Courses

GER 101. Fundamentals of German I.These courses introduce students to the German language and its cultural contexts. By emphasizing communicative skills, students learn to speak, act out real-life situations, build vocabulary, and develop their listening comprehension. German 101 is not open to students who have had two or more years of German in secondary school. Normally offered every year. C. Decker, R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER 101-102. Fundamentals of German I and II.These courses introduce students to the German language and its cultural contexts. By emphasizing communicative skills, students learn to speak, act out real-life situations, build vocabulary, and develop their listening comprehension. German 101 is not open to students who have had two or more years of German in secondary school. Normally offered every year. C. Decker, R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER 102. Fundamentals of German II.These courses introduce students to the German language and its cultural contexts. By emphasizing communicative skills, students learn to speak, act out real-life situations, build vocabulary, and develop their listening comprehension. German 101 is not open to students who have had two or more years of German in secondary school. Normally offered every year. C. Decker, R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER 201. Intermediate German I.A continuation of GER 101-102, with added emphasis on the development of reading strategies and composition skills. Open to first-year students who enter with at least two years of German. Prerequisite(s): GER 102. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every year. R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER 201-202. Intermediate German I and II.A continuation of GER 101-102, with added emphasis on the development of reading strategies and composition skills. Open to first-year students who enter with at least two years of German. Prerequisite(s): GER 102. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every year. R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER 202. Intermediate German II.A continuation of GER 201, with added emphasis on the development of reading strategies and composition skills. Open to first-year students who enter with at least two years of German. Prerequisite(s): GER 102. Normally offered every year. R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER 233. German Composition and Conversation.Topical courses designed to develop linguistic and cultural competency. Through reading and discussing a variety of texts, working with multimedia, and completing writing assignments, students attain greater oral and written proficiency in German while deepening their understanding of the culture of German-speaking countries. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every year. C. Decker, R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER 233-234. German Composition and Conversation.Topical courses designed to develop linguistic and cultural competency. Through reading and discussing a variety of texts, working with multimedia, and completing writing assignments, students attain greater oral and written proficiency in German while deepening their understanding of the culture of German-speaking countries. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every year. C. Decker, R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER 234. German Composition and Conversation.Topical courses designed to develop linguistic and cultural competency. Through reading and discussing a variety of texts, working with multimedia, and completing writing assignments, students attain greater oral and written proficiency in German while deepening their understanding of the culture of German-speaking countries. Open to first-year students. Normally offered every year. C. Decker, R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER 241. German Literature of the Twentieth Century I.A study of German and Austrian literature and society from 1890 through 1933, with emphasis on the aesthetic and sociohistorical underpinnings of Naturalism, Impressionism, Expressionism, and selected works of Mann, Kafka, and Brecht. Prerequisite(s): GER 234. Open to first-year students. [W2] C. Decker.Concentrations.

GER 242. German Literature and Film of the Twentieth Century II.A continuation of German 241, focusing on post-World-War-II literature and emphasizing such authors as Boll, Brecht, Frisch, Durrenmatt, Bachmann, and Wolf. Attention is given to contemporary women writers and poets whose works center on utopian visions and the search for peace. Prerequisite(s): GER 234. Staff.Concentrations.

GER 244. Staged Marriages.A study of major issues in German dramaturgy from the Enlightenment to the present, explored through texts that dramatize problems relating to marriage. Authors include Lessing, Buchner, Brecht, and Horvath. Prerequisite(s): GER 234. Open to first-year students. [W2] C. Decker.Concentrations.

GR/RU 248. Narratives of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.Created by the Compromise of 1867 as a dual monarchy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire comprised more than a dozen linguistic and many more ethnic and religious groups. While Vienna was the undisputed cultural capital of the Empire, local urban centers produced a remarkably diverse cultural landscape. Through readings, films, and art by Austrian, Polish, Czech, Romanian, Hungarian, and Jewish artists, students explore this multicultural periphery and consider national, ethnic, class, religious, and gender identities; conflict and cooperation in an age of nationalism; the relationship between center and margins; colonial and postcolonial attitudes; and the legacies of the Empire in today's Central and Eastern Europe. Conducted in English. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 30. [W2] R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER 254. Berlin and Vienna, 1900–1914.From the beginning of the twentieth century to the outbreak of World War I, the capital cities of Berlin and Vienna were home to major political and cultural developments, including diverse modernist movements in art, architecture, literature, and music, as well as the growth of mass party politics. The ascending German Empire and the multiethnic Habsburg Empire teetering on the verge of collapse provide the context within which this course examines important texts of fin-de-siecle modernism. Topics include urban growth and planning, German Expressionism, Austrian Impressionism, early German cinema, and Freud's case studies of hysteria. Conducted in English. Open to first-year students. C. Decker.Concentrations.

