German (GERMAN)

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
This introduction to the German language focuses on the development of basic communicative competencies (spoken and written) while sensitizing students to the links between language and culture. Students will be able to understand and use high frequency vocabulary and basic grammatical structures and engage with a broad variety of texts from various genres, including poetry, news reports, songs, and the visual arts.
Elementary German 1: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2009, Fall 2008, Spring 2008
Students review and continue to develop the basic elements of communicative competence in both spoken and written language while being sensitized to the links between language and culture. This course covers the same material as 1 in a condensed way and at an accelerated speed. Upon completion of this course, students will qualify for enrollment in 2.
Accelerated Elementary German: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Fall 2015, Fall 2014
Elementary German for graduate students preparing for reading examinations.
Elementary German for Graduate Students: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
This German language course continues the development of basic communicative competencies (spoken and written) while sensitizing students to the links between language and culture. Students will be able to understand and use high frequency vocabulary and basic grammatical structures and engage with a broad variety of texts from various genres, including poetry, news reports, songs, and the visual arts.

Elementary German 2: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2017, Fall 2016, Fall 2015
Elementary German for graduates preparing for reading examinations.
Elementary German for Graduate Students: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Embedded in the context of German-speaking regions, their history and culture, this course focuses on the development of communicative competencies (spoken and written), the expansion of vocabulary, and the review and practice of grammatical structures. Students will be guided towards more creative and analytical expression by engaging with texts from a variety of genres such as poetry, drama, news features, and the visual arts.

Intermediate German I: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Embedded in the context of German-speaking regions, their history and culture, this course continues the development of communicative competencies (spoken and written), the expansion of vocabulary, and the review and practice of grammatical structures. Students will further practice creative and analytical expression by engaging with texts from a variety of genres such as poetry, short stories, essays, and the visual arts.

Intermediate German II: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
This course offers a survey of modern German literary, cultural, and intellectual currents, as well as an introduction to argumentation and analysis. Students will examine numerous issues and questions central to defining the complexity of modern German culture. R5A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R5B satisfies the second half.
Reading and Composition: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Summer 2024 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2024 Second 6 Week Session
This course offers a survey of modern German literary, cultural, and intellectual currents, as well as an introduction to argumentation and analysis. Students will examine numerous issues and questions central to defining the complexity of modern German culture. R5A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R5B satisfies the second half.
Reading and Composition: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2014
An introductory level exploration of a group of authors, works, themes, or literary movements from the history of German literature in a European context. Based on close readings of texts students will discuss ways in which literature has played (and continues to play) a crucial role in the relationship between different cultures, traditions, and languages. Readings and topics to vary from semester to semester.
German Literature in a European Context: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2021
The Freshman Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small seminar setting. Freshman seminars are offered in all campus departments, and topics may vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to 15 freshmen.
Freshman Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2020
We will explore the ways in which Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud--three of the most important thinkers in modern Western thought--can be read as responding to the Enlightenment and its notions of reason and progress. We will consider how each remakes a scientific understanding of truth, knowledge, and subjectivity, such that rationality, logic, and the powers of human cognition are shown to be distorted, limited, and subject to forces outside our individual control. All lectures and readings in English.
Revolutionary Thinking: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2012, Fall 2008, Fall 2003
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshmen/Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.

Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman/Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2013
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.

Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2012
No knowledge of German required.
Freshman Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Spring 2019
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2016
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshmen and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Fall 2023, Spring 2023
Freshman and sophomore seminars offer lower division students the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member and a group of peers in a small-seminar setting. These seminars are offered in all campus departments; topics vary from department to department and from semester to semester.
Freshman and Sophomore Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Fall 2009, Spring 2009
Advanced German conversation course that includes discussions, debates, individual presentations, and one or two in-class movies in German. Most materials will be provided by the instructor but students will also be asked to use their own resources from printed or online media. Regular vocabulary quizzes will be part of the course grade. Taught in German.
German Conversation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2007 Second 6 Week Session
Students will explore historical and contemporary aspects of German culture through readings, discussions, guided excursions in Berlin and Weimar, and individual research projects. The course will engage students to develop a deeper understanding of the specific ways in which cultural issues are respected and reflected in the German language, which they study concurrently. Topics include multiculturalism and minority experience; Berlin as divided city and capital; city planning and public discourse, past and present in German architecture; Berlin in popular literature, film, and theatre; the art scene in Berlin; and the Weimar classical period. Taught in German and English.
Exploring German Culture: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021
How do we know what the “moral” of a story is? We will focus on three biblical narratives that have frequently been interpreted as teaching moral lessons: the story of Job, the story of Abraham and the binding of Isaac, and the story of Moses giving the law. These stories have been interpreted variously in moral terms--e.g. as demonstrating the virtues of faith, obedience, mercy, and forgiveness, and as teaching us about guilt, punishment, reward, and human frailty. They have also been analyzed as existential parables, psychological dramas, and political allegories. The goal of this class is to examine how a range of different, and often provocative, interpretations of these stories’ moral lessons rest on particular ways of reading.
Moral Provocations: Job, Abraham, Moses: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2018, Fall 2011
What or who decides whether something is beautiful or not? What purpose do beauty and art serve? Where do originality, genius, and inspiration come from? What do art and beauty have to do with freedom and human progress? We will examine primarily western European and North American approaches to beauty as presented in works of philosophy, literary theory, and theories of art and aesthetics, exploring key theoretical questions as they evolve among several intellectual arenas over many centuries.
What is Beauty?: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Group study of selected topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses. Topics may be initiated by students under the sponsorship and direction of a member of the German Department's faculty.
Directed Group Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Independent study and research by arrangement with faculty.
Supervised Independent Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
The course is intended to acquaint students with selected works from German cultural history and to familiarize them with various methods of interpretation and analysis. Required of all German majors.
Introduction to Reading Culture: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
Focusing on genres, this advanced level language course will help students to improve and expand on spoken and written language functions utilizing a variety of works from literature, journalism, broadcasting, fine arts and the cinema. The final goal is to enable students to participate in the academic discourse - written and spoken - at a linguistic and stylistic level appropriate for an advanced student of German in upper division courses.

Advanced German: Conversation, Composition and Style: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
The analysis, discussion, adaptation and public performance of authentic texts from German Kabarett (i.e., comedic skits, political and social satire, parody, humorous poetry, etc.) will advance students’ language and interpersonal skills, while providing unique access to a significant dimension of German popular culture. Additional emphasis is put on aspects and practice of creative writing and German pronunciation and enunciation.

