Course Atlas-Fall 2008

Please see below additional classes which fulfill Major Requirements!

GER 101: Elementary German I ---

Maxim, MWF 9:35-10:25 a.m., Th 9:00-9:50 a.m.
Faculty, MWF 12:50 - 1:40p.m., Tu 9:00-9:50a.m..
Lancaster, MW 11:45 a.m.--12:35 p.m. TTh 11:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m.
Faculty, MWF 2:00-2:50 p.m.. Th 3:00-3:50 p.m.

Max.: 18

This course will be conducted in German.

Content: This is the first of a two-course sequence of elementary German. Focusing on developing students' abilities in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, this  course introduces students to today's German speaking countries in context.  From the first day of class the emphasis is on meaningful communication in  German, both in speaking and in writing. Integrated into the four regularly  scheduled class sessions is one additional practice session a week that  focuses on using newly learned concepts in conversational settings. This  course together with its sequel, German 102, will provide the actively  engaged student with a solid foundation in speaking, writing, reading, and  understanding German and a firm grounding in the principles of German grammar.  

Texts: Deutsch Na Klar!, McGraw Hill, 5th edition. Textbook, a German grammar and dictionary.

Particulars: One-hour exam after each chapter, a final project and oral and written examination. Grading: based on oral class participation, occasional quizzes, assignments and exams. This course is Blackboard supported and offers interactive practice exercises on-line. When followed by German 102, this course will satisfy the language requirement.

Prerequisite: none

GER 190 000: Freshman Seminar - Summit Fever: Mountaineering Literature and Film

Schaumann, MWF 12:50-1:40 p.m.

Max.: 12

Content: Why do men and women become so obsessed with climbing mountains that they endanger their lives to reach a particular summit? While many take mountaineering to be a simple product of the age-old desire to test one’s skill in the wilderness, this seminar will challenge this notion. Tracing the history of mountaineering from its origins to the present, we will focus on three different mountain regions and time periods: the Europeans’ first forays in the Alps in the mid-1800, the race to climb high mountain peaks in the Himalayas in the first half of the 20 th century, and Yosemite’s rock-climbing community in the 1960s and 1970s. Examining fictional and non-fictional accounts in film and literature, we will explore how climbers and non-climbers alike have attempted to describe and justify these endeavors, and use this extreme sport as a window to address larger issues: What does mountaineering tell us about nationalism, racism, and European imperialism? How has mountaineering been used to culturally construct Western notions of masculinity and femininity and informed our understanding of wilderness? Considering the discontents of modernity and the place of tourism and leisure, how is present-day mountaineering both commercialized and romanticized?

Texts: Readings will include Roderick Nash’s Wilderness and the American Mind, Edward Whymper’s Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860-69, Heinrich Harrer’s The White Spider: A Classic Account of the Ascent of the Eiger, Maurice Herzog’s Annapurna: The Epic Account of a Himalayan Conquest and its Harrowing Aftermath, David Roberts’s True Summit: What Really Happened on the Legendary Ascent of Annapurna, and Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster, as well as other sources and films on mountain expeditions.

Particulars: Grading will be based on attendance and participation (20%), weekly response papers (15%), your own mountain narrative (15%), an in-class presentation (5%), and three papers (15% each).

Prerequisite: none

GER 190 001: Freshman Seminar - The Germans

Westbrook, MWF 10:40-11:30 a.m.

Max.: 12

This seminar will be conducted in English

Content: From the fall of the Roman Empire to the "New Europe" of our day, Germans (or German speaking Europeans) have had a profound impact. Their legacy, however, has been mixed. Some of the most important movements in Western culture came out of the German speaking world, including Protestantism, Marxism, Romanticism, the "classical" style of music, psychoanalysis, and the theory of relativity, to name only a few. Yet in the twentieth-century Germans are held responsible for two world wars, National Socialism, and the Holocaust.

This course seeks to explore and explain the ambiguous German legacy, including various ways Germans have sought to come to terms with it since 1945. The approach will be interdisciplinary, integrating aspects of history and politics as much as literature, art, music, and film.

Particulars: Short student presentations throughout the semester, student-led discussions and a final project. Class attendance and active student participation are expected.

Text: TBD

Prerequisite: none

GER 192: Beginning Conversation

Kristina Gugerbauer , Native Speaker , Tu 4:00-4:50 p.m.

Max.: 12

Content: This one-hour class provides an opportunity for students who have had at least one semester or equivalent of German to practice spoken German in conversation about topics chosen by the students.

Prerequisite: German 101 or equivalent

GER 201: Intermediate German I

Ganeshan, MWF 9:35–10:25 a.m.
Westbrook, MWF 12:50-1:40 p.m.

