Courses

Fall 2023

For all meeting days and times please see the Online Schedule of Classes.

Reading and Composition Courses
Readings and discussions in English. Fulfills the second half of the university’s Reading & Composition Requirement (equivalent to English 1B, Comp. Lit. 1B, etc.).

German R5A. Reading and Composition (4)

Section 1: Sun, E.

“Refugee Narratives in a Transmedia World”.  In recent years, creative texts and new media projects have challenged the proliferation of a certain kind of popular refugee narrative. The structure of this narrative, which appears as digestible reels on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, or as news segments on CNN and Tagesschau—Germany’s most-watched television news program—is generally as follows: a displaced person successfully flees a war-torn country through the humanitarian embrace of a Western nation-state and, upon arrival, assimilates to their new society. If a refugee resists this narrative, they are deemed “ungrateful” or “bad.” In this course, we will study the work of artists and activists who work around this dominant narrative, while considering how the figure of the refugee works its way trans-medially across public discourses, news reels, and creative engagements. 

All readings will be in English, and no prior knowledge of the materials is required. 

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.
 

Section 2: Lambert, S.

“Virtual Intimacies”.  Since antiquity, love has been thought of as two people sharing one body or soul. But this version of love presumed that intimacy depended on sharing the same space. In the past 200 years, media technologies have transformed the ways we connect with one another. This course will explore the new kinds of intimate relationships made possible by epistolary, telephonic, audio-visual and digital media across various genres, including novels, short stories, plays and films. Through this course, students will learn to close read a variety of genres and media, and construct arguments based on those readings. 

All readings will be in English, and no prior knowledge of the materials is required. 

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.

Section 3: Blough, A.

All readings will be in English, and no prior knowledge of the materials is required. 

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.

Section 4: Bonicatto-Sacia, L.

“Language and Society: Shaping Cultures and Ideologies”.  This course focuses on the influence of language on societies and ideologies across cultures. The interplay between language and factors such as gender, ethnicity, age, and social class is examined. Furthermore, students will analyze the impact of language on advertising and politics and explore the repercussions of linguistic imperialism. Engaging in discussions, readings, and assignments using diverse sources, students will gain an understanding of language’s role in shaping social, cultural, and political systems.

All readings will be in English, and no prior knowledge of the materials is required. 

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.


German 39H (4) Freshman Seminar. Balint
“Robots, Monsters, Operating Systems: Technology and the Cultural Imagination”.

Both literature and film are rife with fantastic creatures. But what gives rise to figures such as the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), the vampire in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), and the artificial intelligence program in Spike Jonze’s science fiction-cum-romantic-drama Her (2013)? And what ensures our enduring fascination with them? New technology not only sparks excitement about future possibilities, everyday conveniences, and large-scale social, political, and cultural change, but also spurs fears about its purported capacity to fundamentally reshape many, if not all, aspects of our lives. This course examines seminal works of literary fiction and film, along with some musical examples, to explore the ways technology animates both age-old hopes and anxieties related to humanity, gender, sexuality, race, and the future. How is technology negotiated in the cultural imagination, and how, in turn, does new technology enable and affect new modes of cultural expression (in literature and other media)? Course materials include works by Mary Shelley, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois; Octavia Butler, among others; films such as Metropolis by Fritz Lang, Blade Runner by Ridley Scott, A.I. by Steven Spielberg; Her by Spike Jonze; and music and performance by Sun Ra and Beyoncé.

Note: This class will be taught in “English”.


German 39S (4) Freshman Seminar. Shannon
“Language Origins and Development: From Myth to Science”.

Throughout history, the origins and development of language have engaged the minds and imaginations of myth-makers and scholars alike. And yet many of the basic questions surrounding our unequalled ability to communicate continue to raise serious challenges and much controversy among researchers in numerous, diverse fields. In this seminar we will consider the long history of thought on this topic in the Western tradition, starting from the Bible and the Greeks, through later thinkers such as Dante, Rousseau and Darwin, down to present-day scholars like Noam Chomsky and Michael Tomasello. Although this course is offered in the German Department, it not a course in or about German. All readings will be in English, as will classroom discussion.

Note: This class will be taught in “English”.


German 130AC (4) “Cultures of Migration”.  Gokturk

Who is a migrant? Who claims belonging in a country as a native? Can migrants achieve the status of “native” through settlement and assimilation? And if so, why is settlement a condition for full membership and participation in society? Which environmental transformations are associated with migration? Is there any hope for solidarity? Does art hold any promise for imagining a more equitable future?

This course will stimulate students to question assumptions about collective identities based on remembrance and forgetting. We will think comparatively across space and time, considering the role that migration, border control, and structures of racial hierarchy have played in the cultural formation of societies. Focusing on both movement and entrapment, students will examine political rhetoric and policies regulating human mobility through the lens of creative interventions from literature, cinema, video, and music. Case studies from the US and Germany will convey a nuanced understanding of assigned and assumed identities that transcend census categories of diversity. This comparative perspective on race, ethnicity, and citizenship will enable students to recognize patterns and repetitions in common arguments brought forward against the presence of “foreigners.”

Note: This class will be taught in “English”.


German 157D (4) “Adorno, Benjamin, Habermas”. Baer

The so-called Frankfurt School of Critical Theory was a unique assembly of German intellectuals known for their analytical critique of modern mass culture, society, and politics. Their interest in the cultural and political life around them has produced major theoretical work that still resonates today. This course will study Benjamin’s enigmatic and complex reflections on art, and Adorno’s views on using art for political purposes. We will examine other themes including Enlightenment, history, and mass culture.

Note: This class will be taught in “English”.


German 160A (4) Century of Extremes. Lenhard

“POLITICS AND CULTURE IN 20TH-CENTURY GERMANY: A CENTURY OF EXTREMES”

 This course will survey the political, economic, social, and cultural development of Germany since 1914. Special attention will be paid to the impact of World War I; problems of democratization under the impact of defeat, inflation, and depression; National Socialist racism and imperialism; the evolution of the German Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic; unification and its problems; and modern Germany’s role in Europe.

Perhaps most importantly, you will learn to question and evaluate historical sources and evidence, in the process becoming informed thinkers and critical readers, rather than just passive recipients. You will also develop a sense of how historians analyze and interpret the past, and through the writing of a historical research paper, try your hand at the craft of history. Class sections are collaborative enterprises, so please complete the assigned reading beforehand and come prepared with questions, concerns, or ideas you would like to discuss. It is the student’s responsibility to have prepared for each session accordingly. All assigned reading is due weekly on the Monday before class begins.


German 184 (4) “Documentary Cinema”– Gokturk

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.” Through formal analysis, we will examine the “reality effects” of these works, focusing on narrative structures, visual style, and audience address. We will ask: How do these films shape notions of truth, reality, and point of view? What are the ethics and politics of representation? Who speaks for whom when we watch a documentary? Who stages whom for whom and to what end? What do documentaries make visible or conceal? What, if anything, constitutes objectivity? And by the way, just what is a document anyway?  Note: This course has a film screening section please check with Instructor.