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.)
Professor: S. Kufner
CRN: 92639
Distribution: D
Time: M W Th F 9:00 am - 10:00 am OLIN 107
This course is for students with varied backgrounds in German whose proficiency is not yet on the level of 201. While the emphasis will be on a complete review of elementary grammar, all four language skills (speaking, comprehension, reading, writing) as well as cultural proficiency will be sharpened. Extensive Language Lab work will be combined with conversational practice, reading and dramatization of modern German texts, and writing simple compositions. Successful completion will allow students to continue with German 202.
Professor: F. Kempf
CRN: 92424
Distribution: D
Time: Tu 11:00 am - 12:20 pm LC
206
Th 10:30 am - 12:30 pm LC 206
Cross-listed: Integrated Arts
Bringing
together experts from various disciplines within German Studies, a goal of this course is to
provide students an opportunity to explore the interrelatedness of the liberal arts by studying
modes of intellectual and creative activity that produced what is arguably the most fascinating and
influential artistic movement of the twentieth century. Flourishing between 1905 and 1925,
Expressionism involved all the arts, notably literature, painting, music, and film. Marked by
contradictory images of decline and rebirth, corruption and naivete, languor and vitality,
Expressionist art has a number of common features. Chief among them is a rejection of external
reality; instead, the artist projects onto his art the tension, conflict, and anxiety within his "soul,"
often with an emotional intensity matched by unfettered literary, visual, and musical language.
Less a style than a Weltanschauung of a rebellious generation, Expressionism is generally
seen as an artistic reflection of a common feeling of crisis whose origins can be sought, for
instance, in the loss of a cohesive world view, especially in the wake of Nietzsche's pessimistic
diagnosis; the disappearance of individualism in burgeoning urban centers; the hypocrisy of
Imperial Wilhelmine Germany; the soulless materialism and the (self-) alienation of increased
industrialization; and the collapse of Newtonian science. Each expert will teach a segment lasting
two or three weeks. Scheduled to teach are: Professors Berthold-Bond (philosophy: Nietzsche);
Wolf (painting: Die Br�cke, Der blaue Reiter); Botstein (music: Sch�nberg); Skiff
(philosophy of science: Mach, Boltzmann, Helmholtz, Einstein); Pruitt (film: Der letzte Mann,
M, Die B�chse der Pandora); Kempf (literature: Benn, Heym, Lasker-Sch�ler, Kafka, Kaiser,
Trakl). This is a team-taught course led by Prof. Kempf who will participate in all meetings in
order to assure continuity.
Professor: L. Morris
CRN: 92455
Distribution: B/D
Time: W 10:30 am - 12:30 pm Preston 101
This course will address questions of history, memory, and narrative in post-1945 works written in the German-speaking countries. We will look at the relationship between literature and Politics and the role of literary groups such as "Der Ruf" and the "Gruppe 47." The course will also address the recent debates on historiography and the Third Reich, German Unification, and questions of gender and the role of minorities in Germany today in these works. Readings will include works by Wolfgang Borchert, Heinrich B�ll, Luise Rinser, Uwe Johnson, Christa Wolf, Anna Seghers, Elfreide Jelinek, Peter Handke, Ingeborg Bachmann, Wolfgang Koeppen, Max Frisch, and Peter Weiss. Conducted in English.
Professor: F. Kempf
CRN: 92425
Distribution: B/D
Time: M F 11:40 am - 12:40 pm LC 118
This course will examine representations of foreignness in selected texts of modern German literature (e.g., Lessing, Novalis, Heine, Kafka, Frisch), in contemporary films (Hark Bohm, R.W. Fassbinder), and in works of nonnative Germans writing in Germany today (e.g., Fatma Mohamed Ismail, Aras �ren, Emine Sevgi �zdamar). Attempting to combine aesthetic appreciation with cultural critique, the course will focus on issues such as multiculturalism, homogeneity, and xenophobia. Its goal is to enable students to approach cultural difference, in Claire Kramsch's words, "in a spirit of ethnographic inquiry rather than in a normative or judgmental way." Conducted in German.
Professor: L. Morris
CRN: 92456
Distribution: B/D
Time: Tu 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm Preston 101
In-depth study of four major German poets whose poetry addresses Heidegger's large question: "Wozu Dichter in d�rftiger Zeit?" Close reading and consideration of the hermetic and the opaque in poetic language, and the relationship between poetry and silence. Frequent short papers. Course conducted in German.