Undergraduate Courses

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	MTWF 9-10	TF201	Aly
L0102	MTWF 9-10	TF101	Cote-Pitre
L0201	MTWF 10-11	TF101	Hager
L0301	MW 11-1	TF102	Aly
*L0401	MW 2-4	TF101	Khamseh
L0501	TR 2-4	TF102	TBA
L5101	MW 6-8	TF101	Laszlo
*L5102	MW 6-8	TF200	Curran
L5201	TR 6-8	TF202	Gargova
*L5202	TR 6-8	NF119	Curran

The GER 100Y language course is an introductory German course divided into two sections for students with no prior knowledge of the language. 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 activities. Vocabulary will be presented in the context of culturally significant issues. 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. Additionally, the course will provide students with a foundation in a number of basic grammatical structures and concepts. Class periods will be devoted mostly to communicative and interactive exercises. In addition to preparation at home, regular class attendance is paramount in order to participate successfully in these activities.

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	MTWF 9-10	CR405	A. Warren
L0201	MTWF 11-12	TF101	M. Hager
L0301	MW 2-4	TF200	H.-S. Kim
L5101	TR 6-8	TF200	C. Gerber

This language course will provide students with genuine communication experiences in order to deepen their understanding of German-speaking countries. It has been designed to further develop communicative proficiency in each of the four language skills listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The textbooks are motivating and encourage interest in culture and language through their unique approach to authentic material illustrating vocabulary in context, communicative functions of grammatical structures, and cultural highlights. All readings, videos, projects, and presentations in class 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. The topics cover areas such as introducing and talking about oneself, shopping, telling time and recounting a day, family life, describing and renting an apartment, health and fitness etc. Cultural and linguistic variants of all three German-speaking countries are featured. Class periods will be devoted mostly to communicative and interactive exercises. In order to participate successfully in these activities, preparation at home and regular class attendance are paramount.

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	MW 10-12	AH302	H.-S. Kim
L0201	TR 9-11	CR404	E. Lange
L5101	MW 6-8	CR107	A. Warren

This language course will provide students with genuine communication experiences in order to deepen their understanding of German-speaking countries. It has been designed to further develop communicative proficiency in each of the four language skills listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The textbooks are motivating and encourage interest in culture and language through their unique approach to authentic material illustrating vocabulary in context, communicative functions of grammatical structures, and cultural highlights. All readings, videos, projects, and presentations in class 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. The topics cover areas such as introducing and talking about oneself, shopping, telling time and recounting a day, family life, describing and renting an apartment, health and fitness etc. Cultural and linguistic variants of all three German-speaking countries are featured. Class periods will be devoted mostly to communicative and interactive exercises. In order to participate successfully in these activities, preparation at home and regular class attendance are paramount.

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	MWF 2-3	TF2	A. Hoffman

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.

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	W 12-1, F 10-12	AH402	A. Hoffman

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.]

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	M 3-5	VC215	TBA

Tutorial	Time	Room	Instructor
T0101 T0201 T0301	R 1-2 R 2-3 R 3-4	AH304 AH302 TF201	TBA

This is an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of the contemporary cultural, social, economic, and political life of the German-speaking peoples in their historical and international context. Intended for students who are relatively unfamiliar with German culture, the course demonstrates the diverse ways students may understand and interpret “things German” [Taught in English and open to students across disciplines.]

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	T 1-3, R1-2	NF119	N. Vöhringer

This course offers an introduction to the study of literature in German. It is aimed at students who have been studying German language for 3 semesters, and are continuing with their 4th semester concurrently with the course. It is intended as a continuing course in language competence, but also an introduction to reading literature in German.We will be reading a number of short literary texts and a few non-fiction texts, specifically with the aim of expanding your working knowledge of the German language, and familiarizing yourself with the subtleties of literary language. As such, the course is meant to provide a transition from the study of language to the topic-based literature courses offered in undergraduate studies in German. Students will receive training in how to read and analyze texts, and how to understand “grammar at work” in literature. Classes will involve reading, discussions, group work, and exercises. Reading assignments will be in German. As far as possible, the classroom language will be German.

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	T3-5	VC323	W. Goetschel

This is an introductory course to the thought of K. Marx, F. Nietzsche, and S. 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. [Taught in English and open to students across disciplines.]

