Courses - Spring 2018

Please note that this webpage will be updated as information becomes available

For GE courses, please check out our General Education Web page.

German 1101.01 • German I

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

GE Foreign Language course
Introduction to language and culture of the German-speaking world, with emphasis placed on the acquisition of basic communication skills in cultural context. CEFR Levels A1/A2. Not open to native speakers of this language through regular course enrollment or EM credits, or to students with 2 or more years of study in this language in high school, except by permission of dept.
Text: ISBN 978-3-12-606128-5  Netzwerk A1: Deutsch als Fremdsprache

German 1102.01 • German II

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

GE Foreign Language course
Continued development of German-language skills and cultural knowledge for effective communication. Emphasis on more advanced language structures, sustained interactions, reading and writing. CEFR Levels A2/B1. Not open to native speakers of this language.
Prereq: 1101.01, or 4 sem cr hrs of 1101.51.
Texts: ISBN 978-3-12-606128-5  Netzwerk A1: Deutsch als Fremdsprache;
and ISBN 978-3-12-606998-4 Netzwerk A2: Deutsch als Fremdsprache

German 1103.01 • German III

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

GE Foreign Language course
Development of skills for independent use of German. Discussions, presentations, writing, & listening/viewing activities that address topics of contemporary German-speaking world. CEFR Level B1. Not open to native speakers of this language through regular course enrollment or EM credit.
Prereq: 1102.01, or 4 sem cr hrs of 1102.51, or 1266.
Text: ISBN 978-3-12-606998-4 Netzwerk A2: Deutsch als Fremdsprache

German 1101.51 • 1102.51 • 1103.51  Self-paced Individualized

GE Foreign Language course
each course is 4 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

German 2101 • Texts and Contexts I: Contemporary German Language, Culture and Society

Frenzel | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018
Heck | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

Development of communication skills and knowledge about recent social, cultural, and political developments in German speaking countries through texts, media and film; CEFR level A2/B1. Closed to native speakers of this language.
Prereq: 1103.01 or 1103.51, or equiv, or permission of instructor. No audit. FL Admis Cond course.

German 2102 • Texts and Contexts II: 20th-Century German Language, History and Culture

Heck | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

Continued development of communication skills; gain an understanding of major social and cultural developments in 20th century German history through texts, media, film. CEFR level B1/B2. Closed to native speakers of this language.
Prereq: 2101 or equiv, or permission of instructor. FL Admis Cond course.
Text:
Damals war es Friedrich (Hans Peter Richter), ISBN: 978-3-423-07800-9.

German 2253 •  Magic, Murder and Mayhem

Grotans | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

Origins and highlights of German culture and life to 1648 as reflected in literary and poetic works, Germanic mythology, religion, and the arts. Come explore the Middle Ages in German literature and culture. You'll meet dragonslayers and come into contact with the Holy Grail, love potions, pirates, and the Thirty Years' War.
GE lit and diversity global studies course. Taught in English.

German 2254 •  Grimms' Fairy Tales and their Afterlives

Richards | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

In the present course, we will be trying to understand the meaning and the enduring appeal of one of Germany’s greatest successes in the realm of cultural exportation—a book whose circulation figures are exceeded in Western culture only by those of the Bible, namely, Grimms’ fairy tales.  This will mean asking a series of interlocking questions.  How did the fairy tales come about?  What were the aims of their compilers?  How do the tales play to those aims?  How do they exceed them?  How do the tales tend to work structurally?  What have their social and psychological effects been?  How have they helped shape—and been reshaped by—popular cultures outside Germany, like popular culture in the U.S.  In reckoning with these questions, we will be enlisting the help of a parade of great critics, including Vladimir Propp, Bruno Bettelheim, Erich Auerbach, and Jack Zipes.
Required Texts:
Jack Zipes, The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm
Assigned films will be available at drm.osu.edu
Other readings will be posted on Carmen.
All works in English translation; taught in English.
Repeatable to a maximum of 9 cr hrs. GE lit course.

German 2256 • FAN FICTION: FROM HOMER TO HARRY POTTER

Birkhold | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

Enthusiastic readers of Harry Potter write sequels, prequels, and spinoffs and post them online every day. But writing fan fiction is far from new. In this course, we will investigate the surprising history of this literary form. Beginning in classical antiquity and ending with J.K. Rowling, we'll analyze works of fan fiction, asking how ideas of originality, authorship, and intellectual property influence art and literature. Along the way, we'll study great works of German literature and philosophy, including texts by Goethe and Kant, whose ideas still shape thinking about fan fiction today. Do characters belong to the authors who create them? Or to the readers who love (or hate) them? We will work together to determine if certain narratives or characters lend themselves to fan fiction and we will examine how works of fan fiction successfully connect to the texts on which they are based. 

