The German Immersion program will be offered in the Spring 2004 semester, therefore Basic German (101-102) will not be offered in the fall of 2003.  Contact Professor Kempf early in the fall if you are interested in participating in the spring Immersion course.

German Immersion:

Intensive study (12 credits) of a foreign language helps to create a highly effective and exciting learning environment for those who wish to achieve a high degree of proficiency in the shortest possible time. German immersion is designed to enable students with little or no previous experience in German to complete two years of college German within five months (spring semester at Bard, plus June in Germany for 4 additional credits). To achieve this goal, students take fifteen class hours per week during the semester at Bard, and twenty hours per week during June at Collegium Palatinum, the German language institute of Schiller International University in Heidelberg. Each participant will be able to enroll concurrently in one other course at Bard. This will allow the student to pursue a more balanced study program or to fulfill certain requirements (e.g., Freshman Seminar).

 

CRN

93427

Distribution

D

Course No.

GER 110

Title

Proficiency through Culture

Professor

Stephanie Kufner

Schedule

Tu           8:45 am – 10:00 am  LC Lab

Wed Fri  8:45 am –  10:00 am  LC 206

Th          8:45 am –  10:00 am  LC 115

Designed for students who need a thorough review of elementary grammar, the purpose of this course is threefold: to increase reading knowledge, enlarge vocabulary, and improve speaking and writing skills; to gain familiarity with current political,social and economic conditions in Germany; and to increase sensitivity to cultural phenomena in Germany that will lead to a deeper cross-cultural understanding. Class activities will be based on Satellite TV and internet radio news reports, as well as articles from major online dailies and weeklies, such as Süddeutsche Zeitung or Spiegel. Weekly online quizzes. Students will work on a portfolio reflecting individual cross-cultural interests. Successful completion will allow students to continue with German 202 in Spring 2004.

 

CRN

93218

Distribution

D

Course No.

GER 198

Title

German Opera and Ideas

Professor

Franz Kempf

Schedule

Wed Fr         10:00 am - 11:20 am      LC 118

Fr                  1:00 pm -  4:00 pm       CAMPUS

Opera is not just about a tenor and a soprano who want to make love, and a baritone who won’t let them, but also about liberty, redemption, tyranny, injustice, humanity, decadence.  Far from dismissing love as a primal force in human affairs - nor, for that matter, the sensuality and immediacy of music - this course attempts to trace German intellectual history from the Enlightenment to Modernism and beyond through the study of major operas and the literary works that spawned some of them. Operas: Mozart’s The Magic Flute (1791), Beethoven’s Fidelio (1805/1814), Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz (1821), Wagner’s Tannhäuser (1845), Richard Strauss’s Salome (1905), Alban Berg’s Wozzeck (1925), Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera (1928), Hans Werner Henze’s Der Prinz von Homburg (1960), and Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten (1965). Literary works: Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz’s Die Soldaten (1776), Heinrich Heine’s Aus den Memoiren des Herren von Schnabelewopski (1834), Heinrich von Kleist’s Prinz Friedrich von Homburg (1821). Course taught in English. Musical expertise neither expected nor provided. Students with an advanced proficiency in German can read selections in the original for extra credit. Achtung: Some space in this course will be reserved for students who intend to enroll in German Immersion in Spring 2004. See instructor before Registration for details.

 

CRN

93219

Distribution

D

Course No.

GER 199

Title

Kafka: Prague, Politics, and the Fin-de siècle

Professor

Franz Kempf

Schedule

Tu Th            10:00 am - 11:20 am     LC 118

Kafka can be read as the chronicler of modern despair, of human suffering in an unidentifiable, timeless landscape.  Yet he can also be read as a representative of his era, his “existential anguish” springing from the very real cultural and historical conflicts that agitated Prague at the turn of the century (e.g. anti-Semitism, contemporary theories of sexuality).  The course will cover Kafka’s shorter fiction ranging from fragments, parables and sketches to longer, complete tales (e.g. The Judgment, The Metamorphosis), as well as the novels The Trial and The Man Who Disappeared (Amerika) and excerpts from his diaries and letters. Together they reveal the breath of Kafka’s literary vision and the extraordinary imaginative depth of his thought. Taught in English. Students with an advanced proficiency in German can read selections in the original for extra credit. Achtung: Some space in this course will be reserved for students who intend to enroll in German Immersion in Spring 2004. See instructor before Registration for details.

 

CRN

93171

Distribution

D

Course No.

GER 201

Title

Intermediate German I

Professor

Susan Bernofsky

Schedule

Mon Tu Th    11:30 am - 12:50 pm     LC 210

For students who have completed German 101‑102 or have had some previous instruction (two years of high school or one year of college). This course is designed to increase the student’s command of all four language skills (speaking, comprehension, reading, writing). Provision is made for complete grammar review, conversational practice, and language lab work.  Selected readings from modern authors, introducing students to various styles of literary German, are discussed.

 

CRN

93173

Distribution

D

Course No.

GER 420

Title

Growing Pains

Professor

Susan Bernofsky

Schedule

Mon Th         4:30 pm – 5:50 pm        LC 210

More than a century after Goethe's young suffering Werther, and long after the establishment of the Bildungsroman as a crucial genre in German-language literature, the young man struggling to find his place in society reappeared as a dominant motif in the work of a number of important modernist writers.  What exactly this renewed interest had to do with the particular historical moment - the turn of the 20th century, the excitement of technicological advances, the explosive arrival of WWI- will be investigated in the course of our readings.  Background to be covered will include the development of the  Bildungsroman and the youth cult that emerged during this period (e.g. among the members of Stefan George's circle), but we will also examine this selection of short novels and long stories as examples of the modernism that would come to define early twentieth-century writing and art in Europe.  In the final weeks of the course, we will go on to read several more recent interpretations of this set of themes.  Conducted in German. Summer reading for those who haven't yet read it: Die Leiden des jungen Werther - will be discussed in the first class session.  Readings to include: Rainer Maria Rilke, Die Aufzeichnungen von Malte Laurids Brigge; Thomas Mann, Tonio Kröger; Robert Walser, Jakob von Gunten; Robert Musil, Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß; Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte einer Jugend; Christa Wolf, Nachdenken über Christa T.; Elfriede Jelinek, Die Ausgesperrten; Hans-Ulrich Treichel, Der Verlorene; Jenny Erpenbeck, Geschichte vom alten Kind.