Winter 2025 Class Schedule

• Winter 2025 Class Schedule
• Winter 2025 Course Descriptions

Winter 2025 Class Schedule

*101 and 102 courses will be 70 minutes long, even though they are listed as 80 minutes on CAESAR. 

Winter 2025 course descriptions 

GER 101-1,2,3 : Beginning German 

This is the first quarter of the Beginning German sequence: a systematic introduction to basic German. All four language skills - speaking, listening comprehension, reading and writing - are stressed to insure that students acquire a basic command of German. Classes are conducted in German, with occasional use of English. Key feature of this quarter: Individual oral interviews at the end of the quarter.
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.

GER 102- 1,2,3 : Intermediate German

This is the second quarter of a three-quarter sequence of Intermediate German. The thematic focus this quarter is on contemporary Germany as a multi-ethnic society. As materials we will use the TV show Türkisch für Anfänger and articles from a variety of German magazines or newspapers. We will follow recent 21st-century German cultural and political questions. All language skills are practiced throughout the year, but each quarter focuses on different language areas. In the Winter quarter we focus on colloquial and idiomatic contemporary language. The Spring quarter will be devoted to excerpts from German literary works of varying genres and discussion arising from them. The fall quarter was dedicated to 20th-century German history and politics through a literary lens.
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 115 – Intensive Beginning German through Musical Journeys in Vienna

The fascinating musical and cultural history of the metropolis Vienna serves as the basis for this
Intensive Beginning German course which provides musically interested students with the option to acquire German language skills through an intensive immersion in the topic in an interdisciplinary context. The goals of the course include the contextualized development of speaking, writing, reading, and listening skills in German and the acquisition of a basic general and musical vocabulary as well as a solid grammatical basis. Activities will draw on the lives and works of composers between 1750 and 1950 including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Johann Strauß, and Alban Berg. Students will read short biographies, letters, poetry and prose, watch relevant films and videos, study paintings and maps of Vienna, learn about important institutions and historical facts about the city, and explore current cultural events.
Prerequisite in German: None or one year of high-school German.

German 201-0 – Focus Reading - Art in the Modern Age

This course is for students in intermediate German who would like to improve basic reading skills by exploring vital German cultural texts in depth. There are two versions of the course. This course examines the explosion of art and industry at the turn of the century that for the first time included substantial opportunities for women. The class will provide an introduction to the period of the German Empire or Kaiserreich 1871 – 1918. This epoch in German history is emblematic for modernism. Through short historical texts, biographies, letters and journals, students will learn about social issues, art movements and the German politics of the period that included Bismarck, artistic colonies and war. Students will become acquainted with the artworks of Käthe Kollwitz, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Gabriele Münter and more. Visits to the Art Institut, the Block Museum and the Milwaukee Art Museum are planned. Students will complete a project-based presentation and paper in lieu of a final exam.
Prerequisite in German: German 102-2. (This course will not count for the language requirement but may be taken concurrently with 102-3.)

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

This course, designed for majors and non-majors, introduces students to representative short stories by major German-speaking authors’ writing from 1945 through the present. The stories selected are representative of a dynamic period in German literature and highlight important social, political, and intellectual issues including questions of the recent German past and the representation of history; questions of individual versus collective guilt, questions of gender and sexuality, exile and alienation, the relationship of the individual to a modern technological society; and new themes and issues since the reunification of Germany. In addition, the course examines the genre of the short story, with attention to different modes and styles of writing.

By keeping the number of students in the class relatively small, there will be ample opportunity to practice the close reading of literary texts and the analysis of complex works of art in a foreign language.

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

This course counts for Distribution Area VI.

Advanced Expression

Literature Fine Arts Distro Area

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline

German 309-0 – The German Market and the Globalized Economy

This course will give you an overview of the German economy, its underlying structures, its current trends and some of the political and global issues it is facing today. Throughout the course, you will gain tools that will enable you to become well-versed in German economic and sociopolitical topics. While the course is designed to introduce you to a variety of issues, you will also be able to delve deeper into one topic of your choice for your final project, such as national health care insurance or immigration. Although content-driven, the course will also further develop your language skills. You will expand your vocabulary and become familiar with advanced grammar structures used heavily in the business context. In-class activities and will focus on how to present graphics and statistics, and lead informative discussions in a business setting.
Prerequisite in German: Two 200-level courses in German or permission of the DUS.

Advanced Expression

German 328-0 – Prague: City of Cultures, City of Conflict

Examination of the cultural, political, and social transformation of Prague from the 19th century to the present. Cosmopolitan Prague, communist Prague, and capitalist Prague. SLAVIC 328-0 and GERMAN 328-0 are taught together; may not receive credit for both courses.

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline

Global Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity

Historical Studies Distro Area

Interdisciplinary Distro - See Rules

Literature Fine Arts Distro Area

German 331-0 – Shattered Worlds: Representation after the Shoa

The course offers an historical, literary, and filmic introduction to the topic of "art and literature after—or, respectively, about—Auschwitz." Readings address questions such as: What is the role of art in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century in view of this so-called breach of civilization? How can we define the relationship between art and politics? How can—or perhaps why should—poetry continue to be written after Auschwitz? Important contributions by a variety of influential authors will be discussed in their cultural context.

Prerequisite in German: Three 200-level courses in German (at least one in literature) or permission of the DUS.

This course counts for Distribution Area VI.

Advanced Expression

Literature Fine Arts Distro Area

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline

German 334-0 – Writers and their Critics - Writers and their Readers: Kafka 

Courses under this rubric will expose students to texts of leading writers in German through a discussion of the criticism these texts have evoked. Students will thereby be given the opportunity to reflect on the relationship between literary texts and their historical and critical interpretation. A century after his untimely death in 1924 Kafka’s literary, cultural, and political significance has only increased, for his uncanny imaginary speaks with renewed urgency to readers across the globe. In the first three weeks we read a sample of Kafka’s writings, shorter writings, including “The Judgment,” “The Transformation [Metamorphosis],” “The Stoker,” and “A Hunger Artist.” In the fourth week, we turn to the reflection on Kafka’s life and work that Walter Benjamin in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of his death. In the following five weeks we consider three literary responses to Kafka’s work from around the world, specifically those of Ingeborg Bachmann, J. M. Coetzee, and Han Kang. Readings are in English, and so, too, the discussion; but the class welcomes students who can read the texts in the original languages (German, English, and Korean).
Please consult Caesar for current topic. German 334 may be repeated for credit with different topics.
Prerequisites: None.
This course counts for Distribution Area VI.

Advanced Expression

Literature Fine Arts Distro Area

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline

GERMAN 401 – German Literature and Critical Thought, 1750-1832 - Aesthetics and Political Theology

GERMAN 402 – German Literature and Critical Thought, 1832-1900 - Theories of Realism 

This course looks at the notion of realism as both historical literary movement and epistemological/aesthetic problem. We will read classic theories of realism by Hegel, Auerbach, Barthes, Lukács, Blumenberg, and others, as well as significant new work by contemporary critics and theorists, together with exemplary texts of nineteenth-century European realist prose fiction. The temporal focus of the class will be mid- to late-nineteenth-century Europe and the particular literary form that dominated at this time; however, we will also go beyond this to look at the philosophical and ideological underpinnings of the notion of “realism” itself. Special attention will be devoted to the following questions: the purpose of genre, the place of the human, the relationship between realism and reality (or the real), the elevation of the ordinary, and the possibilities and limits of representation.

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