All works in English translation; taught in English. GE lit course.

German 3101 • Texts and Contexts III: Historical Perspectives

Grotans | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

Development of intermediate/advanced communication skills; broadening of cultural and historical knowledge through interaction with literary and non-literary materials informed by historical perspective; CEFR level B2. Closed to to native speakers of this language.
Prereq: 2102 or equiv, or permission of instructor.

German 3252 • The Holocaust in Literature and Film

Richards | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

Why, faced with a historical catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, would we devote a class to film and literature about it, rather than to “the facts”?

HOW YOU SAY THINGS MATTERS

Come find out why.

Taught in English. Prereq: Not open to students with credit for 399, or Yiddish 3399 (399). GE lit and diversity global studies course.

German 3300 • EIS, SCHNEE, KÄLTE:WINTER IN DEUTSCHLAND - Topics in German Culture Studies, Social and Intellectual History

Birkhold | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

Beginning with the Winter Olympics (February 2018!), we will explore a cultural history of winter in Germany. We will study Wintersport (Why do so many Germans love biathlon? Who is Katarina Witt?), winter holidays (including Julfest and the solstice), and the countless works of art, literature, and music inspired by ice, snow, and cold from Schubet to Caspar David Friedrich. In addition, we will consider the role of German explorers and thinkers in places that appear to be in a permanent winter: the Arctic and Antarctic (e.g. Neuschwabenland), as well as the place many Germans stereotypically go to escape winter (Mallorca). Finally, we will examine winter as a metaphor, considering German attitudes toward Nuclear Winter and global warming.

The class will be conducted in German. We will discuss and practice advanced topics in grammar and language, and the course will be structured to help students improve reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills.

German 3351 • Democracy, Fascism and German Culture

Davidson | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

Explore the history of the Weimar Republic and of Nazi Germany through the literature, film, music, visual arts and design produced between 1918 and 1945. We will be uncovering the roots of fascism and looking also at its echoes in works created in post-Nazi Germany. What can the cultural products tell us that the history books can’t? Were the 1920s really the golden age of German cinema? How did the arts change after the Nazis came to power in 1933? Why did the Nazis burn books and call certain artistic styles “degenerate”?
Taught in English. Meets Film Studies' Pre-1950s requirement.
Prereq: GE cultures and ideas and diversity global studies course. 

German 3353H • German Intellectual History: Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud

CANCELLED ! | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018  

Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud were the most important theorists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century writing in German. They have had a lasting influence on economic, social, political, philosophical, and cultural thought for the past century.
This course deals with major dimensions of their writings, in particular how they viewed history and historical progress. Their thought is essential for anyone who wants to understand how we think about our society, our history, and ourselves.
GE cultures and ideas course.
Taught in English. All texts are in English.

German 3600 • The Structure and Organization of Spoken German - Topics in German Linguistics/Language

Taleghani-Nikazm | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018 

German 4200 • Imagining Transcultural Communities in German Fiction ~ Senior Seminar in German: Literature, Art and Film (German) 

Fischer | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

As we witness the rise of intemperate nationalism, nativism, and xenophobia in many countries, trans-culturalism seeks to offer alternative answers for populations that suffer under the ill effects of globalization or believe to do so. Concepts of transcultural individualism (often examined in literature and film) can borrow from a long tradition of cosmopolitan visions. But is there also a way to imagine transcultural communities?
The course poses this question to a selection of theoretical and fictional texts (incl. films and music) from 18th-century cosmopolitanism to today’s hipsterism.  
Taught in German. Counts toward fulfillment of advanced requirement for the major.
Prereq: 3101 and one course at the 3000 level, and Sr standing, or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 6 cr hrs.

German 4603 • Translation II

Byram | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

German-English/English-German translation; focus on literary language; emphasis on improvement of style; discussion of major theories of translation.
Prereq: 2102 and 3603, or equiv, or permission of instructor.

German 6300 • Theories and Case Studies ~ Introduction to Intellectual History and Cultural Studies

Mergenthaler | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

Instructors: Prof. May Mergenthaler (OSU) & PD Dr. Christian Meierhofer (University of Bonn)

What are the responsibilities of the humanities in the face of the human-made environmental crises that endanger life on earth? How do the humanities currently respond to these crises?  What is the Environmental Humanities and what should it become in the future?

