German Studies
Term:    Level:  

Fall Quarter

Dept Course No and Title Instructor
GERMAN (F18)2A  INTERMEDIATELEVINE, G.
Emphasizes communicative skills for the purposes of interaction with German speakers and intermediate study of German. With a learner-centered approach, helps students develop reading, writing, speaking, listening, grammatical, and cultural skills and knowledge. First-year grammar is reviewed and expanded.
GERMAN (F18)105  GERMAN PROFESSIONSLEVINE, G.
This course is conducted entirely in German and intended for students who have completed at least German 2B with a grade of C or better, or the equivalent; it can be taken following German 2C, or concurrently with German 2C as co-requisite. The course is taught entirely in German. The main goals of the course are to advance your German at the high intermediate level, teach you some of the discourses and genres of German as part of professional life with a particular emphasis on German in the sciences and technology, particularly biological, physical, and environmental sciences and engineering.

Specifically, in this course students investigate several topics related to science and technology in the German-speaking world, Europe and the world in a broad-based but also critical way. The overarching themes are “Der Mensch und die Natur” and “Der Mensch und die Technik” and include the following specific topics along with “essential questions” addressed in each segment, specifically considering how the issue is being dealt with and debated in Germany, Austria, and Europe in general:

Die Menschen und die Natur

• Menschen und ihr Abfall: „Wohin mit dem Müll?“
• Menschen und die Umwelt: „Welche Maßnahmen sind am effektivsten, um die Erderwärmung zu verlangsamen oder anhalten?“

Die Menschen und die Technologie

• Roboter und künstliche Intelligenz: „Roboter und künstliche Intelligenz – Hilfe oder Menschenersatz?“
• Gentechnisch modifiziertes Lebensmittel (GVO, oder Genfood): „Sollen genetisch modifizierte Lebensmittel verboten werden?“

Through exploring these topics and questions, the course provides an introduction to communicating in German in the professional world, which includes business, non-governmental organizations, engineering, biological and medical sciences, etc. You also will learn to deal with many common professional situations (presentation, negotiation, argumentation, persuasion), as well as about German society and Germany within the European Union. Class time is spent with discussions and simulations of numerous sorts. Writing tasks will mirror those sorts of writing valued in professional life (resume writing, email, formal letters, briefs and reports, etc.).
GERMAN (F18)1A  FUNDAMENTALSLEVINE, G.
Emphasizes the development of meaningful communicative skills in German for the purposes of interaction with German speakers and beginning study of German. With a learner-centered approach, the courses help students develop speaking, listening, reading, writing, and cultural skills and knowledge.
GERMAN (F18)150  CUSINE AS CULTURLEVINE, G.
In our study of the history and culture of particular peoples or countries, we most often focus on political and historical events, such as wars, monarchial reigns, or on aspects of social, political and economic change. We also investigate cultural artifacts created by a people, such as music, the visual arts, and literature. Food and the act of nourishing the body are considered by many to be so fundamental that they require no conscious reflection or consideration, that they are somehow independent of culture or history, or perhaps just the (by-)products of those. With a focus on the regions and countries of Europe, in this course we will explore the many ways that culinary culture both relates to, reflects, and in fact manifests historical events, cultural norms, cultural identities, and belief and value systems. Though our primary focus will be on the period from the early modern period to the present, we’ll begin in the medieval period and eat our way through the centuries, stopping at various stations to consider how food and drink, the acts of eating and drinking, and of course the production and preparation of food and drink, related to the many wars in Europe, the maintenance or subversion of social systems, and the regulation of social roles, such as those of men and women, rich and poor etc.

At the end of this course you should have a broad-based knowledge of the history of food and food culture in (primarily western and central) Europe, and you should have become a critical analyst and consumer of food in its relationships to culture and historical events. In the process of our culinary investigation, you’ll also become comfortably familiar with many traditional dishes and culinary traditions of France, Germany, Austrian, Britain, Spain, Italy, and other European countries.

COURSE MATERIALS
1. Flandrin, Jean Louis, and Montanari, Massimo (Eds.). Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present (European Perspectives). Penguin Books, 1999/2000.
2. Numerous pdf files, which are chapters and articles on a variety of topics. Each is clickable in the online Canvas site (course participants only). The readings include theoretical texts on foodways and culinary history and culture (e.g. Lévi-Strauss, Bourdieu, Elias, Bakhtin), and secondary literature by historians, anthropologists and sociologists (e.g. Albala, Counihan, Flandrin, Montanari).

Prerequisite: None.
GERMAN (F18)53  ADV CONVERSATIONLEVINE, G.
The goal of this course is to help students develop their German speaking and listening comprehension skills at the intermediate or advanced level. Class activities include structured as well as open-ended discussion of current events and other topics of interest to class participants, short presentations by students, as well as other modes of interpersonal and presentational communication, such as debate and poetry recitation. Performance is assessed through demonstrated progress in speaking and listening comprehension. Conducted entirely in German.

Prerequisite or co-requisite: German 2C.