12 credits. Intensive study 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).

Beginning with elementary pronunciation, students are plunged into daily intensive usage of German, with practice in all four language skills (speaking, listening-comprehension, reading, writing). The communicative approach actively involves the student in a variety of activities including structured practice, role playing, linguistic games, student-to-student give-and-take, teacher-to-student give-and-take (and vice versa), response to listening-comprehension exercises, and invention of creative oral and/or written exchanges. Emphasis will be placed on linguistic accuracy and cultural authenticity.

As the course progresses, the transition is made from learning the language for everyday communication to the consideration of literary and cultural values through the reading of classical and modern texts (e.g., Goethe, Eichendorff, Kafka, Brecht) which are representative for the thought and forms of the age in which they were written. The last month of the program will be spent in Germany. Participants will study at Collegium Palatinum, in Heidelberg for four weeks. Last year's participants raved about the Collegium's effective teaching aids and methods. Course days are Monday through Friday, leaving students most evenings and weekends free for independent study, research, leisure, and excursions. The Collegium Palatinum offers a complete program of information, cultural activities, and excursions. In July and August, after the completion of the program, participants may travel in Europe on their own or return to the U.S. immediately. To cover the costs of the program, financial aid will be made available.

Interested students must be advised that this immersion program is a serious undertaking. Apart from fifteen class hours per week, at least ten to fifteen hours must be devoted to out-of-class work consisting of laboratory practice and home study. (This course is given every other year.)

Come read the last Nobel Prize winning author of the millennium, sharp-tongued, sharp-witted Günter Grass, whose work takes on all the big social, political, historical and aesthetic questions of life and art in Germany during and after the Holocaust. Both politically asture and a masterful prose stylist, Grass has been a major voice of German political conscience in recent decades, notably in the controversy surrounding German Unification after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He is also prolific as a visual artist, capturing many of the themes and images central to his literary work. We'll be reading Grass's epoch-making Danzig Trilogy (The Tin Drum, Cat and Mouse, Dog Years) as well as selected shorter narrative works, poetry and political writings. We may even try some of his recipes! Offered in English, with an additional section meeting in German for students with advanced-intermediate or better proficiency in German.