Max.: 14

Content: This course continues to focus on language acquisition. A comprehensive grammar review and frequent short essays serve to strengthen writing skills, while reading, discussing, and interpreting short modern literary texts are designed to advance language proficiency and to deepen knowledge of contemporary Germany.

Texts:
Larry D. Wells. Mitlesen - Mitteilen, Fourth Edition
Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik, Fourth Edition
Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik Arbeitsheft, Fourth Edition

Particulars: Grades are based on attendance and participation, essays, in-class tests, and a final student project. No final exam.

Prerequisite: German 102 or equivalent

GER 210: German for Reading Comprehension

Waniek, TTh 11:30a.m. – 12:45 p.m.

Max.: 12

Content: This intensive course introduces the basics of German grammar and practices reading and translation skills. Intended primarily for graduate students preparing for reading exams, but open to others as well.

Text: Hubert Jannach: German for Reading Knowledge

Particulars: Examinations - one final exam: two texts to be translated into English. Grading - based on class participation, written exercises and exam.

Prerequisite: none

GER 300 : Advanced Grammar, Conversation and Composition: “A Multicultural Germany”

Westbrook, MWF 2:00 - 2:50 p.m.

Max.: 12

This course will be conducted in German

Content: This course concentrates on fine-tuning more advanced principles of German grammar and applying these to weekly writing exercises. The readings, writings, and discussions in this course will be based on the general theme of “A Multicultural Germany”.

Texts: Turneaure, Der Treffende Ausdruck

Particulars: TBA

Prerequisite: German 202 or equivalent

GER 301: German Studies I: Reading German Literature

Aue, TTh 1:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m.p.m.

Max.: 20

This course will be conducted in German.

Content: This course, which constitutes a bridge between language acquisition and literature courses, is a requirement for all German majors and minors. It provides the methodological framework for further study of (German) literature. We will read and discuss (in German) works of fiction, poetry and drama by authors that have been carefully selected to match the linguistic abilities of students who have completed German 202 or the equivalent. The aim of this course is to continue to build linguistic proficiency and to enhance the understanding and appreciation of the literary use of German.

Textx: Listen and Enjoy German Poetry, Best Short Stories, Kafka, Hesse Siddharta

Particulars: Active attendance, response papers and a term paper will each count roughly for one third of your grade

Prerequisite: German 202 or equivalent

GER 320 000: Business German/Berufskommunikation Deutsch

Lancaster: MW 10:30 a.m. –11:20 a.m., Th 10:30 a.m.-11:20 a.m.

Max: 12:

This course will be conducted in German and is the first of the business German sequence leading toward the Certificate for Business German (ZDfB).

Content: This course will introduce you to the language of business German and prepares you to function in business-related communicative situations, such as social introductions, business travel, oral and written contact with customers, basic sales dialogues, and basic business letters. We will also discuss current articles from "Wirtschaftswoche" and statistics from GLOBUS Infografik GmbH.

Texts: Hueber. Dialog Beruf 2. Braun Becker, textbook and workbook .

Particulars: Participation in role plays, group work, and class discussions is crucial. The quality of your performance is important, but also your willingness to try.
Mastering new and subject-specific vocabulary is one of the main goals of this course. Frequent vocabulary quizzes will be given.

Grading: 40% participation and attendance, 20% Final: Oral and Written, 10% Quizzes, 20% Two Tests, 10% Oral Reports.

Prerequisite : German 202 or equivalent

GER 330: German Prose: German Culture after 1989

Schaumann, MWF 3:00 p.m.-3:50 p.m.

Max: 12

This class is taught in German

Content: This seminar focuses on the cultural, political, social, and economical developments after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.  It will introduce students to German literature that responds to unification and its aftermath—globalization, the internet revolution, multiculturalism, 9/11 terrorism, and the demise of communism—but also to the continued reckoning with the Nazi past.  To that end, we will read a variety of prose texts by both established authors and a young generation of writers who came of age in the 1980s and 1990s and negotiate a different German identity than previous generations.  Rather than merely designating their texts as “pop literature,” “Fräuleinwunder,” “German-Jewish,” Turkish-German,” and “Berlin literature,” the seminar invites students to look beyond such (marketing) categories to consider in close reading narration, style, originality, and continuity.

Texts: Selected readings include short stories by Patrick Süskind, Bernhard Schlink, Uwe Timm, Ingo Schulze, Katja Lange-Müller, Arno Geiger, Tanja Dückers, Judith Hermann, Wilhelm Genazino, Peter Stamm, Jakob Hein, Esther Dischereit, Yoko Tawada, Zafer Şenocak, and Clemens Meyer.

