The graduate program emphasizes seminars that provide an in-depth study of specialized areas in German literature, culture, and language. Instruction in methodology is provided for graduate student instructors and prospective teachers, and seminars in applied linguistics and second-language acquisition provide a theoretical and practical foundation for teachers. The program aims at comprehensive historical knowledge of German literature and culture and/or linguistics and is designed to train students in rigorous scholarship, original research, and independent thinking.
Students are not admitted solely to pursue a master of arts, which is an integral part of the PhD program.
There are two options to fulfill the language requirement. Students are strongly encouraged to acquire useful reading knowledge in two languages other than English and German (Option 1 per the Guide to Graduate Policy). Many of our students choose French, Latin, Dutch, Italian, Russian, Japanese, or Turkish. Students may also choose to learn only one language other than English and German (Option 3 per the Guide to Graduate Policy). The languages should have value for the students’ research project and probable future career needs and are selected in consultation with the advisor. The language requirement must be fulfilled prior to the QE.
Thank you for considering UC Berkeley for graduate study! UC Berkeley offers more than 120 graduate programs representing the breadth and depth of interdisciplinary scholarship. The Graduate Division hosts a complete list of graduate academic programs, departments, degrees offered, and application deadlines can be found on the Graduate Division website.
Prospective students must submit an online application to be considered for admission, in addition to any supplemental materials specific to the program for which they are applying. The online application and steps to take to apply can be found on the Graduate Division website.
Admission Requirements
The minimum graduate admission requirements are:
A bachelor’s degree or recognized equivalent from an accredited institution;
A satisfactory scholastic average, usually a minimum grade-point average (GPA) of 3.0 (B) on a 4.0 scale; and
Enough undergraduate training to do graduate work in your chosen field.
For a list of requirements to complete your graduate application, please see the Graduate Division’s Admissions Requirements page. It is also important to check with the program or department of interest, as they may have additional requirements specific to their program of study and degree. Department contact information can be found here.
The Department of German accepts applications for its degree program beginning in September for admission to the following fall semester. Applications must be submitted online no later than December 15. The department does not admit for the MA as a final degree, although the MA will be awarded to students pursuing work toward the PhD after fulfillment of the requirements. Applicants who hold an MA in German may apply directly to the PhD program.
Graduate Application and Supporting Documents Graduate Division Application
The program requires GRE scores (general test), or TOEFL (international students), a statement of purpose, a personal statement, and critical writing samples (in either or both German and English.) Writing samples should be in the form of thesis or research paper on a topic relevant to the fields of German literature or linguistics (limited to 25 pages).
For the purpose of campus-wide fellowship competitions, applicants who submit the statement of purpose or personal history statement in German should also submit an English version of both.
Applications are accepted for fall term only.
Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) Application
It is recommended that you fill in the GSI application section with your online graduate application. All graduate students teach as part of the graduate program, and teaching positions are awarded at the time of admission. Teaching experience is not required.
Doctoral Degree Requirements
Normative Time Requirements
Normative Time to Advancement
The total normative time to advancement is four years.
Normative Time in Candidacy
The total time in candidacy is two years.
Total Normative Time
The total normative time of the program is six years.
Seminar in Foreign Language Pedagogy: Teaching College German II
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Comprehensiveness Requirements
Eight (8) graduate GERMAN courses, selected in consultation with faculty advisers in view of the desired specialization and in view of the historically comprehensive QE and the PhD. These seminars must include at least one course dealing primarily with early German literature (pre-1700) and one course dealing primarily with classical German literature (1700-1900).
Further Specialization
Electives chosen in the fields of specialization and outside interests (Joint PhD/Designated Emphases)
Exam preparation
Foreign Languages
There are two options to fulfill the language requirement. Students are strongly encouraged to acquire useful reading knowledge in two languages other than English and German (Option 1 per the Guide to Graduate Policy). Many of our students choose French, Latin, Dutch, Italian, Russian, Japanese, or Turkish. Students may also choose to learn only one language other than English and German (Option 3 per the Guide to Graduate Policy). The languages should have value for the students’ research project and probable future career needs, and are selected in consultation with the adviser. The language requirement must be fulfilled prior to the QE.
Designated Emphasis
Graduate students may add a designated emphasis to their plans of study to gain a particular area of specialization. The DE is usually added before a student advances to candidacy. DE in Dutch Studies, Critical Theory, Renaissance & Early Modern Studies, Film & Media Studies, New Media, Women, Gender & Sexuality; concurrent PhD in Medieval Studies.