Advanced Language Practice: German Performance: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
Focusing on popular culture in German speaking countries, this advanced level language course will help students to improve and expand on spoken and written language functions utilizing a variety of works from different genres in journalism, broadcasting, literature, fine arts, music, and the cinema. Readings, screenings, discussion, and writing assignments will advance students' language skills and further develop their communicative competencies in German at a linguistic and stylistic level appropriate for an advanced student.
Advanced Language Practice: Popular Culture in Germany: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
This course is designed to provide students with an overview of the major subfields of linguistics as they apply to the German language. It also serves as the gateway course for the further study of German linguistics at the undergraduate level. The first part of the course will focus on the synchronic description of contemporary German. The second part of the course will concern itself with variation in German. There are no prerequisties for this class and no prior experience with linguistics is presupposed. However, an advanced knowledge of German (at least German 4 level) is expected.
Introduction to German Linguistics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2011, Fall 2005, Fall 1999
This course is intended for students who wish to improve their skills in reading, speaking, and writing German. We will work with texts that were particularly influential in Germany during the first decades of the 20th century, regardless of when they were written. Segments of philosophical writings (Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, literary works (George, Rilke, Th. Mann) but also texts by scientists and journalists will be analyzed. Participants are expected to prepare several oral presentations and approximately one written assignment per week. No midterm or final examination.
Senior Colloquium: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2022, Spring 2021, Fall 2018
Students will learn the fundamentals of Middle High German grammar and will read selections from major narrative works of the High Middle Ages. Selections from major works from the 13th century.
Middle High German for Undergraduates: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2014, Fall 2010, Spring 2009, Fall 2002
Exploration of the role that literature can play in the acquisition of literacy in a first and second language. Linguistic and psycholinguistic issues: orality and literacy, discourse text, schema theory, and reading research. Literary issues: stylistics and critical reading, reader response, structure of narratives. Educational issues: the literary text in the social context of its production and reception by intended and non-intended readers.
Literacy through Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 2018 8 Week Session, Summer 2017 8 Week Session, Summer 2016 8 Week Session
This course is designed to prepare graduate students for translation/reading exams in German. Students who do not need to pass such an exam, but who wish to improve their reading and translation skills in academic German, are also welcome.
German for Reading Knowledge: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2018, Spring 2017
This course introduces students to the problems of literary translation from German to English.
Literary Translation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
A compact seminar designed to feature distinguished short-term visitors from Austrian universities who have expertise in Austrian literature, politics, and culture to teach topics that complement regular departmental offerings. One short paper is required. Taught in English or in German.
Compact Seminar in Austrian Studies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 2015, Spring 2014
Introduction in modern German or English translation to major literary monuments of the Hohenstaufen period. Intended for undergraduates with no knowledge of Middle High German.
The Literature of the Middle Ages: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2009, Fall 2003
Major texts from the 15th through the 17th century.
Early Modern Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2021
This capstone project is designed to allow students to “finish off” their German majors in such a way as to return to, develop, and synthesize what they have learned in the major. In close contact with the faculty members of their choice, students will expand upon and revise a seminar paper from one of their German classes. This is not an Honors Thesis, which requires students to develop an independent project and engage in solo research in order to produce an original 30-page paper.
Capstone Project: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2009, Spring 2007, Spring 2003
The course will focus on examples of mystical thought from the traditions of Christian and Jewish mysticism since the Middle Ages. In addition to the introduction of the students to basic texts and concepts we will discuss the effects of mystical thought on art and literature from the Middle Ages up to today.
Western Mysticism: Religion, Art, and Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025
This course explores the profound impact of large language models (LLMs) on our understanding of language, meaning, and literary works. As AI systems like ChatGPT increasingly influence writing, translation, and communication, we will ask what becomes of language when it is computed by intelligent machines. Students will engage with philosophical theories of meaning, the intersection of AI with poetry and literature, and the ethical and technical challenges in the field of machine translation. By blending readings from philosophy, literary theory, and technical discussions of AI, this course bridges the gap between the humanities and computer science, offering a unique perspective on language after language models.
Language after Language Models Meaning, Poetry, Translation in the Age of AI: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This undergraduate seminar offers an introduction to literary theory, mainly but not exclusively in the German tradition. We will examine a variety of theoretical approaches including reception theory, psychoanalysis, memory studies, trauma theory, feminist theory, queer theory, New Historicism, translation, and deconstruction; and with respect to drama, poetry and the novel. Formal analysis will be emphasized.