Students in this course will seek answers to these and related questions by learning about approaches in the growing interdisciplinary field of environmental humanities, including ecocriticism, environmental history and philosophy, cultural geography and anthropology, political ecology, environmental politics, religious and spiritual ecology, ecofeminism and queer ecology, environmental activism, as well as their intersections.

Every week, we will discuss a different approach and apply it to a specific case, taken from literature, film/media, culture, and/or historical or current events. The case studies may be tailored to students’ research interests.

Possible Topics: post-humanism; global environmental contexts; environmental culture, literature, art, and media; eco-aesthetics; migration and climate change; eco- & bioregionalism; postcolonialism and environmentalism; wilderness; environmental ethics and justice; animal and plant rights; the Anthropocene; urban environments; poverty and the environment; environmental privilege and discrimination; nature in religious belief systems; environmental conflict; eco-fascism; environmentalism and the political public sphere; environmental direct action.

Suggested readings in theory: Hartmut Böhme, Robert D. Bullard, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Gabriel Egan, Cheryll Glotfelty, Ursula Heise, Bruno Latour, Joachim Radkau, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Hubert Zapf.

Suggested case studies in literature, film, media, and culture: Djuna Barnes, James Cameron, http://grist.org, www.MotherJones.com, Ursula LeGuin, W.G. Sebald, William Shakespeare, Adalbert Stifter, https://www.treehugger.com/, Ilja Trojanov, Anja Utler, Werner Herzog.

Suggested case studies in activism: Al Gore, Goldman Environmentalism Prize winners (http://www.goldmanprize.org/prize-recipients/), Wangari Maathai, the Ohio Environmental Council (http://www.theoec.org/), Vandana Shiva.

Grading and requirements: participation: 10% presentation: 20%; in-class midterm exam: 35% (March 1, 2018); in-class final exam: 35% (April 19, 2018)

Prereq: Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

German 8200 • Cultural Memory in Microcosm - Seminar in Literature and Literary Culture

Byram | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

This seminar will provide an introduction to the field of memory studies through readings and discussions of two bodies of texts: theoretical writings on the phenomenon of cultural memory, and literary texts that explore the interaction of past and present by relating family histories. The theoretical portion of the course will focus on exploring and understanding key texts in the field and tracing the trajectory of thinking about cultural memory since about 1900 (and especially in the last thirty-five years). In discussing the literary texts, we will consider not only how they position themselves with respect to contemporary discussions about social, political, and cultural history, but also how they employ narrative strategies and inherited narrative genres in this pursuit. For this project, we will read a variety of fictional and (auto)biographical texts from the last four decades.

Final text selections will depend on the interests and reading backgrounds of the students who enroll in the course. If students from outside the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures participate, I will ensure that all readings are available in English and will consider including texts from cultural contexts outside the German-speaking world.
Theory readings may include work by Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Maurice Halbwachs, Pierre Nora, Jan and Aleida Assmann, Paul Connerton, Marianne Hirsch, Valerie Smith, Astrid Erll and Klaudia Seibel

Literary readings may include:
Peter Schneider, Vati  (Daddy)
Peter Henisch, Die kleine Figur meines Vaters (Negatives of my Father)
Peter Handke, Wunschloses Unglück (A Sorrow Beyond Dreams)
Ruth Klüger, weiter leben (Still Alive)
Art Spiegelman, Maus
Monika Maron, Pawels Briefe (Pavel’s Letters)
Günter Grass, Im Krebsgang (Crabwalk)
W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz
Uwe Tellkamp, Der Turm (excerpt!) (The Tower)
Eugen Ruge, In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts (In Times of Fading Light)
Julie Zeh, Die Mittagsfrau or Rücken an Rücken (Blindness of the Heart or Back to Back)
Guntram Vesper, Frohburg (excerpt!)
Katja Petrowskaja, Vielleicht Esther (Maybe Esther)
Nellja Veremej, Berlin liegt im Osten (Berlin is in the East)

Prereq: 6200, or Grad standing, or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs.

German 8300 •  Transcultural Literary Studies: History, Theory, and Literary Analysis ~ Seminar in Intellectual History and Cultural Studies

Fischer | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018  

As we witness the rise of intemperate nationalism, nativism, and xenophobia in many countries, multi- and intercultural politics have been criticized for failing to articulate viable alternatives for populations that suffer under the ill effects of globalization or believe to do so. Theories of trans-culturalism arose out of the concern that part of the problem can be attributed to an underlying identity model that has struggled to set itself sufficiently apart from culturalist (and, as some say, nationalist) traditions.