Second Year Review
The second year review is a written exam based on a text on methodological questions from the student’s main field of interest. The student will choose an examination committee consisting of three members, communicate an area of interest, and submit a list of works already read. The committee will choose an exam question or a text from the area of interest and communicate it to the student two weeks before the examination. In response to the question the student will write an essay in a three-hour time period. The committee will meet with the student to discuss the examination and the student’s progress in the program. The faculty will decide whether the student will be invited to proceed to doctoral work in the program.
PhD Qualifying Exam
The PhD qualifying examination, or QE, consists of a written portfolio submitted to the student’s committee and a three-hour oral examination. In the year before the QE, the student should decide on an exam committee of three faculty members from the department and one faculty member from outside the department. This committee must be approved by the head graduate adviser six months before the exam is to take place.
The student prepares a reading list for the exam. The reading list should show historical breadth and also highlight texts within the student’s area of interest. Students generally choose a theme for their exams, to help make it easier for them to simultaneously showcase breadth and their research interest. The reading list must be approved by the QE committee chair a month after the committee has been approved by the graduate adviser.
In consultation with the committee, the student will write a research proposal for the exam. This proposal usually follows the student’s exam topic as a red thread through German literary history. The research proposal must be submitted to the committee by the first week of the semester in which the QE is to take place.
The student must also turn in two revised papers from seminars they have taken in the department (Option I) or write two three-hour exams (Option II). Most students choose Option I. These are to be turned in to the committee with the research proposal and a final draft of the reading list.
The QE is a three-hour exam, if the student passes the exam, he or she will advance to candidacy.
Prospectus Conference
By the end of the semester after the QE, the student will submit a prospectus and any other work completed on the dissertation to the dissertation committee. The dissertation committee will meet with the student to discuss progress and to offer advice. Annually thereafter, it is required that at least two members of the committee confer with the student, in addition to regular meetings with the dissertation chair.
Dissertation
Final requirement to complete the PhD is completion of a dissertation. Students should meet with their dissertation chairs to decide on appropriate timelines for research abroad and the completion of individual chapters. Students are not required to defend the dissertation once the dissertation committee has decided the dissertation is finished.
Research Resources
The following links contain information that you may find helpful during your graduate studies at Berkeley:
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.
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 5 weeks - 2 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: 106 or 203
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 4 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Previous work with German poetry and philosophy
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit with instructor consent.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 4 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 2 hours of seminar per week
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 [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Graduate standing
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: German/Professional course for teachers or prospective teachers
Grading: Offered for satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade only.
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 [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Graduate standing
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of seminar per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: German/Professional course for teachers or prospective teachers
Grading: Offered for satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade only.
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 [+]
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: M.A. in German
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit without restriction.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 0 hours of independent study per week
Terms offered: Fall 2020, Fall 2019, Fall 2018
In this beginners' course students will learn to speak, read, and write Yiddish. Following the communicative method, students will focus in class on oral communication by playing out short dialogues. Grammar will be taught inductively, based on examples that have already become familiar. The course will offer an introduction to Yiddish culture through a variety of songs, stories, film clips, and other illustrations. By the end of the semester, students should be able to express themselves with some sophistication about a variety of topics in the present tense and also understand the past tense.
Course Objectives: This course will teach Yiddish in the context of modern Yiddish culture. Students will learn the vocabulary and grammar necessary to communicate about several important topics (studies, family, living situation etc.). By the end of this course, students will be able to:
interact with native speakers and discuss familiar topics;
write in simple language about familiar topics;
read and understand simple texts about familiar topics;
read and understand more complex authentic texts using context and reading strategies.
Students are expected to participate actively both in class and separately when working on group assignments.
Rules & Requirements
Credit Restrictions: Students will receive no credit for YIDDISH 101 after completing YIDDISH 1.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Yiddish/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Fall 2024, Fall 2023, Fall 2022
In this beginners' course students will learn to speak, read, and write Yiddish, the original lannguage of East European Jews. Using the communicative method and the new textbook In Eynem, students will focus in class on speaking by playing out short dialogues. Grammar will be taught inductively, through examples. The course will introduce Yiddish culture through a variety of songs, stories, film clips, and illustrations. Elementary Yiddish: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: This course will teach Yiddish in the context of modern Yiddish culture. Students will learn the vocabulary and grammar necessary to communicate about several important topics (studies, fam- ily, living situation etc.). By the end of this course, students will be able to:
interact with native speakers and discuss familiar topics
write in simple language about familiar topics
read and understand simple texts about familiar topics
read and understand more complex authentic texts using context and reading strategies.