German Literary Theory: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Spring 2012
The social, political, and historical background to German literature since the French Revolution.
From 1800 to the Present: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2021
In the light of recent calls to “decolonize the university,” this course will stimulate
students to question assumptions about collective identities by thinking comparatively
across space and time, considering the role that migration has played in the cultural
formation of societies. Enduring structures of racial hierarchy that underpin social
organization and representation will be at the center of critical analysis. Focusing both on
movement and entrapment, the materials and the pedagogical approaches employed
will activate students to examine political rhetoric and policies regulating human
mobility through the lens of creative interventions from literature, cinema, video, and
music.
Cultures of Migration: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023, Spring 2016, Spring 2015
An introduction to Goethe's prose, drama, and poetry.
Goethe: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Fall 2017, Fall 2009
Literature, philosophy, and aesthetics of the Romantic period.
Romanticism: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2010
This course introduces students to the masterpieces of German drama and opera from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.
German Drama and Opera: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Fall 2016, Fall 2015
Analysis of German narrative forms. Topic varies.
Topics in Narrative: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2012, Fall 2008, Fall 2004
Representative texts from 18th- to 21st-century German poetry will be studied closely. Methodological questions regarding the interpretation of poetry in general will also be discussed.
Eighteenth- to 21st-Century German Poetry: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Spring 2016
Introduction to philosophical, ideological, and aesthetic trends from the turn of the 20th century. Some of the most influential and thought-provoking literary works of the wider 20th century will be among our readings, including texts Sigmund Freud, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, Else Lasker-Schüler, Thomas Mann, Anna Seghers, Paul Celan, and others. In light of these texts, we will explore questions of modernist style, gender and desire, and the events and consequences of National Socialism. Readings in German. Lectures in German and English. Discussions and course work in English and/or German.
Modern Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2017, Spring 2015
One of the most significant and thought-provoking 20th century writers, Franz Kafka created works and fragments that continue to puzzle, inspire, deprogram, and transform their readers. We will explore Kafka’s writings in their literary qualities, their multifaceted cultural range, and their religious dimensions.
Kafka: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2020, Fall 2018
This course examines the effects of the digital age on literature. Emphasis will be on themes, poetics, and media of digital writing; as well as on shifting notions of the literary itself. Topics include forms of microblogging such as Twitter and Instagram; aesthetic experimentation and/on social media; notions of digital authorship; practices of reading and viewing; literary scholarship and digital media. Readings, discussions, and coursework in German.
Literature in the Digital Age: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2021, Spring 2017, Fall 2014
Introduction to the intellectual history of Germany from the age of the Reformation to the period of Idealism. We will focus on three major thinkers--Martin Luther, Immanuel Kant, and G.W.F. Hegel--on key issues in their thought, and on the reception and discussion of some of these issues in 20th century theory. Lectures and readings in English.
Luther, Kant, Hegel: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2011, Spring 2009, Fall 2007
The aim of the course is to explore the central theoretical and philosophical premises of three of the most influential thinkers in the German-speaking world and to examine in detail several works in which problems of history, ideology, values, and methodology are considered. Lecture and readings in English.
Marx, Nietzsche, Freud: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Fall 2013, Fall 2011
This course is an introduction to the work of Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. We will begin with an investigation into Heidegger's conceptualiztions of language, time, and human dwelling. We will then move to an examination of Arendt's political philosophy, including her focus on the public/private distinction. Taught in English.
Heidegger and Arendt: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2018, Fall 2017
This course examines the writings of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, a major branch of western Marxism. Focusing on confrontations with modernity, the lectures will deal with three seminal thinkers: Walter Benjamin, known for his genial insights into the culture of modernism; Theodor Adorno, the versatile philosopher and aesthetic theorist of the avant garde; and Jurgen Habermas, the most influential German intellectual after World War II.
Adorno, Benjamin, Habermas: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024
The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, is back with a vengeance. This seminar examines issues raised by Freud and their implications for understanding human culture. Topics include: dreams and the unconscious, gender and sexuality, death and loss, religion and group psychology, and war and peaceful community. Class discussions will be devoted to Freud’s major writings along with texts by his interlocutors, successors, and critics such as Josef Breuer, Carl Jung, Jacques Lacan, Frantz Fanon, Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Edward Said, and Jacqueline Rose.

