The four-skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) introduction to the Russian Language with the focus on communicative skills development. Major structural topics include pronunciation and intonation, all six cases, basic conjugation patterns, and verbal aspect. By the end of the course the students will be able to initiate and sustain conversation on basic topics, write short compositions, read short authentic texts and comprehend their meaning, develop an understanding of the Russian culture through watching films and listening to songs.

We will read and discuss current writing on politics, culture and the arts. Drawn from a variety of print and online sources (including The New Yorker, Arts and Letters Daily, and Bomb), subjects will range from literature, cinema, and art to international politics, crime, and celebrity culture. Using strategies and techniques learned from the readings, students will write essays and articles of their own.

What constitutes contemporary German culture within global perspectives? How might we apply critical race theory, critical social theory, ethnic studies, and queer studies, in order to interpret trajectories of German cultures, histories, and memories? Building on interdisciplinary close-readings of German-speaking cultural production ranging from novels to documentary film, students develop a research topic that spans the humanities, sciences, and/or social sciences.

This course emphasizes further development of contextual reading, writing, and speaking skills in German. Focus on strategies that help students learn vocabulary and use grammatical structures in appropriate ways. Discussion of a variety of texts and genres, as well as exploration of topics such as immigration and social justice. Frequent writing assignments and speaking opportunities.

This course introduces speaking, reading, and writing German. Cultural and literary readings together with frequent use of video and other online resources dealing with everyday situations and experiences in the German-speaking countries sensitize students to the cultural context in which the language is used. Weekly conversation sessions with a German language assistant supplement class work.