Students are expected to participate actively both in class and separately when working on group assignments.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Yiddish/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2024, Spring 2021, Spring 2020
In this continuation of the beginners' course, students will improve their speaking, reading, and writing in Yiddish. The class will apply the communicative method and continue to use the textbook In Eynem (2020). Students will focus in class on speaking and playing out short dialogues, while homework will be devoted to writing and reading. Grammar will be taught inductively, through examples. The course will present Yiddish culture through a variety of songs, stories, film clips, and illustrations. Elementary Yiddish (Yiddish 2): Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: This course will teach Yiddish in the context of modern Yiddish culture. Students will learn the vocabulary and grammar necessary to communicate about new topics (studies, family, living situation etc.). By the end of this course, students will be able to:
interact with native speakers and discuss familiar topics
speak about the past, present, and future
write in simple language about familiar topics,
read and understand simple texts about familiar topics
read and understand more complex authentic texts using context and reading strategies.
Students are expected to participate actively both in class and separately when working on group assignments.
Rules & Requirements
Prerequisites: Yiddish 101 or equivalent
Credit Restrictions: Students will receive no credit for Yiddish 102 after passing Yiddish 2.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 5 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Yiddish/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025
This course is a second-part introduction to the language that has been spoken by Ashkenazic Jews for more than a millennium, and an opportunity to discover the rich world of Yiddish language and culture through literature, music, folklore, television, blogs, and even memes. Using the communicative approach, we will learn how to speak, read, listen, write, and think critically about the worlds of Yiddish past and present. Elementary Yiddish 2: Read More [+]
Objectives & Outcomes
Course Objectives: •
Participate in conversations using basic grammatical forms and vocabulary
•
Read simple texts with ease (print and cursive)
•
Write short compositions about a variety of topics
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 4 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Yiddish/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required.
Terms offered: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2022
This course will trace the development of Yiddish culture from the first settlement of Jews in German lands through centuries of life in Eastern Europe, down to the main cultural centers today in Israel and America. The course will examine how changes in Jewish life have found expression in the Yiddish language. It will provide an introduction to Yiddish literature in English translation, supplemented by excursions into Yiddish music, folklore, theater, and film.
Terms offered: Fall 2024
This course will trace the development of Yiddish civilization down to today from the first settlement of Jews in German lands, roughly a thousand years ago. At its peak, Yiddish was spoken over a larger European territory than any language except Russian. In fact, long before Yiddish culture came to be centered in Eastern Europe, many of the best works of Old Yiddish literature were written in Renaissance Italy. Because Jews were a highly mobile population in contact with many different peoples, Yiddish was everywhere influenced by neighboring languages and became the prototypical fusion language. History of Yiddish Civilization: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Yiddish/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Final exam required, with common exam group.
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course will trace the literary journey of Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1993)—the only Yiddish writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature—from the small Polish village where he was born to the Upper West Side of Manhattan. For his American readers Singer represented a bridge between the Old World and the New, between religious tradition and American modernity. He seemed like a kindly old grandfather, telling jokes and feeding the pigeons on Broadway. But Singer was a controversial figure in the Yiddish literary world: critics considered him a sellout for winning commercial success with stories about sex, immorality, and the supernatural. Between Tradition and Modernity: Isaac Bashevis Singer: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Yiddish/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This course will trace the history of Yiddish cinema from its "golden era" before World War II down to today. Jews famously played a big role in the development of modern cinema, especially as Hollywood
producers and studio moguls. But although many of these moguls knew Yiddish and were themselves immigrants, they were not anxious to make Jewish films at a time of increasing anti-Semitism. During Hollywood's Golden Age, Yiddish films were not made by the major studios, but independently, mainly in New Many York and Poland. The Yiddish film industry was closely linked to the world of Yiddish theater, which was enormously popular on New York's Lower East Side. History of Yiddish Cinema: Read More [+]
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Yiddish/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
Terms offered: Not yet offered
Topics will vary from semester to semester. See departmental announcement for offerings. Additional screening time may be required for film topics. Special Topics: Read More [+]
Rules & Requirements
Repeat rules: Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
Hours & Format
Fall and/or spring: 15 weeks - 3 hours of lecture per week
Additional Details
Subject/Course Level: Yiddish/Undergraduate
Grading/Final exam status: Letter grade. Alternative to final exam.
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