In Treatment: Freud and His Cultural Legacies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
The story of Germany in the 20th century is a dramatic one, comprising two world wars, genocide, Allied occupation, a division into two states on opposing sides of the Cold War, and recently an unexpected unification. This course offers an introduction to the history and culture of contemporary Germany. It aims at a systematic account of German history in the 20th century, and it intends to provide a better understanding of today's German culture and politics. In addition to following a chronological approach, we will frequently stop to explore issues that are crucial to providing insights into current developments.
Politics and Culture in 20th-Century Germany: A Century of Extremes: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
This course will focus on the theory and practice of propaganda during the 12 years of the Third Reich. It takes a close look at the ideology the Nazis tried to transmit, the techniques, organization, and effectiveness of their propaganda. Challenging the idea of the total power of propaganda, it looks for the limits of persuasion and possible other reasons for which Germans might have decided to follow Hitler. Sources will include the press, radio, film, photography, political posters, and a few literary works of the time.
Politics and Culture in 20th-Century Germany: Fascism and Propaganda: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2021, Fall 2020
This course offers an introduction to the history and culture of divided Germany in the era of the Cold War. It will look at the different ways the two states dealt with the country's pre-1945 history, the relations to the Allied Powers, and the major cultural shifts which eventually created a watershed in the history of German mentalities. We will look at various kinds of sources, including literature and film. Major national debates will be touched upon, such as breaks and continuities within the national elites, re-armament and pacifism, the student movement, opposition and conformity under Socialism, and the rise of environmentalism. We will also discuss the problems and opportunities of re-unification.
A Divided Nation: Politics and Culture in Germany 1945-1990: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2021
What is the purpose of education? Should the university prepare students for the job market or emphasize the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake? Is knowledge a value in itself? This course explores these questions, among others, while concentrating on the German idea of Bildung. It introduces students to the classical idea of education and self-formation by reading a wide range of texts from German philosophy, intellectual history, and literature. Furthermore, the course traces the history of this idea by exploring how Bildung informs contemporary literary works and film. Emphasis will be on issues of class, race, and gender.
Ideas of Education: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Spring 2014, Spring 2012
This course will deal with the culture and politics of minorities in contemporary Germany. We will discuss how ethnic identities are perceived, constructed, and marketed. We also engage critically with such concepts as migration, assimilation, citizenship, diaspora, hybridity, and authenticity, as well as rhetorical strategies of "speaking back." We will focus on exemplary texts and films from Germany, but include comparisons with minority experiences in other countries.
Politics and Culture in 20th-Century Germany: Multicultural Germany: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
“Meditate that this came about: I command these words to you,” writes the Holocaust survivor and author Primo Levi. Taking seriously Levi’s dictum, this comparative course explores the ways in which the Holocaust has been represented in different media, including literature, film, and televisual narratives. To explore the political, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions of remembering the Nazi genocide, the course engages with a wide range of both documentary and fictional genres, such as diaries, memoirs, lyric poetry, novels, home videos and feature films. Emphasis will be both on formal features and medial possibilities of representing the Shoah and their historical evolution since the end of World War II.
Holocaust: Media, Memory, Representation: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2021
This seminar introduces self narratives of Holocaust survivors as historical sources. The course will start with central events between 1933 and 1945 and historical narratives of the Holocaust. We will interpret and discuss secondary and primary sources including diaries, letters, memoirs, autobiographies and images. The course will in particular take age and gender into account and will also focus on the intergenerational transmission of memory. Three field trips (two virtual field trips, one in-person field trip in Berkeley) will introduce students to central archival resources.
Holocaust and Memory: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2016, Fall 2013
The history of Germany's first parliamentary democracy is a dramatic one, dominated by economic woes, political violence, and a general perception of crisis and decline. The ill-fated republic bore the burden of a devastating war and suffered from an increasing lack of popular support. Democratic procedures were constantly undermined by radical and reactionary forces. Cultural pessimism was nurtured by the overwhelming experience of historical contingency, i.e., a fundamental lack of confidence in the predictability of modern life.
The Weimar Republic: Politics and Culture in Germany 1918-1933: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2014
This course reflects on European cultures from a transnational perspective. It will explore tensions between traditional identity concepts based on the nation state model and other ways to define identity based on border crossings and intercultural connections. Special attention will be paid to Europe's multilingualism and its colonial legacy in the form of migration, diaspora, hybridity, and other social phenomena that challenge traditional boarders between cultures, languages, and people. We will discuss exemplary texts and films from German-speaking areas in Europe and beyond. The course syllabus will vary depending on the regional and thematic emphasis. All reading and discussion will be in English.
European Cultures: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2009, Fall 2008, Fall 2007
Designed for undergraduate and graduate students interested in the history of the language of the newly united Germanys, which transverses a rich linguistic legacy from the , through Luther and Grimm, to Grass and . Discussion, via linguistic principles, of language processes in the genetic development of the German language, as well as its interchange over time with closely and remotely related languages such as English and Russian.
History of the German Language: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2014, Fall 2013
This course examines geographical and social variation within the German language. Among other things we will consider the differences between language and dialect, the division of German dialects and the history of German dialect study, various linguistic features (phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical) characteristic of the major German dialect areas, and issues involving the use of dialect versus standard language in contemporary society. Besides regular readings and written assignments, grades will be based on active participation and a paper or exam.
German Dialects: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 2013, Spring 2011
A course designed for undergraduates and graduates on the structure of modern German covering the fundamentals of German phonetics and phonology, with comparison to English. Some discussion of German dialect phonology.
The Phonetics and Phonology of Modern German: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2015, Spring 2012
A course designed for undergraduates and graduates on the grammatical structure of modern German covering the fundamentals of German morphology, syntax and semantics, with comparison to English.
The Morphology and Syntax of Modern German: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Spring 2012, Spring 2008
Analysis of various poetry from the beginning of the century to today, including works by Trakl, Benn, Bachmann, Sachs, Celan, and Brinkmann. A 20-page research paper will be part of the requirements for this course.
Undergraduate Seminars: 20th-Century Poetry: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Spring 2007, Fall 2001
This course will be taught as a topics course; the content will change from semester to semester. It will examine major topics, concepts, and theories pertaining to the cultural identity of western Europe, selected around a specific theme. Special attention will be paid to the cultural history of Germany and its influence on other countries. Possible themes range from the concepts of the self, God, history, and art, to the history of emotions and sexuality, the people and the masses, social utopia and revolution, etc.
German Cultural History in a European Context: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2008
On the basis of literary texts (in translation) and films, we will examine major topics pertaining to the cultural identity of Switzerland. Special attention will be paid to the cultural history of Switerzland in a European context. Themes in discussion will be Swiss multiculturalism and multilingualism, the importance of the Alps for national self-identification, the origin and development of the Swiss model of direct democracy, and the Swiss policy of neutrality.
The Cultural History of Switzerland in Literature and Film: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2014, Spring 2012
This course introduces principal figures from the basic disciplines of philosophy, biology, and linguistics who are particularly influential in current trends in semiotic method. It undertakes to lay the foundation of a semiotic method distinct from monolithic traditional structuralism, so, e.g, it concentrates on anti-Saussurean thought. In presenting semiotic universals, the course pursues the formulation and the application of a theoretical construct valid for any and all semiotic modalities ranging from the literary text, to the language act as text, and to the human being as text.
Semiotics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2019, Spring 2019
Topics will vary from semester to semester. See departmental announcement for offerings. Additional screening time may be required for film topics.
Special Topics in German: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2014, Fall 2010
The course will deal with the topic from various angles; a representative selection of American films noirs from the United States and some films (as forerunners) from the Weimar Republic will be shown and discussed in terms of their visuals and narratives. There will also be literary texts and cultural documents (articles on crime in the United States; on the working conditions in Hollywood) pertaining to the topic. Films have English subtitles.
German Cinema in Exile: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
This course surveys the history, theory and practice of the genre called documentary cinema in a transnational horizon. We will explore what this amorphous and vague term means and examine the ways its forms and ethics have changed from the beginning of cinema to recent digital production and online exhibition. Major modes of documentary filmmaking will be covered, including cinema verité, direct cinema, investigative documentary, ethnographic and travel film, agit-prop and activist media, autobiography and the personal essay as well as recent post-modern forms that question relationships between fact and fiction such as docudrama, archival film, and "mockumentary."
Documentary Cinema: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2000
Selected topics in the study of film and media in relation to vital traditions of modern thought.

