Courses - Spring 2022

German 1101.01 • German I

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

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: Impuls Deutsch 1

German 1102.01 • German II

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

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 1101.51/1101.61.
Text: Impuls Deutsch 1

German 1103.01 • German III

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

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 1102.51/1102.61.
Text: Netzwerk A2: Deutsch als Fremdsprache

Distance Learning option

1101.02 - Text: Impuls Deutsch 1
1102.02 - Text: Impuls Deutsch 1
1103.61 - Text: Netzwerk A2: Deutsch als Fremdsprache (SP22 only)
GE Foreign Language course

Spring Semester 2022

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

tbd | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

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 1103.61, or equiv, or permission of instructor. No audit. 

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

Heck | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

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. No audit.

German 2254 • Grimms' Fairy Tales and Their Afterlives

Richards | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

In this DL course, you will explore the many sides of the Grimms’ fairy tales from the classics to the lesser-known, tracing their development from mythic, folkloric, Italian, and French sources up through their modern politicization and popularization by Disney in Germany and beyond.  
All works in English translation; taught in English.
Repeatable to a maximum of 9 cr hrs. GE lit course.

German 3101 • Texts and Contexts III: Historical Perspectives

Heck | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

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 3200 • Krisen und Katastrophen - Topics in German Literature, Art, and Film 

Byram | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

This course examines creative responses to cultural, political, and global crises, and explores how change in the “real world” coincides with turning points in art, literature, and film, as artists re-think why and how they make art. The course has three main goals: 1) to help students reflect on the relationship between art and society; 2) to broaden students’ knowledge of German-language culture in the 20th and 21st centuries; and 3) to improve students’ communication skills in German (reading, writing, listening, and speaking). During the semester, we will focus on three eras of crisis: the growth of urban modernity around 1900, WWII and its aftermath, and the challenges of today’s world, including the climate crisis and migration.

The class will be conducted in German.
Prereq: 2102 or equiv; or permission of instructor.

German 3252.02 • The Holocaust in Literature and Film

Richards | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

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 3252.01, or Yiddish 3399. GE lit and diversity global studies course.

German 3300 • Queer Germany - Topics in German Culture Studies, Social and Intellectual History

Birkhold | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

In this course we’ll explore queer German cultures, beginning with the organized homosexual emancipation movement in the mid-nineteenth century and ending with contemporary discussions of the existence of multiple genders. We will watch classic lesbian cinema, read canonical gay literature, examine queer comics, read articles from the world’s first magazine for transgender people, parse scientific and pseudo-scientific texts, and read foundational works of queer theory to better understand the rich history and current pluralities of queer Germany. In the second half of the course, we will study and stage Frank Wedekind’s controversial and often-banned 1891 play Frühlings Erwachen. 

Taught in German.
Prereq: 2102 or equiv, or permission of instructor.

German 4300 • Culture and Race after the Nazi Era: German Examples from the Wirtschaftswunder to the Wiedervereingung • Senior Seminar in German: Culture Studies, Social and Intellectual History (German)

Davidson | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

Using examples from literature, film, and music, this course explores what shifts about definitions and attitudes of race in the two Cold War Germanys – and what doesn’t. 

Taught in German.
Meets TR 2:20-3:40

German 4603 • Translation II

Reitter | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

German-English/English-German translation; focus on translating different text types and genres (including literature, non-fiction, journalism, etc.); emphasis on improvement of style; discussion of major theories of translation. The course will culminate in a group project, in which students will produce a text for publication.
Prereq: 2102 and 3603, or equiv, or permission of instructor.

Scandinavian 

Professor Kaplan is on sabbatical 2021-22

Swedish 1102 • Swedish 2

Risko | 4 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

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).

Yiddish 

Yiddish courses are planned to resume
beginning in AU22 semester.

German 6601 • Teaching Practicum

Taleghani-Nikazm | 1 credit unit |  Spring Semester 2022

This course is for GTAs who are teaching a 1000-level German language class. The course provides graduate students with instruction and practice in designing and implementing instructional materials for their undergraduate classes. It offers best practices in creating tests, developing speaking portfolios, designing culture components, and becoming reflective practitioners.
Prereq: Grad standing, and permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 10 cr hrs. This course is graded S/U.

