Spring 2024 Class Schedule

• Spring 2024 Class Schedule
• Spring 2024 Course Descriptions

Spring 2024 class Schedule 

Spring 2024 course descriptions

German 101-1,2,3 – Beginning German

The Beginning German sequence offers students a systematic introduction to German language and culture emphasizing the four modalities: speaking, listening comprehension, reading and writing. The first quarter (101-1) offers a systematic review of basic German words, phrases with a cultural focus on Germany, an introduction of simple grammar items, and short interview practice at the end of the quarter. The second quarter (101-2) includes a variety of writing assignments, cultural presentations, reading poems by Goethe, the visit of a Mystery Guest, as well as intensive work with the strong and irregular verbs. In the third quarter (101-3), students will read and discuss short stories and plays by Grimm, Brecht and Kafka! The highlight will be an in-class skit performance which culminates in the almost famous *Evening O' Skits* featuring the best student selected skits from first and second-year German.
Prerequisite in German for 101-1: None or one year of high-school German.
Prerequisite in German for 101-2: 101-1 or placement exam results.
Prerequisite in German for 101-3: 101-2 or placement exam results.

German 102-1,2,3 – Intermediate German

The Intermediate German sequence offers students a systematic review of German language and culture to increase linguistic proficiency and cultural literacy. The pedagogy used fosters learning in the four modalities: speaking, listening comprehension, reading and writing. Each quarter has a specific focus: In the Fall Quarter (102-1) students concentrate on speaking and communication and on the history of the GDR and the 20th anniversary of Germanyʼs reunification, in the Winter Quarter (102-2) on writing and on contemporary German culture, and in the Spring Quarter (102-3) on reading, theatre, and performance and on 20th -century literature by German-speaking authors.
Prerequisite in German for 102-1: 101-3 or placement exam results
Prerequisite in German for 102-2: 102-1 or placement exam results.
Prerequisite in German for 102-3: 102-2 or placement exam results.

German 104-8 - First Year Writing Seminar - The Nazi Olympics

This course explores the Nazi Olympics, held in Berlin 1936, in relation to religion, philosophy, politics, and the history of fascism. We show how the Nazi Olympics appropriated themes from the ancient Olympics in Greece in order to create a new religious, aesthetic, and political ethos. We also look at the contemporary Olympics, particularly in view of ethics and political activism.

German 221-3 – Introduction to Literature: 1945-today : Short Stories

Prerequisite in German: One 200-level course in German or permission of the DUS.

Advanced Expression

Literature Fine Arts Distro Area

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline

German 228-0 – The German Film : Cinema in the City

Film is the progeny of a period of unprecedented modernization and industrialization, with its development both mirroring and exceeding its birthplace of the expanding metropolis. Drawing on a wide range of classical and lesser-known (but mesmerizing) films from the Weimar period onward, we will consider how space and social relationships are imagined, initially in the national and then increasingly transnational space of the urban metropolis. We will consider an array of prominent visual and thematic tropes in German film through a combination of formal and aesthetic cinematic analysis, consideration of the historical and cultural specificity of each film, accompanying close reading of a selection of classical texts on modernity, mass society, and cosmopolitanism, as well as relevant theories of space, cultures of memory, and globalization. German 228 may be repeated for credit with different topics.
Prerequisites: None.
Literature Fine Arts Distro Area

German 245-0 – Special Topics in German Literature and Culture : Bauhaus and Beyond: German Influences on the Chicago Skyline

This cultural studies course is taught in German and explores the unique history of Chicago in the context of German-American architectural connections. Particular emphasis will be placed on the German Bauhaus School and movement that influenced architectural development in Chicago and worldwide. We will discuss the lives, works, and theories of German-born architects, who played a significant role in shaping the Chicago skyline and also designed signature works in Germany, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Helmut Jahn and Dirk Lohan. Course materials are derived from a variety of sources and media, including articles on history and architecture, websites, photographs, paintings, videos, exhibits, and films. Highlights include exploring the campus from an architectural angle, interviews with German architects, the attendance of architectural tours, including a walking tour in Chicago or Evanston, a river cruise, and creative articles and videos to be shared on the collaborative course website. The course fulfillls an Area VI (Literature and Fine Arts) distribution requirement.

Prerequisite in German: One 200-level course in German or permission of the DUS.

Advanced Expression

Literature Fine Arts Distro Area

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline

German 246-0 – Special Topics in German Literature and Culture : The Invention of Sexuality: Queer East-Central Europe

"Where do our current ideas, vocabulary, and politics about queer sexualities and genders come from? This course examines the birthplace of our modern discourses, concepts, and practices of sexuality when they first emerged in Central and Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We will uncover the origins of “sexuality” as an object of study, while also investigating the emergence of queer sexual identities and notions of deviance. Finally, we will analyze cultural expressions of queer sexualities and individuals across medium and genre (film, music, visual art, literature, etc.) as these ideas were invented, debated, and propagated by activists, scientists, doctors, authors, and artists.