Thinking in Images: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Fall 2017, Spring 2016
This course will explore how experiences of migration, dislocation, or exile are visualized in cinema, and how processes of internationalization in film production and distribution intersect with the projection of a transnational global imagery. Some examples of transnational cinematic connections will be analyzed in historical perspective as well as contemporary examples of "migrant cinema." We will investigate how these films engage with debates about multiculturalism and assimilation/segregation of minorities, as scenarios of itinerancy and mobility are often intertwined with representations of ethnicity and gender.
Transnational Cinemas: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Spring 2023
Supervised independent study and research course for honor students who are writing their theses for completion of the requirements for the Honors Program.
Honors Studies in German: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2016, Spring 2015
Two-semester supervised independent study and research course in which honor students research their theses topic the first semester (H196A) and write their theses the second semester (H196B) for completion of the requirements for the honors program.
Honors Studies in German: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2016, Spring 2015
Two-semester supervised independent study and research course in which honor students research their theses topic the first semester (H196A) and write their theses the second semester (H196B) for completion of the requirements for the honors program.
Honors Studies in German: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Spring 2019, Spring 2018
Group study of selected topics which will vary from year to year.
Directed Group Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Summer 2024 First 6 Week Session, Spring 2024
Supervised independent study and research.
Supervised Independent Study and Research: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2011, Spring 2010
Recommended for M.A. candidates.
Major Periods in German Literature: 16th and 17th Century: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2023, Fall 2019
This course provides an overview of major canonical works of Medieval and Early Modern German literature.

