Fall 2024

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: Staff

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: Staff

 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: Staff

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: Staff

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 24 (4) Freshman Seminar. Feldman

“Bureaucracy at Berkeley”.  This course will look at theories and studies of bureaucracy, and apply them to student experiences at UC Berkeley. We will attempt to understand how bureaucracy has been theorized, how it proliferates, and how it functions at our university. Students will do short readings and also journal about their experiences with university bureaucracy. They may also write short reports, including studies of university emails, websites, and offices; and may also conduct interviews with administrators to find out how bureaucracy is perceived by different stakeholders in the university.

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

German 39P (4) Freshman Seminar (Pathway course). Tang

“Law and Literature”.  For many people, law is the subject of law school, while literature belongs to the humanities. In this seminar, we will see that law and literature, professional school and the humanities are in fact closely related. We will read some great authors in world literature (including Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Melville, Kleist, Kafka), watch a number of classic films, and discuss how they engage with the key issues of law – legitimacy and legality, justice and equity, rights and obligation, crime and punishment. At the same time, we will read legal texts and see how law operates by telling stories. This seminar may be used to satisfy the Arts and Literature or Philosophy and Values breadth requirement in Letters and Science.

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

German 158 (4) “In Treatment: Freud and His Cultural Legacies”.  Baer

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, narcissism and sexuality, death and loss, religion and Jewish identity, race 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 Carl Jung, Jacques Lacan, Frantz Fanon, Luce Irigaray, Yosef Yerushalmi, David Marriott, Judith Butler, Edward Said, and Jacqueline Rose.

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

German 160B (4) “Fascism and Propaganda:Politics and Culture in 20th Century Germany”. Lenhard

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. Finally, it will also be discussed to what extent techniques of propaganda continued to be used globally after 1945. In particular, the fascism studies of the Frankfurt School, which dealt with antisemitic demagogy in 1940s U.S. society, will be examined more closely.

Important note about extremely disturbing course content: The course will include images, text, and film footage that are profoundly racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, anti-gay, and violence-glorifying. These images may be experienced by students as horrifying, frightening, thoroughly offensive, intimidating, and hurtful. It will nonetheless be our task in this course to understand and analyze the origins, strategies, and effects of these materials. Please consider whether you will be comfortable taking this course insofar as it requires viewing, reading, discussing, and writing about such shocking and execrable materials.

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