The course follows an interdisciplinary and comparative approach engaging with history, literature, and sexuality studies within the contexts of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Poland, and Russia. Co-taught by a historian (Wilczewski) and a literary scholar (DeSocio), students will engage with methodologies from queer theory, feminist theory, and cultural studies to interrogate how different regimes of sexuality emerge and develop under different socio-political systems (fascism, capitalism, socialism, communism) and transform as they travel across time and place. Throughout the course, we will ground our discussions within the key continuities and differences between this moment in history and the current state of LGBTQ+ rights and communities in the region and in the United States.

Assignments include: regular attendance and in-class participation; short, weekly response papers; an analytic essay; a group book report and presentation."
Prerequisites: None.
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline

German 248 – Learning Diversity: Germany and Global Migration

With the so-called refugee crisis re-defining Europe’s self-perception, Germany is very much in the focus of global attention: The government’s decision to accommodate more than a million refugees in 2015 met praise and criticism alike, both inside and outside of Germany. The influx of hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, Afghanistan, and other countries has given new urgency to questions of what immigration and a diverse population means for Germany and how practices and policies have to change. The class will follow and analyze these discussions from a historical standpoint so that students are better able to evaluate German positions on immigration, citizenship, and diversity today.
Prerequisites: None.
Historical Studies Distro Area

German 307-0 – German Media

In this course, we will attempt to catch up on/stay on top of current political and cultural debates in German media (e.g., print, TV, podcasts, social media). Topics will include: responses to the Israel-Hamas war and the war in Ukraine by the German government and German citizens; the potential banning of the far-right AfD party; worries and excitement about the possibilities of generative AI. Alongside political topics, we will also discuss current developments in culture and media, such as the relatively recent rise of streaming television. There will be ample room for student suggestions as well as for discussions of current events that are not yet foreseeable. The class also aims to give students an overview of the German media landscape in general: Which newspapers and TV channels are suited to fulfill my information needs, and what else can I do to follow current events in Germany?

Prerequisite in German: Three 200-level courses in German or permission of the DUS.

Advanced Expression

German 309-2 – Advanced Business German: Marketing and Management

This advanced Business German course focuses on management and marketing practices in Germany (Betriebswirtschaft). In addition to acquiring a rich Business German vocabulary, students will also develop nuanced cross-cultural knowledge by encouraging students to think critically about cultural differences and how they relate to business practices. Topics to be discussed, among others, are German corporate structures and business culture, intercultural competence, marketing and advertising, career and everyday life. Important vocabulary and relevant grammar structures will be practiced throughout the class. The course prepares students to work in international work environments. This course is a companion course to German 309-1; both courses together will prepare students to work in international work environments.

Prerequisite in German: Three 200-level courses in German or permission of the DUS.

Advanced Expression

German 322-0 – German Contributions to World Literature : German Cultural Criticism (and Beyond)

German society has a particular relationship to the critique of culture. Ever since the philosopher Immanuel Kant described enlightenment as a person’s “emergence from their self-imposed immaturity,” writers and thinkers in German have engaged in a perpetual analysis of the values, practices, and cultural products of their time, with the aim of understanding, evaluating, and, at times, even changing or revolutionizing the culture in which they lived. This class looks at the history of cultural critique through a reading of major texts in German cultural criticism from the late eighteenth century to today, as well as selected texts outside the German critical tradition but indebted to it. We will both examine the history and development of this tradition – from critiques of religious dogma and satires of romantic poetry to mass-media analyses and critiques of contemporary pop culture – and analyze individual case studies for what they have to say about the art and culture of their day, as well as, importantly, how they say it. Students will also have the opportunity to reflect on aspects of their own culture and create a work of original cultural critique based on class models.
Prerequisites: None.
Literature Fine Arts Distro Area

GERMAN 403 – German Literature, Critical Thought, and New Media, 1900-45 (1)

Built around selected key texts on the aesthetic theories of modernism (e.g., by Nietzsche, Adorno, Bürger, and Kittler), this course explores the relationship of literature and the visual arts and scrutinizes the status of literature within aesthetic production in modernity. Particular attention to works by Rilke, Kafka, Brecht, Lasker-Schüler, Benn, Musil, and Mann.

GERMAN 407 – Proseminar (1)

Spring quarter writing workshops in which students complete a research-level paper in conjunction with work in others courses.

GERMAN 441 – Studies in Communication and Culture

Content varies. Samples; feminist literature, media studies, the history of literary journals, and other specific topics representative of current research interests. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Sample TOpics: Trauma; Nietzsche.

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