Early German Literature: Early German Literature, from the Middle Ages to the Baroque: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2022
Broadly defined as the period from 1750 to 1900 – through the lens of current theoretical concerns and the latest criticism. Departing from traditional schemes of periodization (Enlightenment, Classicism, Romanticism, Realism etc.) as well as from conventional analytical categories, we will revisit some of the most seminal texts in German literature as test cases for alternative historical narratives and new critical idioms. Canonical texts prove to be open to entirely new readings in light of contemporary theory. Conversely, they also help us elaborate, revise, and perhaps move beyond current theoretical paradigms. Critical texts are meant to showcase the state of the art and to inspire future research projects.

Classical German Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
The seminar will focus on concentrated readings of selected passages from modernist German literature, ranging from Heinrich von Kleist, Robert Walser, Rainer Maria Rilke, Carl Einstein and Franz Kafka to Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Thomas Bernhard. Although the emphasis will be on fictional prose, we will also discuss theories of reading and modernist poetics. Our goals are to study the literary styles of modern German writers and to practice reading skills that draw equally on aesthetics, rhetoric, literary theory, and media history. The teaching will be explorative, interactive, non-hierarchical, and collaborative.
Modern German Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024
A compact seminar designed to feature distinguished short-term visitors from German-speaking countries who have expertise in German literature and culture to teach topics that complement regular departmental offerings. One short paper is required. Taught in German.
Compact Seminar: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2020, Fall 2018
So-called ‘mystical’ forms of thought and experience have played a major role in the history of modern philosophy and literature from Hegel to Georg Lukàcs, Martin Heidegger, Georges Bataille, and Jacques Derrida, and from Novalis to Robert Musil, Paul Celan, Ingeborg Bachmann, Pierre Klossowski, and John Cage (to name just a few). In this seminar we will read and discuss key texts written by Eckhart of Hochheim (Meister Eckhart), Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Hadewijch of Antwerp, some of the most significant medieval figures in this tradition. During a second phase of the seminar we will turn our attention to baroque mysticism, especially Angelus Silesius and Jacob Böhme.
Studies in Medieval Literature: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2016, Spring 2009
Survey of texts from the 15th and 16th centuries. A good reading knowledge of Middle High German is recommended.
Studies in the Early Modern: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
Drawing on a variety of literary texts, periods, and genres, this seminar will present and explore different ways of reading. Topics will include literary hermeneutics and textual deconstruction.
Methods: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2009, Fall 2003
. Literary texts will be studied as historical documents illuminating changes in literary theory and in religious and philosophical thought during the Enlightenment. Texts by Lessing, Herder, and Lenz, and some Storm and Stress plays.
Studies in the 18th Century: Age of Enlightenment: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2013, Fall 2008, Spring 2003
Major authors and texts of the romantic period will be discussed.
Studies in the 19th Century: Topics in Romanticism: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2022, Fall 2021

Studies in the 20th Century: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025
Since the mid-twentieth century, the notion “the human” has become highly contested: Do we have an essential nature, or are all such definitions historically contingent and exclusionary, shaped by power relations, colonial histories, and the legacies of Western humanism? Can we still speak meaningfully of “humanity” in an age of ecological crisis and artificial intelligence, or is the very category of the human dissolving in the face of these challenges? This class approaches these questions through several frameworks: German philosophical anthropology, French antihumanism, and contemporary posthumanism.
What, if anything, is the Human? Posthumans, Antihumanism, AI, and the Anthropocene: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2016, Fall 2010

