FOREIGN LANGUAGES, CULTURES, AND LITERATURES

Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures comprise those programs which are based on the foreign languages currently taught at Bard: Chinese, French, German, Ancient Greek, Italian, Latin, Russian, Sanskrit, and Spanish. The programs' common philosophy involves the critical appreciation of one or more foreign cultures and literatures through the learning and mastery of the language of each. While each program has its own intellectual and academic plan, the requirements for moderation are similar: (1) Linguistic proficiency, based usually on three or more semesters of language study; (2) Literary proficiency through completion of at least one course in the foreign literature, preferably a survey course; (3) Cultural proficiency, demonstrated by at least one course in a related area outside of literature, e.g., philosophy, history, or music.

CRN 10044

Distribution

 D
Course No. FLCL 105
Title Introduction to Language Acquisition
Professor Team taught, Coordinator: Hezi Brosh
Schedule Mon 1:30 pm - 2:50 pm OLIN 201
2 credits This course will present a wide range of practical and theoretical issues surrounding second/foreign-language acquisition, including: pedagogical methods, social context, the interrelation of language and culture, discourse analysis, testing, the use of technology in the classroom, etc. The goal of the course is to help students understand the many factors involved in language learning and teaching, which will make them effective and better language learners and, perhaps, some day, teachers. The class will be particularly useful to students thinking about teaching English abroad.

Requirements: Attendance. Small research project (groups of 2-3 students) and presentation of the findings. Final exam.

CRN 10198

Distribution

 B/D
Course No. FLCL 405 Upper College Seminar
Title Capstone Course: Literature in the Making
Professor Matthias Göritz
Schedule Tu 10:30 am - 12:50 pm OLIN 308
This advanced seminar for seniors, taught in English, is designed to "cap" the studies of students in Foreign Languages, Cultures and Literatures. Each year a foreign guest author will lead this course on recent trends in the literature of his or her language(s), with emphasis on issues of particular importance to young authors writing today. The purpose of the course is to expose this specially qualified group of students, who have spent three and more years honing their skills as readers, with a living literature in the process of evolving, presented to them by a writer whose own work is part of this evolution. At the conclusion of the course, each student will have the choice of presenting a polished work of translation, a piece of original writing (in English or in another language), or an essay on one or more of the works read during the semester. These texts will be collected in a Capstone Journal, which will be published on a yearly basis. (A parallel section will be offered this year for students fluent in German.)

Capstone Course Special Topic for Spring 2000:

Telling Stories - Crossing Borders

Contemporary German Literature since 1989

Speaking of Berlin, the divided city, German author Uwe Johnson said that the border itself can be regarded as a literary category: "The border requires that epic technique and the language itself change to do justice to this extraordinary situation." The enduring quest of an author consists in finding an adequate form. Writing fiction is not concerned with reconstructing "reality" mimetically, but rather creating an independent and organized set of values representing the social relationships which underlie this reality. The author must create nothing less than a "second world." The history of Germany since 1989 provides a writer with the diverse and problematic narratives of history. Europe´s face has changed dramatically since 1989. The cold war is over and the two former states of Germany are, in the official term, "reunited." The border, the actual wall which divided the country, has fallen, but, as the metaphor goes: the "wall in people's heads" is still there. Crossing a border sets off a plot. One might regard all these events as part of a yet unwritten novel. Especially in the East, on the territory of the former German Democratic Republic, the transformation from an authoritarian and "socialist" into a Western, free and "capitalist" society was accompanied by a shock. Accustomed and desired ways of constructing one´s own identity suddenly were out of place. This change, with all its risks and opportunities, made the transition ('die Wende') from the very beginning a major topic in the historiography and politics of Germany as well as in contemporary German literature. Many authors have tried to voice these changes. Not least the Nobel prize winner Günter Grass and poet Durs Grünbein. The course "Literature in the Making" deals with contemporary German literature such as Ingo Schulze´s "Simple Stories" that follow the model of Raymond Carver. A part of the course will be devoted to critical analysis of texts of all genres. We will parse their poetics--learn about their special narrative techniques, and analyze basic narrative categories such as figuration, time and space to better understand what works in and for a text and to set off our own narratives. Finally, we will examine the senior projects that course participants are engaged in writing, and discuss the ways in which we, too, form part of literary history.