Conceptualizations of transcultural individualism, often examined (and celebrated) in contemporary fiction, can borrow from a long tradition of cosmopolitan visions. But is there also a way to imagine transcultural communities? It seems sensible to examine whether trans-culturalism’s questioning of the dominance of group identity and privileging of the individual can offer guideposts for conceptualizing ‘personal’ diversity without underplaying the role of class, religion, and community.

The course is designed to discuss the historical development of transcultural concepts from the 18^th century to today and examine their validity in readings of fictional texts (prose, plays, films, music, and fashion). We will devote some time to discussing the peculiar history of transcultural youth movements (from early 19^th century Romanticism to today’s hipsterism).  

Prereq: 6200, or Grad standing, or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 30 cr hrs.

German 8600 • A Conversation-Analytic Approach to Second Language Acquisition - Seminar in Seminar in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

Taleghani-Nikazm | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018  

Conversation Analysis (CA) is a methodology that originated more than 40 years ago as a sociological approach for studying social interaction and language use.  Over the course of its life, CA has spread rapidly beyond the walls of sociology, shaping the work of scholars and practitioners in a variety of disciplines, including linguistics, applied linguistics, psychology, and communication studies.  Particularly, in recent years a body of scholarship has emerged that uses CA approach to study second language acquisition.  This graduate seminar aims to: a) provide students an understanding of the main domains of research in CA (turn taking, repair, action formation and ascription, and action sequencing) and b) to uncover analytic tools and methodological techniques that CA has to offer SLA and L2 interaction. 

You will develop understandings of:

• Theoretical principles of Conversation Analysis
• Implications of CA as an approach to SLA
• Transcribing and systematic analysis of L2 data

Students will also develop powers of observation, attention to detail, and analytical skills.
Readings: Available on Carmen.                           
This course is taught in English.
Prereq: 6600, Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

German 8500 • Doctoral Colloquium

Fischer | 1 credit unit | Spring Semester 2018

Regular student-driven discussions of ongoing dissertations, current topics in the professional field, and new research approaches to Germanic Studies.
Prereq: Successful completion of Ph.D. candidacy exams or permission from Director of Graduate Studies and instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 9 cr hrs. This course is graded S/U. Admis Cond course.

Scandinavian 5150 • Introduction to Old Norse

Swedish 1102 • Swedish II

Risko | 4 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

GE Foreign Language
Development of skills necessary for the independent use of Swedish.  Discussions, presentations, writing and listening/viewing activities address topics of contemporary Sweden.
Prereq: Grade of C- or better in 1101. Not open to native speakers of this language through regular course enrollment or EM credit. GE for Lang Course.
Text: Althén, Anette. Mål 2 Lärobok (textbook with CD); Althén, Anette. Mål Övningsbok (workbook). Both Stockholm: Natur och Kultur (2007 edition).

Swedish 2101 • Texts and Contexts: Contemporary Swedish Language, Culture, and Society

Risko | 4 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

Development of communication skills and knowledge about recent social, political, and cultural developments in Sweden through texts, media, and film.  
Prereq: Grade of C- or better in Swedish 1103. GE for Lang Course.

Yiddish 2367 • Jewish-American Voices in U.S. Literature

Algar | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

GE Cultures and Ideas, GE Writing and Communication: level 2
Introduction to Jewish-American literature; development of expository writing and argumentation skills through systematic and critical reflection upon their own country from the perspective of an ethnic community.
Prereq: English 1110 (110) or equiv.

Yiddish 3371 • Yiddish Literature in Translation

Miller | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

GE lit and diversity global studies course
Reading, analysis, and discussion of representative works and of the development of major movements and genres in Yiddish literature.
Prereq: Not open to students with credit for 371 or JewshSt 3371. Cross-listed in JewshSt. 

Yiddish 3399 • Holocaust in Yiddish and Ashkenazic Literature

Hamblet | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

GE lit and diversity global studies course
Reading and analysis of texts, films and music pertaining to the topic of the Holocaust, the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany against European Jewry, and its impact on Ashkenazic-Jewish civilization.

Yiddish 4721 / 7721 • Studies in Yiddish Literature

Miller | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2018

Advanced study of specific literary periods, figures, and/or topics involving extensive reading and discussion of appropriate primary and secondary source materials.
Repeatable to a maximum of 9 cr. hrs.