Interpretation and Criticism of Poetry: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Fall 2023
Topics vary from year to year. For current topic see the department's "Course Descriptions" booklet.
Problems of Literary Theory: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
Aesthetics is crucial to most of the humanities disciplines. This seminar studies the historical development as well as the key concerns of aesthetic theory from its eighteenth-century beginnings to the present day. The focus is on the classical age of aesthetics from Baumgarten to Nietzsche. We’ll first read the foundational texts by Kant, Schiller, the Romantics, and Hegel, among others. We then turn to the ramifications of, and challenges to, the theoretical positions developed in the classical age, exploring the scientific, sociological, and media-theoretical discourse of aesthetics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as the interventions of major philosophers such as Heidegger and Adorno.
Aesthetic Theory: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Spring 2018, Fall 2013
This seminar examines the interrelationship of poetic and philosophical discourses, with an emphasis on roles and functions of language. Questions of style and writing will interrelate different genres of poetry and thought. The seminar will explore a tradition in which poetic thought and highly reflective poetry approach and at times merge with each other.
Poetry and Thought: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2023, Fall 2019
This seminar will examine traditional and recent critical approaches to the study of film.
Film Theory: Historical and Systematic Perspectives: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Summer 1996 10 Week Session, Summer 1995 10 Week Session, Summer 1994 10 Week Session
Consisting of reguar meetings and discussions as well as weekly lectues by distinguished speakers from various disciplines, the seminar will explore instuitutional, political, social, and cultural aspects of the former two Germanies grappling with an ambiguous heritage. Within this framework participants will pursue individual directions in research. Topic varies from year to year.
Interdisciplinary Summer Seminar in German Studies: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2024
This graduate seminar examines the field of media archaeology. While this burgeoning and somewhat amorphous field includes a plethora of approaches, it has been broadly shaped by an emphasis on heterogeneity, rupture, and discontinuity rather than singular origins, linear causality, and teleological progression; a deprivileging of realistic historical representation in favor of alternate, even counterfactual trajectories; an exploration of media practices beyond narrative entertainment and theatrical exhibition. We will read foundational texts in the field alongside more recent interventions on a wide range of media, including paper, screens, sound, television, wireless, and virtual reality.
Media Archaeology: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2013, Fall 2011
A comparison of literary and cultural developments in Germany and the United States. Emphasis is placed on individual research designed to develop teaching materials.
Aspects of Literary and Cultural History: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2022, Fall 2020, Fall 2019
Designed for students interested in the history of the language and culture of united Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, which transverses a rich legacy from the , through Luther and Grimm, to Grass and . Discussion, via linguistic principles, of language processes in the genetic development of the German language, as well as its interchange over time with closely and remotely related languages.
History of the German Language: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2015, Spring 2009, Spring 2004
Advanced topics in Germanic phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics. The principal Germanic dialects viewed within laryngeal theory and reconstruction.
Comparative Germanic: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2019, Fall 2015, Fall 2012
Study of the linguistic structures of the earliest Germanic dialect with a sizable corpus. Indo-European origins, Germanic relationships, and Gothic as a synchronic construct are considered.
Gothic: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2020, Spring 2018, Fall 2014
Reading of poetic and prose texts in Old High German. The synchronic and diachronic study of the dialects of the High German language from the eighth to the eleventh century within the framework of current linguistic method.
Old High German: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2013, Fall 2010
Readings and discussion of poetic and prose texts in the Ingwaeonic languages (broadly construed) not covered elsewhere: Old Low Franconian, Middle Dutch, Old Frisian, Middle Low German.
North Sea Germanic: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2020, Fall 2016, Spring 2013
Study of the most provocative of the major Germanic languages in terms of structural identification. The literary and ethnographic setting of the and its shared isogrammar.
Old Saxon: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2018, Fall 2014, Fall 2011
A survey of relevant contemporary issues and topics in linguistic research on the structure of German.
Approaches and Issues in the Study of Modern German: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2019, Spring 2017, Spring 2016
Variable topic. For specific topic contact departmental office.
Seminar in German Linguistics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2014, Fall 2008, Spring 2005
The seminar will deal with the methods and results of morphological analysis as applied to the German language. It will introduce basic concepts and means of morphological analyses, as well as study and apply various theories of word structure to German. The primary concern will be the synchronic analyses of modern German word formation, but questions of a diachronic nature as well as ones about inflection will also be discussed.
Methods and Issues in German Morphology: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 2012, Fall 2006
Discussion of current syntactic theories as applied to a number of issues in modern German syntax with an eye toward their description and explanatory potential. Typological comparison, especially with English.
German Syntax: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Fall 2012, Spring 2009
Concentration on the essential categories of semantics via data from German and Germanic. Extensive discussion of semantic change, the semantics of prevarication, and the semantics of pathological language.
German Semantics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2013, Fall 2010, Fall 2007
Theory and methods of contrastive linguistic analyses. Study of pairs of contrastive language sets in two time perspectives: Modern German with Modern English and Early New High German with Early New English.
Contrastive Grammars: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2010, Spring 2009, Spring 2008
Discussion of the principal figures from the basic disciplines of philosophy, biology, and linguistics influential in current trends in semiotics. Application of Peircean semiotics to a wide range of semiotic modalities.
Semiotics: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Spring 2024

Directed Group Study: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Summer 2024 10 Week Session
Dissertation research and writing during candidacy.
Dissertation Research and Writing: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2022, Fall 2021
The course focuses on the theory and practice of foreign language pedagogy. It introduces students to second language acquisition research and its relationship to pedagogy, providing a basis for staying theoretically informed and for participating in professional discourse of the field throughout one's teaching career. It also emphasizes critical reflection on pedagogical practices. Includes a practical component dealing directly with the day-to-day challenges of teaching elementary German.
Seminar in Foreign Language Pedagogy: Teaching College German I: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2023, Spring 2022
This course expands upon the basis of methodology and theory of language teaching covered in 350 and prepares students for teaching at the intermediate level. The theoretical and practical exploration of recent developments in second language teaching concentrates on instructional technology, teaching writing, teaching literary texts, and curriculum design. Students reflect on their development as teachers through a journal, video, and observation of their teaching, and the final portfolio.
Seminar in Foreign Language Pedagogy: Teaching College German II: Read More [+]

Terms offered: Spring 2025, Fall 2024, Summer 2024 First 6 Week Session
Independent study in consultation with graduate adviser to provide an opportunity for Ph.D. students to prepare for the qualifying examination.
Individual Study for Doctoral Students: Read More [+]