Special Topics
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
Fall and spring semester. Members of the Department.
(Offered as GERM 368, ARCH 368, EUST 368, and FAMS 368.) This research seminar will explore conceptions of space as they have informed and influenced thought and creativity in the fields of cultural studies, literature, architecture, urban studies, performance, and the visual, electronic, and time-based arts.
(Offered as GERM 352 and EUST 342.) Representative works by each of the three contemporary authors will be read both for their intrinsic artistic merit and as expressions of the cultural, social, and political concerns of their time. Among these are such topics as the dehumanization of the individual by the state, people caught between conflicting ideologies, and literature as admonition, political statement, or escape.
(Offered as GERM 347 and FAMS 323.) This course examines the German contribution to the emergence of film as both a distinctly modern art form and as a product of mass culture. The international success of Robert Wiene’s Expressionist phantasmagoria, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), heralded the beginning of a period of unparalleled artistic exploration, prior to the advent of Hitler, during which the ground was laid for many of the filmic genres familiar today: horror film (F.W.
The course with the shortest reading list ever-not! Contrary to popular opinion, Germans (and their Austrian and Swiss neighbors) do have a sense of humor that has produced a wide variety of both high-brow and popular forms, ranging from the absurdist skits of Karl Valentin and Liesl Karlstadt, to raunchy “Ostfriesenwitze,” and to the current boom in sex and “relationship” comedies in film. We will explore broadsheets and cartoons (Wilhelm Busch, Loriot, E. O.
A survey of literary and cultural developments in the German tradition from the Romantic Period to contemporary trends. Major themes will include the Romantic imagination and the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century, the literary rebellion of the period prior to 1848, Poetic Realism and the Industrial Revolution, and various forms of aestheticism, activism, and myth.
Practice in free composition and analytical writing in German. Exercises in pronunciation and idiomatic conversation. Supplementary work with audio and video materials. Oral reports on selected topics and reading of literary and topical texts. Conducted in German. Three hours per week, plus one hour per week in small sections for additional practice with German language assistants.
Requisite: GERM 205 or equivalent, based on departmental placement decision. Spring semester. Professor Gilpin.
A continuation of GERM 101, with increased emphasis on reading of selected texts. Three class meetings per week plus one additional conversation hour in small sections, with individual work on Moodle.
Requisite: GERM 101 or equivalent. Fall semester: Senior Lecturer Emerita Schütz. Spring semester: Senior Lecturer Emerita Schütz and Visiting Professor Gutzmann.