91925

GER 106

Beginning German Intensive

Thomas Wild

T W Th F 10:45 am-1:00 pm

OLINLC 210

FLLC

8 Credits

Beginning German Intensive is designed to enable students with no or little previous experience in German to complete three semesters of college German within five months: fall semester at Bard, plus an intensive course abroad at Bard College Berlin during winter break (upon successful completion carrying four additional credits). Students will take eight class hours per week during the semester at Bard, plus a weekly conversation meeting with the German language tutor. The communicative approach actively involves students from day one in this class. As the course progresses, the transition is made from learning the language for everyday communication to the reading and discussion of classical and modern texts (such as Goethe, Heine, Kafka, Brecht) as well as of music and film. The concluding section of the program will be spent at Bard’s sister campus in Berlin in January 2018: Students will further explore German language and culture in an intensive format (4 hours per day), which is accompanied by guided tours introducing participants to Berlin’s intriguing history, architecture, and vibrant cultural life. Students interested in this class must consult with Prof. Wild before on-line registration. (Need-based financial aid for the Berlin section of the course is available; please discuss further details with instructor.) Class size: 20

91927

GER 202

Intermediate German II

Jason Kavett

M W F 9:00 am – 10:00 am

OLINLC 115

FLLC

For students who have completed three semesters of college German (or equivalent). The course is designed to deepen the language proficiency by increasing students’ fluency in speaking, reading, and writing, and adding significantly to their working vocabulary. Students improve their ability to express their own ideas and hone their strategies for understanding spoken and written communication. We will discuss various materials on questions around multiculturalism and migration in Germany, and we will read and analyze the novel “Soharas Reise” by contemporary award-winning writer Barbara Honigmann. Class size: 18

91929

GER / LIT 220

Madness

Jason Kavett

T Th 11:50 am-1:10 pm

FISHER ANNEX

FLLC

What are the stakes of representing madness? Can we grasp madness in a rational manner? Does a certain kind of exploration of madness offer a way to think about the mass appeal of nationalism or fascism? In what ways does madness pose a challenge or offer particular inspiration to artistic creativity? As we consider these and similar questions, authors whose works will spur discussion include Kafka (The Judgment and Diaries), Goethe (Faust I), Freud (The Wolf-Man), Breton (Nadja), Hölderlin (selected poems), Rimbaud (The Drunken Boat), Kleist (St. Cecilia, or the Power of Music), Foucault (History of Madness), Beckett (Murphy), Celan (selected poems and prose writings), and Sebald (The Emigrants); films we will study include those by Visconti and Herzog. Students will become familiar with key texts from the German and also English and French traditions from around 1800 to the late 20^th century, while honing their interpretive skills as readers and critics. We will consider the concept of madness from formal, philosophical, political, and ethical perspectives. All readings and discussions in English. Class size: 22

91928

GER 325

German Theater between moral institution and participatory happening

Stephanie Kufner

T Th 10:10 am-11:30 am

OLINLC 208

FLLC

This course examines German theater of the 20th and 21st century from Expressionism to contemporary post-dramatic forms of performance and participatory theater. After an overview of pivotal moments in the history and poetics of German theater (Lessing, Schiller, Hauptmann), students will engage in analyzing specific developments in modern and contemporary theater. Among others, we will explore the new aesthetics of expressionist theater and Max Reinhardt’s work at the Deutsche Theater, Bertolt Brecht’s development of the Epic Theater before and during World War II, post-war efforts to stage Vergangenheitbewältigung (“coming to terms with the past” of the Third Reich and the Holocaust), e.g., with politically engaged documentary pieces, up to the voicing of contemporary and multicultural experiences in re-unified Germany not only on but also off theater stages, thereby calling into question traditional ways of viewing as well as the role of the institution theater in Germany today. –Readings include full texts or excerpts from: Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening (1895/1906); Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage and Her ,Children (1939); Wolfgang Borchert, The Man Outside (1947); Peter Weiss. The Investigation Gesine Schmidt, Der Kick (2005); Nurkan Erpulat/Jens Hillje, Verrücktes Blut (2010/2015). (A Reader with a collection of traditional as well as contemporary poetics of theater and theater reviews will be provided). Viewing and analysis of videotaped productions on 4 Mondays (6:00 – 8:00 pm) of the semester will be a mandatory part of the class. Conducted in German. Class size: 16

91924

GER 467

Correspondences: Figures of Writing

Thomas Wild

T Th 3:10 pm-4:30 pm

OLIN 307

FLLC

“One alone is always wrong; but with two involved, the truth begins,” reads an aphorism by Friedrich Nietzsche. His criticism of the isolated genius thinker also proposes an alternative mode of thinking and writing: creative collaboration. The seminar will explore several instances of such creative collaborations, e.g. Friedrich Nietzsche and Lou Andreas Salome, the latter and Rainer Maria Rilke, Hannah Arendt and several poet friends of different languages, Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann, Oskar Pastior and Nobel Prize Winner Herta Müller. These intellectual relationships are also documented in letter exchanges, so that our seminar will unfold the word “correspondence” in a literal and in a figurative way. In this sense, “Correspondence” exceeds the limits of a single literary text or a letter; its dynamics translates into poems, novels, essays, or theoretical writings. As a consequence, fundamental categories such as authorship, work, intertextuality, or addressing are called into question. Our seminar will continuously reflect upon those terms based on canonical writings of modern literary criticism, including Benjamin, and (to be read in English) Genette, Barthes, Lévinas, Derrida. Class size: 16

91929

LIT 220

Madness

T Th 11:50 am-1:10 pm

OLIN 205

FLLC

Cross-listed: German Studies Class size: 22