GER 262. The Split Screen: Reconstructing National Identities in West and East German Cinema.This course investigates selected works of West and East German cinematic production after 1945. Students engages polemically with a broad range of topics and issues that define the popular view of Germany and its culture today. They discuss Germany's Nazi past, the post-war division of the country and its reunification in 1990, the legacies of the 1968 generation, and the role of minorities in contemporary Germany. The course also provides students with basic tools of film analysis, which are used in the discussion of cinematic art and in the analysis of the specific aesthetic qualities of a film. New course beginning Winter 2013. J. Kazecki.Concentrations.

GER 264. World War I in German Culture .This course explores the ways in which the memory of World War I informed German culture from 1918 to the present, with an emphasis on the literature and film of the Weimar Republic. Topics include the literary representation of the experience of the war, the impact of the war on Weimar cinema, the instrumentalization of the Great War in Nazi ideology and artistic production, as well as strategies of commemoration of World War I in post-1945 German culture. Pre-Prerequisite(s): GER 233 Recommended background: GER 241 New course begining Fall 2013 (European.) One-time offering. J. Kazecki.Concentrations.

GER 270. Living with the Nazi Legacy.A study of contemporary works from Austria and Germany that articulate the experiences of children of Nazis. Texts, which include autobiographical writings, novels, films, interviews, and essays, are analyzed in terms of their representation of the Nazi past and its continuing impact on the present. Prerequisite(s): GER 234. [W2] C. Decker.Concentrations.

GER 356. Representing Austrian Fascism.Official state documents and popular historical imagination frequently present Austria as the "first victim of Nazi aggression," thus discounting the active role that Austrians played in the Anschluss and the Third Reich. This course explores the myth of Austria's victimization through analysis of government documents, literary texts, and documentary films that represent Austrian involvement in and response to the Nazi past. Prerequisite(s): one 200-level literature course taught in German. C. Decker.Concentrations.

GER 357. Austrian Literature.A study of Austrian fiction that emerges from and responds to three important periods in Austrian political and cultural history: the restorative and revolutionary period of the mid-nineteenth century; fin-de-siecle Vienna and the impending collapse of the Habsburg Empire; and the post–World-War-II Second Austrian Republic. Prerequisite(s): one 200-level literature course taught in German. C. Decker.Concentrations.

GER 358. Literature and Film of the German Democratic Republic. This course explores the ways in which literature and film reflect and refract the social and political experiments of the GDR. Topics include the doctrine of Socialist Realism and its (mis)applications, coming to terms with the past, the emergence and problematization of new gender models, youth culture and generational tensions, the role of the individual in socialist society, censorship and artistic experimentation, conformity and resistance, popular culture and the artistic underground, and industrialization and environmental concerns. Attention is given to the sociohistorical contexts of the examined works and the means and ends of literary and cinematic creations of (alternate) realities. Prerequisite(s): one 200-level literature course taught in German. Recommended background: GER 242. R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER 360. Independent Study.Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study per semester. Normally offered every semester. Staff.Concentrations.

GER 365. Special Topics.Designed for the small seminar group of students who may have particular interests in areas of study that go beyond the regular course offerings. Periodic conferences and papers are required. Permission of the department is required. Staff.Concentrations.

GER 457. Senior Thesis.Research leading to writing of a senior thesis. Open to senior majors, including honors candidates. Students register for German 457 in the fall semester or for German 458 in the winter semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both German 457 and 458. [W3] Normally offered every year. Staff.Concentrations.

GER 457, 458. Senior Thesis.Research leading to writing of a senior thesis. Open to senior majors, including honors candidates. Students register for German 457 in the fall semester or for German 458 in the winter semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both German 457 and 458. [W3] Normally offered every year. Staff.Concentrations.

GER 458. Senior Thesis.Research leading to writing of a senior thesis. Open to senior majors, including honors candidates. Students register for German 458 in the winter semester Majors writing an honors thesis register for both German 457 and 458. [W3] Normally offered every year. Staff.Concentrations.

INDS s13. Daily Life under Hitler and Stalin.In this course, students examine everyday life in two of the twentieth century's most brutal political systems: Hitler's Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR. They pay particular attention to how these two totalitarian regimes dominated the public sphere from the late 1920s to the end of World War II, and examine the question of agency: To what extent were the citizens of the Third Reich and the USSR manipulated, willing participants, or sympathetic fellow travelers? Cross-listed in German, history, and Russian. Enrollment limited to 30. (European.) D. Browne.Concentrations.

GER s20. Transylvanian Journey: Myth, Reality, and the Traveler "beyond the Forest.".Transylvania—"The Land beyond the Forest"—is known in popular culture as the mythical home of Dracula and the locale of awe-inspiring adventures. This course offers students the chance to investigate some of the persisting myths about Transylvania, their origins and their transmission, as well as the reassessment of the province's image since the removal of Romania's communist government in 1989. On campus, students familiarize themselves with the complexities of Transylvania's image through readings and discussions of travel narratives before traveling to Transylvania for a two-week tour in preparation for their own collaborative travel account. Enrollment limited to 14. Instructor permission is required. R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations.

GER s50. Independent Study.Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study during a Short Term. Normally offered every year. Staff.Concentrations.