German 8200 • Queer Literature - Seminar in Literature and Literary Culture

Birkhold | 3 credit units | Mondays 8:00-10:45am  | Spring Semester 2022

German thinkers have long engaged concepts of queerness. A German coined the word “homosexual” in 1869. And in 2017 Germany legally recognized the existence of a third gender. The word “queer” even comes from the German. How queer is German literature? In this course, we’ll examine how German literature took (and takes) part in social, legal, medical and philosophical questions about sex and gender. Beginning in 1800 with the biologization of gender, we’ll read canonical and overlooked novels, foundational texts from the 1930s and 1970s gay movements, and classic works of queer theory. Authors include: Dorothea Schlegel, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, Christa Winsloe, Rosa von Praunheim, and contemporary works by Zora del Buono and Fabian Hirschmann. Plus: Butler, Foucault, Sedwick, Bersani. 

Prereq: 6200, or Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

German 8300 • Vergangenheitsbewältigung - Seminar in Intellectual History and Cultural Studies

Holub | Mondays 1:45-4:30pm | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2022

For at least five postwar decades German intellectual and cultural life was haunted by the shadows of the Nazi Past. In particular the horrors of the war and the enormity of the cruel and murderous actions in the Holocaust have caused German intellectuals, writers, filmmakers, statesmen, and poets to reflect upon the nature of German actions and their consequences. This seminar is dedicated to examining how postwar Germans came to terms with war and the Holocaust. The response in Germany has been such that a single term is used for this phenomenon: Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which means literally “mastering the past,” but which is understood to deal specifically with confronting the crimes of the Third Reich. We will look at various responses in several different areas of intellectual and cultural life, from philosophy and public debates to poems and films. We will discern that there are several periods to “Vergangenheitsbewältigung,” and that the nature of Germans dealing with their past (and the past of their fathers/mothers and grandfathers/grandmothers) has changed over time.

Prereq: 6200, or Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

German 8600 • Interactional Competence in a Second Language - Seminar in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

Taleghani-Nikazm | Thursdays 4:00- 6:45pm | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2022  

In recent years there has been a growing body of research that focuses on interaction and language learning. This research has shown that interactional competence (IC) is a significant part of being able to successfully participate in social interactions in a second language. L2 IC is understood as the ability to deploy L2 resources (morpho-syntax, lexicon, prosody, and other semiotic resources) in interaction in context-sensitive ways to accomplish actions recognizably for the other interlocutors.

The aim of this seminar is to gain an understanding of the nature and the development of L2 IC and to learn about the new perspectives on the teaching and the assessment of interactional competence in a second language. We will begin by learning about the theoretical and methodological approaches to researching the development of L2 IC, and what roles particular language skills and communicative practices play in the development and use of interactional skills. We will then move to examining research-informed instruction of L2 IC and end the seminar with a discussion of assessment of L2 IC and what counts as evidence of IC and rating rubrics.

Selected readings:

Galaczi, E., & Taylor, L. (2018). Interactional competence: Conceptualisations, operationalisations, and outstanding questions. Language Assessment Quarterly, 15(3), 219–236.

Hall, J. K., Hellermann, J. & Pekarek Doehler, S. (2011). L2 interactional competence and development. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Huth, T. (2021). Interaction, language use, and second language teaching. Taylor & Franics Group. (available as E-Book through the library)

Kunitz, S., Markee, N. & Sert, O. (2021) Classroom-based conversation analytic research: Theoretical and applied perspectives on pedagogy. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. (available as E-Book through the library)

May, L., Nakatsuhara, F., Lam, D., & Galaczi, E. (2020). Developing tools for learning oriented assessment of interactional competence: Bridging theory and practice. Language testing, 37(2), 165-188.

Salaberry, M. R., & Kunitz, S. (2019). Teaching and testing L2 interactional competence: Bridging theory and practice. New York, NY: Routledge. (available as E-Book through the library)

German 6600 is *not* a prerequisite for this course.

This course may be counted towards the Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Second Language Studies

Scandinavian 

Professor Kaplan is on sabbatical 2021-22