Particulars: Weekly readings and written reactions in a threaded discussion environment, active participation, three short papers, one oral presentation, and a final examination.

German 340 000 German Film The German-Jewish-American Rainbow: From Blue Light and Green Fields to Film Noir

Butler, TTh 1:00-2:15 p.m.

Max.:30

Content: This course examines evocations of the European past in the light of
the American present.  "Old World" dreams and nightmares (in works by,
e.g., Leni Riefenstahl, Fritz Lang, and Edgar G. Ulmer) provide the
backdrop for American films of the Cold War Era.  Special attention
will be paid to the cinematic language of Expressionism and the genre
of despairing American movies that critics have dubbed "black film."

Texts:

Particulars: To be announced.

Prequisite: none

GER 350WR: Introduction to German Literature - Topic: Manifestations of Erotic Imagination in German Literature and Culture

Aue, TTh 4:00-5:15 p.m..

Max.: 12

This course will be conducted in English.

Content: In this course, we will read a number of mostly well known German texts, gaining an overview over German literature with an eye toward the various ways in which sex and sexuality have been culturally circumscribed from the Middle Ages to the present. Special attention will be paid to sexuality’s overt and seemingly sudden appearance in fin de siècle German literature, art and scientific discourse. Sigmund Freud will figure prominently in this middle (and central) part of the course, as well as others such as the psychologists Richard Krafft-Ebbing and Otto Weininger, the composers Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, the painters Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, and writers such as Thomas Mann, Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Stefan Zweig, Frank Wedekind, Else Lasker-Schüler, Rainer Maria Rilke and maybe even Bambi-author Felix Salten. In breaking previously established sexual taboos, all of these anticipated and prefigured the sexual revolutions of the twentieth (and twenty first) centuries, and their work helps us put those subsequent revolutions and their literary, artistic and social manifestations in a larger perspective.

Texts such as: Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan and Isolde, J.W.v. Goethe The Sorrows of Young Werther and/or Elective Affinities, Heinrich von Kleist, The Marquise of O. and/or Penthesilea, Friedrich Schiller, Don Carlos, Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening, Otto Weininger, Sex and Character, Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams or The Uncanny, Arthur Schnitzler, La Ronde or Dream Story (the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s film Eyes Wide Shut), poems by Walther von der Vogelweide, Paul Fleming, Goethe, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Rainer Maria Rilke, Else Lasker-Schüler, Ingeborg Bachmann and others.

Particulars: active attendance, short response papers (~10), and a final term paper will each account for roughly one third of your grade.

Prerequisite: None

GER 392: German Conversation

Kristina Gugerbauer , Native Speaker : Tu 5:00 - 5:50 p.m.

Max.: 12

This course will be conducted in German.

Content: The one-hour class provides an opportunity for intermediate and advanced students to practice spoken German in conversation about topics chosen by the students.

Particulars: This course required for German majors, can only be taken satisfactory/unsatisfactory.

Prerequisite: German 202 or equivalent

GER 461 000 WR S: German Literature to 1750 Middle High German and Yiddish

Butler, TTh 10:00 a.m.-11:15 a.m.
This course will be taught in German

Max.: 20

Content: This course introduces students to two variants of the German language.
The juxtaposition of the medieval and the modern illuminates past and present and helps to understand the intertwined history and culture of two peoples that have, at various points, lived together both in peace and in conflict.

Texts:

Particulars:

Prerequisite: German 301 or equivalent

GER 470/PHIL 480R: Seminar on Individual Philosophers: Nietzsche

Mitchell, W 2:00-4:00, MAX: 16

Content: A seminar covering the main periods of Nietzsche’s development with continued emphasis on his conception of the will to power. Topics to be considered include: aesthetic self-creation and the work of art, amor fati and freedom, the death of God, the critique of rationality, eternal recurrence and the problem of history, ressentiment and reactivity

Texts:

Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings

________. The Gay Science

________. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everybody and Nobody

________. On the Genealogy of Morality and Other Writings

________. The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings

Particulars: Seminar Presentation; Seminar Paper (15-20 pages)

GER 495WR: Honors Program

Faculty

GER 497: Directed Studies

Butler and Schaumann

In addition to our own course offerings, there are several courses being offered in other departments that would count toward the major.  Here is a quick summary of those:

- Prof. Mitchell's course on Nietzsche in the Philosophy dept (PHIL 480 - cross-listed with GER 470)
- Prof. Eckert's course on Modern German History (1871-present) in the History Dept (HIST 318)
- Prof. Goodstein's course on Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud in ILA (IDS 385 WR)
- Prof. Bammer's course on Holocaust Memoirs also in ILA (IDS 385)
ama@emory.edu