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	R 11-1	NF007	S. Soldovieri

NEW COURSE! The movement of cultural products, material goods, capital, people, ideas, and information across national border s has resulted in a new quality of global inter dependency. The course examines the contemporary character of globalization with a special focus on its environmental impacts in German-speaking contexts. We consider artistic, cultural, technological, and social practices in German-speaking and global contexts that explore questions of sustainability and a livable future. The course is highly recommended as preparation for students interested in participating in the Department’s iPRAKTIKUM Internationalization & Experiential Learning internship program – particularly for placements with Eco-Hub Freiburg organizations in Germany. (Visit: https://german.utoronto.ca/ipraktikum/)

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	M 6-8	NF006	S. Soldovieri

PREREQUISITE: GER 200Y 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. Based on thought provoking texts and visuals, the course 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.

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	F 2-4	NF007	H.-S. Kim

Prerequisite GER205H

German literature in the aftermath of World War II started from a new beginning, with many authors attempting to find a way of describing the shocking, nihilistic experience of war and devastation –  often taking their cue from foreign models or existentialist and traditional Christian trains of thought. This course offers an examination of this post-War literature and culture from ‘Zero Hour’ through to contemporary debates about the Holocaust and its memorization. Texts by authors such as Günter Grass, Herinrich Böll, Ulrich Plenzdorf, Christa Wolf, Peter Schneider, Bernhard Schlink, Peter Weiss, Zafer Senocak et al.

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	M1-3	NF006	E. Boran

Prerequisite GER205H

An exploration of representations and articulations of the self in German poetry, this class typically examines forms and topics of the lyrical genre over the ages. Specific discussions may include the debate over the role and function of the poetic form (ranging from traditional concepts to the rejection of traditional forms and structures for poetry that began in the first half of the 20th century).

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L5101	TR 6-9	NF003	E. Boran

Prerequisite: GER200Y

This course focuses on reading, interpreting, contextual- lizing, rehearsing & staging a German play. In the process of the course, students become familiar with the different steps of a theater production – from read-through to tech- run & dress rehearsal. They take on various responsibilities that go along with any theater production, such as playbills, programs, costumes, set, sound & lights, dramaturgy, etc. Students will be introduced to basic acting & staging techniques and get acquainted to leading 20th century theories of theater.

[Plays staged to date: Die Physiker by F. Dürrenmatt (2010), Drakul(j)a by E. Boran (2012), Hochwasser by G. Grass (2015), Woyzeck by G. Büchner (2016). Coming up in 2019: Struwwelpeter]

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	MWF 12-1	CR103	M. Hager

This course is designed as a fourth year language course for students who have completed at least the first three years of college German or the equivalent. Course objectives are to increase the student’s proficiency in the four skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) – with special emphasis on selected German business topics to help the student better understand the German business world.

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	R 2-4	VC215	J. Steele

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
T0102	R 4-5	AH105	S. Mostafa

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0101	W 2-4	VC206	J. Noyes

Prerequisite: GER 305H

The closing years of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century saw some of the most innovative, radical and influential writing in the history of German literature & philosophy. In the stories, novels & poems of the Romantic period, but also in their theoretical writings, a generation gave expression to the sense of giddiness, awe & inspiration caused by a rapidly changing world. Modern life required a modern form of expression, and the Romantics wanted to do everything they could to find this form. This seminar follows them on their encounters with modernity.

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0251	M 11-1	NF332	J.Zilcosky

Did you know that Hitler was a failed artist? Goebbels a poet? Göring a collector of art? That there was an orchestra in Auschwitz? Why did art have this peculiar prominence under Nazism? In this course we will examine how politics and aesthetics interlace in various ways: the fascist cult of beauty; the theatrics of political propaganda; anti-Semitic “entertainment” film; and the eroticization of the Führer-figure. We will investigate this marriage between beauty and violence, and ask ourselves: what made Nazism so attractive to so many? We will begin by examining the great aesthetic movements from the pre-Nazi era through to Hitler’s 1937 ban on “degenerate,” modern art—in favor of returning to Greek and Roman images of beauty. 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? Are there any similar mixtures of art and politics in our world today?

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0251	R 10-12	TF202	E. Boran

Section	Time	Room	Instructor
L0251	M 2-4	AH304	J. Noyes