taken as soon after GER 205 as possible.

NOTES: Required course for majors and specialists. / Prerequisite for 400-level topic courses in German.

GER 310HF (GER) Contemporary German Culture & Media

Section	Time	Instructor
L5101	F 10-12	T. Hof

Prerequisite: GER 200Y/201H

This course provides students with the opportunity to encounter more advanced texts focusing on modern German culture, as expressed through a variety of media. It examines a range of issues that have changed the way we look at culture, as well as the impact of these changes on national identity. It offers a diverse view of German life based on reading selections from literary works, memoirs, newspaper reports, commentaries, and interdisciplinary materials which highlight important cultural movements.

GER 322HF (GER) Kafka’s World

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	T 1-3	E. Boran

Prerequisite: GER 205H

How do we know how to live life in the modern world, when none of our points of reference seem to hold any reliability or stability? How can we even be sure that we are human, and not some strange, deformed animal with consciousness? For Kafka, the German-Jewish-Czech writer who lived most of his life in Prague, the only way to answer such troubling questions was to make them the basis of his writing. His works offer a unique model for thinking about human life in the modern world, about consciousness, the body, dreaming and waking, the nature of the social world, and many similar issues. And embedded in his writing is a set of unique ideas about how to read literature

GER 332HF (GER) Deviance – Madness – Outsider

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	T 3-5	C. Lehleiter

Prerequisite: GER 205H

Throughout modern history, writers have tested the limits of normal human experience by casting their protagonists into the depths of madness, by casting them out of society, and following them through their trials, their elation, their despair. This course examines a number of texts that see the world through the eyes of outsiders, and that see the outsiders through the eyes of the world. Our aim will be to analyze literary descriptions of the limit experiences that separate “normal” life from its other. In the process, we will discuss topics such as truth and truth telling, exclusionary and assimilating practices for dealing with madness and outsiders, discourses of containment, and how the outsider perspective unsettles truth in literature.

GER 370HF (GER) German Business Culture

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	M 10-12/W 10-12	S. Gargova

Prerequisite: GER 200Y/201H

This course provides students with a working knowledge of German business culture that allows them to navigate the German workplace. The main focus is to deepen students’ knowledge of business concepts.

NOTES: Required course for the Business German minor. / GER 270H and 272H alternate with GER 370H and 372H and are only offered every other year.

GER 410HF (ENG) Topics in Intellectual History: Nietzsche

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	R 1-3	W. Goetschel

This course introduces to Nietzsche, the philosopher, critic, and cultural theorist and examines the critically enduring significance of his legacy. Students will be familiarized with his critical contributions to epistemology, ethics, psychology, the theory of history, culture, and education as well as his impact on rethinking the agenda of philosophy. Particular aspect of the course will be the contextualization of his interventions in the intellectual landscape of his period and the notoriously provocative writing style.

NOTES: Taught in English, open to students across disciplines.

Spring 2025

Language Courses

GER 100Y1/101HS (GER) Introduction to German

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101 -online-	MW 9-11	S. Gargova
L0201	MW 11-1	A. Flicker
L0301*	MW4-6	L. Lackner
L0401	TR 9-11	S. Mostafa
L0501*	TR 11-1	A. Klee
L0601	TR 4-6	V. Shewfelt
L5101	MW 6-8	T. Humeniuk
L5201 -online-	TR 6-8	E. Lange

GER 200Y1/*201HS (GER) Intermediate German I

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	MW 10-12	M. Harutyunyan
L0201	TR 10-12	R. Laszlo
L5101 -online-	MW 6-8	S. Gargova

GER 300Y1/*301HS (GER) Intermediate German II

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	MW 10-12	F. Geddes
L0201	TR 4-6	L. Reitz
L5101	TR 6-8	A. Flicker

GER 401HS (GER) Advanced German 2

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	TR 10-12	E. Lange

GER 260Y1 (YID) Elementary Yiddish

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	M 10-12/W 10-11	J. Hermant

GER 460HS (YID) Advanced Yiddish

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	W 3-5	A. Shternshis

Advanced reading, writing, vocabulary and conversation. Study of poetry, short fiction and memoir literature by Zeitlin, Bergelson, Gladshteyn, Sholem Aleichem and I.B. Singer. Selected advanced grammatical topics presented in conjunction with the study of texts. (Conducted entirely in Yiddish.)

Topic Courses

GER 150HS (ENG) Introduction to German Culture

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	F 11-1	H.-S. Kim

Are you curious about German culture? What comes to your mind when you think of things German? Beer and sausages, high-performance cars, the Black Forest, or a mania for efficiency? This course moves beyond these cultural stereotypes and offers a kaleidoscopic view of German culture in its varied manifestations, be it in the form of cultural artifacts, great works of literature, family histories, or big ideas. We will explore world-shaping ideas and inventions from the Reformation and the Gutenberg Press to Bauhaus and modern industrial design, the connection between the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales and their nation-building efforts, German fantasies about Indigenous North America and the longing for untouched nature, and personal narratives that grapple with the Nazi past and divided Germany. Ideal for students from across the disciplines, the course invites you to think critically about what constitutes German culture while expanding your cross-cultural understanding and global perspective. (No knowledge of German required.)

