Students learn to communicate in German through verbal interaction with instructors and classmates. Particular emphasis is placed on developing conversational and reading skills. Whereas the comprehension of spoken German is stressed in the classroom, basic concepts of grammar are regularly introduced and practiced outside of class in written homework assignments. An intensive language lab program accompanies classroom activities. Conducted in GERMAN. No prerequisite.

Reinforcement and further development of first-year language skills. Emphasis is placed on understanding and conversing in contemporary German. Thorough review of grammatical structures and systematic vocabulary building. Learning activities include readings in and discussion of German culture and literature. Prerequisite: German 1C or consent of instructor.
(VII-B)

This course is designed to help students develop their German writing skills from the intermediate to the advanced level. These skills are comprised of grammatical knowledge, stylistics, and vocabulary, and we’ll work actively on each of these as they pertain to effective writing in German. The course takes a genre-based approach, in which students write and analyze a diverse range of text types. These text types we’ll explore include advertising, journalistic reporting, position papers/essay, biography, the personal journal, personal and professional correspondence, short fiction, and dramatic dialogue. Modes of writing will include individual writing works as well as collaborative projects. Students will write several pages each week, which will be discussed, edited, and improved by the professor and fellow students. Class discussions will be primarily in German. Prerequisite: German 2C or the equivalent with a grade of C or higher. Consult with Professor Levine about equivalencies.

If, as William Faulkner notes, the past is never dead and isn't even past, then the fabric of the present moment is made up of tatters from the past. These remnants of the past are not always recognized as such, however, because, as Goethe writes, each generation cannot effortlessly inherit this legacy but must earn it anew. With this idea in mind, this course will provide an introduction to German literature as a set of texts that inhabit our contemporary existence. Starting with Das schreckliche Mädchen, a film about a girl who tries to discover what happened in her home town during the Nazi period, we will move back in time as we consider works of art as forms of cultural memory. The practical goals of this course will be 1) to introduce students to the development of German literature from the 18th to the 20th century, 2) to develop techniques for analyzing this literature, and 3) to improve listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Texts will include works by Michael Verhoeven, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Bertolt Brecht, Franz Kafka, Gottfried Benn, Georg Büchner, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Texts and discussion in German.

Villains, Monsters, and the Good Man listening in the Attic: Constructions of Evil in
Literature, Film, and Theory
This course examines the ways evil has been constructed, represented, and analyzed in
modern German culture from the 18th century to the present. The investigation will be
framed by short excerpts from a range of changing theoretical understandings of evil (Kant,
Nietzsche, Arendt) but the main focus will be on the many masks and disguises of evil that
can be found in different periods of literary and filmic representation, from the ugly and
vicious to the charming and amusing, and the pitiful, bland, and all-too-normal. Studying
disparate descriptions of villains and monsters in a variety of genres, the course explores
the contradictions of their constructions and asks how these representations can be
understood as responses to their particular historical contexts. Portraits of evil will be
drawn from writings of the Brothers Grimm, Kleist, Hoffmann, Kafka, Brecht, Canetti, Sebald
and others as well as films ranging from Murnau’s Nosferatu to Donnersmarck’s
The Lives of Others. In short papers and presentations students will dissect the
continuities and discontinuities in our notions of evil. Course taught in German, readings
in German.

The fairy tales of the German Romantic period are among the world’s great literary achievements. In this course we will read and discuss not only the most famous of the tales by the Grimm brothers, but also some of the original fairy tales of the German Romantic writers such as Tieck, Novalis, Stahl, Wackenroder and Hoffman. Comparable texts by other European writers including Perrault and Basile as well as American adaptations will provide a broader context and perspective. We will explore the literary, psychological, historical, sociological and political aspects of the Romantic fairy tale. Grading will be based on one exam and written work. Readings in ENGLISH. Taught in ENGLISH.