[Taught in English and open to students across disciplines.]

GER 205HS (GER) Masterpieces of German Literature 1

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	T 1-3/R 1-2	H.-S. Kim

Prerequisite/Co-requisite: GER 200/201

This prerequisite course offers an introduction to work methods and skills pertaining to the study of German literature. As such, the course is meant to provide a transition from language to topic courses. Students will receive training in how to give a successful presentation, how to read and analyze texts, how to find secondary literature and how to write short papers. The course is required for majors and specialists and a pre-requisite course for most of the other topic courses. It should be taken as early as possible.

HPS 270HS (ENG) Science & Literature

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	M 2-4	C. Lehleiter

This course will focus on the interplay between science and literature from ancient Greece to the present day. We’ll examine the impact of major scientific paradigm shifts on the literature of their time, and situate literary texts within the context of contemporary scientific discoveries and technological innovations.

NOTES: Taught in English, open to students across disciplines.

GER 321HS (GER) Literary Realism in the Industrial Age

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101M	M 10-12	C. Lehleiter

Prerequisite: GER 205H

This course offers an examination of German literary movements as they responded to the challenge of social and historical changes in the 19^th century. Despite many challenges, the century was shaped by the belief in progress and the optimism that new scientific discoveries would lead to a better life for Germany and mankind. The course studies how German authors reflected on these changes in literary, political and philosophical texts.

GER 350HS (GER) Screen Nazis: The Representation of National Socialism in Film

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	M 1-5 (Screening time included)	T. Hof

Prerequisite: GER 205H

In 2004, the German movie “Der Untergang” caused a controversial debate about the cinematic depiction of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism and its consequences on how Nazism might be remembered in the new millennium. Given that movies often reflect more the era in which they were produced than the actual event in question, the seminar will look at the visual representation of the Nazi epoch in war and postwar films. After a short theoretical introduction that illustrates how we can use movies as a historical source, we will examining how German National Socialism, the Nazis and the crimes they committed were portrayed in movies to understand how Nazism was remembered in the time the films were made. We will track the transformation of the Nazi perpetrator in the cultural imagination to understand not only the public culture of remembrance but, also the specific historical, political and ideological contexts in which the films were made. Besides German movies we will examine films from the US, Italy, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and Japan. This will allow us to avoid a discussion limited by national boundaries and will enable us to further grasp the power of the cinema in constructing how we remember the horrors of the Nazi regime, its ethical implications and moral ambiguities.

GER 361HS (ENG) Yiddish Literature in Translation

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	W 12-2	M. Borden

An overview of the major figures and tendencies in modern Yiddish literature and culture from the beginning of the 19^th century to the present, featuring readings of modern Yiddish prose, poetry, drama and cinema. Students with knowledge of Yiddish are encouraged to read some original texts.

NOTES: Taught in English, open to students across disciplines.

GER 372HS (GER) Navigating German Work Environments

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	T 10-12/R 10-12	S. Gargova

Prerequisite: GER 370H

This course offers an intensive development of the linguistic skills needed in the context of business transactions and management in German-speaking countries. Through materials from various sources, students develop oral and written skills for competence in German business communication as well as cross-cultural awareness.

NOTES: Required course for the Business German minor. / GER 270H and 272H alternate with GER 370H and 372H and are only offered every other year.

GER 431HS (GER) Topics in German Studies: Earth Readings

Section	Time	Instructor
L0101	W 2-4	S. Soldovieri

Prerequisite: GER 305H OR permission of the department.

Environmental sciences help us understand natural process. They can tell us what is happening to the earth in the Anthropocene but are not equipped to tell us why. The Environmental Humanities seek to explain and transform the cultural and historical foundations of environmental crisis. The term Environmental Humanities has emerged as both a descriptive and aspirational term. It describes work across environmental philosophy, environmental history, ecocriticism, cultural geography, cultural anthropology, and political ecology, but it also seeks to integrate discourses produced in different disciplinary contexts. The Environmental Humanities have opened up new modes of interdisciplinarity both within humanistic fields and in conjunction with social and natural sciences – and enabled new engagements with public debates and policies bearing on environmental questions. This interdisciplinary work has become more and more urgent with the escalating climate crisis. The course explores cultural imaginings and interrogations of the Anthropocene across a range of media. Key readings in environmental humanities approaches including, ecocriticism, eco-feminism, energy humanities, posthumanism, animal and plant studies, cultural history and theory. Primary texts include literature, film and other cultural artifacts from the German context in particular.