Courses - Spring 2023 | Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

GERMAN SCANDVN / SWEDISH YIDDISH

For GE courses, please check out our General Education Webpage.

German 1101.01 • German I

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

GEN World Languages
GEL 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.
Text: Impuls Deutsch 1
CEFR Levels A1/A2. Not open to native speakers of this language through regular course enrollment or EM credit, or to students with 2 or more years of study in this language in high school, except by permission of dept.

German 1102.01 • German II

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

GEN World Languages
GEL 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.
Text: Impuls Deutsch 1
Prereq: 1101.01, 1101.02 or 4 sem cr hrs of 1101.51

German 1103.01 • German III

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

GEN World Languages
GEL 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.
Text: Impuls Deutsch 1
CEFR Level B1. Not open to native speakers of this language through regular course enrollment or EM credit.

Prereq: 1102.01, 1102.02 or 4 sem cr hrs of 1102.51

German 1101.02 • 1102.02 • 1103.02

Distance Learning option

GEN World Languages
GEL Foreign Language course
4 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

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

tbd | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023
tbd | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

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, 1103.02, or 4 sem cr hrs of 1103.51, 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 2023
Heck | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

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.

German 2251 • German Science Fiction - German Literature and Popular Culture

GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL Literature

Richards | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

In this course, you will encounter many of the lesser known yet singularly outstanding works of speculative and critical fiction from the German-speaking world. We will read the post-war prediction of a corporate disneyocracy of clones, drones, spies and nanotechnology in The Glass Bees (1957), examine the evolution of today’s German security policy through the allegorical Intergalactic Empire of The Hair Carpet Makers (1995), gasp in horror at the monolithic Kaiju – a towering amalgam of beasts, humans and plants - as it hulks its sentient mass menacingly towards Europe in Mountains, Seas and Giants (1924), and we’ll follow a family struggling to survive in the nuclear wasteland that was once Germany in The Last Children of Schewenborn (1983). Through film, novels and an anthology of the best German Science Fiction, students will explore the theoretical and hypothetical underpinnings of our technologies while simultaneously tracking the history of their social impact in Industrial Europe.

GEL lit course. Taught in English.

German 2251 • German-Jewish and Yiddish TV: Cultural Memory and Mass Media

GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL Literature

Johnson | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

In the aftermath of World War II, television played an outsized role in the representation, reassessment, and memorialization of German-Jewish and Yiddish culture and society.

In the first part of this course, we will watch and analyze broadcast news reports about postwar trials, miniseries such as Holocaust, and survivor testimonies and oral history interviews.

In the second part of this course, we will further consider how television became a tool to rethink Jewish culture, memory, and self-understanding in Europe, the United States, and Israel/Palestine. We will investigate how shows such as Transparent and Babylon Berlin represent and reimagine Jewish life in the Weimar Republic; how shows such as The Nanny, Seinfeld, and RuPaul’s Drag Race use comedy to contend with the impact of migration and acculturation on Jewish life in the United States; and how shows such as Shtisel and Unorthodox incorporate Yiddish dialogue and grapple with the tension between orthodox religion and the contemporary world.

In addition to serving as an introduction to German-Jewish and Yiddish culture and society, this course will equip students with the methodological tools to study media and culture more broadly.

No knowledge of German or Yiddish required.

GEL lit course. Taught in English.

German 2254.02 • Grimms' Fairy Tales and their Afterlives

GEN Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts
GEL Literature

Richards | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

In the present DL 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.

German 3101 • Texts and Contexts III: Historical Perspectives

Grotans | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

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 • Romantic Ecologies - Topics in German Literature, Art, and Film

Mergenthaler | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

Romanticism has been associated with a love and enthusiasm for nature that has, in recent years of climate change and an increasing awareness of the human destruction of the natural world created a new interest in the period as a precursor of ecological thought and culture. In this course, we will explore the question to what extent in particular German Romanticism is, in fact, anticipating contemporary ecological culture, by exploring selection of literary, scientific, and philosophical texts dealing with nature, both beautiful and sublime, lovely and terrifying and gothic.

We will read a manageable selection of works from various genres that will help students to refine and further develop their language skills and their ability to speak and write about a variety of topics related to these works. The readings will be complemented by painting and music from the period. Students will complete a series of short writing assignments of varying formats throughout the semester and give one oral poster presentation during the last week of instruction.

For more information contact May Mergenthaler (mergenthaler.4@osu.edu).

The class will be conducted in German. Counts toward fulfillment of advanced requirement for the major.
Prereq: 2102 or equiv; or permission of instructor.

German 3252.02 • The Holocaust in Literature and Film

Reitter | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

GEL Literature
GEL Diversity: Global Studies
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World

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.

German 3300 • Body Modification - Topics in German Culture Studies, Social and Intellectual History

Porter | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

German 3300 is designed to guide students through examples of body modification prevalent and influential in German-speaking Europe starting in the 18^th century through the 21^st century. Over the course of the semester, students will engage with and discuss pieces of literature, visual art, historical documents, articles written for native German speakers, as well as analyze German film. Further, students will present on topics of their choice in connection with the subject matter of the course to further develop and strengthen their spontaneous German language skills and personalize their active vocabulary.

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

German 3351 • Democracy, Fascism, and German Culture

Davidson | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

GEL Culture and Ideas; Global Studies
GEN Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World

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.

German 3600 • Deutsch heute - Topics in German Linguistics/Language

Grotans | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

In this course we look at HOW the German language is used today. We’ll start out with an overview of the elements that make up German, e.g., its sounds, words (and how to make them) and how they’re put together. Next we’ll look at the numerous varieties that make up the German language, including dialects, sociolects and ethnolects. Further topics:

- language and gender
- minority and immigrant languages in Germany
- the influence of foreign languages on German
- modern attitudes toward language change
- the role of German in the EU and the world
- German in the media and advertising

And, all along we’ll be practicing YOUR German skills! Taught in German.
Prereq: 2102 or equiv, or permission of instructor.

German 4191 • Internship in German

Birkhold | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

Are you interested in using your German language skills in the field? Sign up for a part-time internship (8 hours/week)! In German 4191 you will gain professional experience and earn up to 3 credits. Internship schedules will be designed to accommodate your other classes.

Potential placements include: Ohio History Connection, Columbus Sister Cities, Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, German Village Society, Ohio German Language School and more. Students will be matched with an internship based on their interests.

For more information, contact Professor Matthew Birkhold: Birkhold.22@osu.edu

Note: Permission required to enroll. This course will count toward the elective requirement for the German major but does not count towards the advancement requirements.

German 4300 • Protest, Rebellion und Revolution • Senior Seminar in German: Culture Studies, Social and Intellectual History (German)

Byram | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

German-speaking Europe may have a reputation for discipline and order, but it has a long history of rebellious citizens, philosophers, and artists. The effects of their thought and action have continued to influence and shape the culture of Germany, Europe, and the world up to the present day. This course will explore historical and contemporary revolutions and protests in three areas of German cultural life: politics, philosophy, and popular culture and the fine arts. As they read and view work by rebellious Germans, students will 1) gain knowledge of a range of revolutionary cultural developments, their relationship to each other, and their continuing impact on contemporary culture in Germany and the world and 2) expand their ability to read, listen, think, discuss, and write critically in German. Assignments throughout the semester will guide students in investigating a revolutionary movement or moment of their choice and in and developing a sophisticated presentation about it.

Readings and topics in the past have included 19th-century nationalism, communism and socialism, National Socialism, and dissidents in East Germany. According to student interests, we will also choose one or more of the following topics: anti-nuclear protests and the founding of the Green Party, the Alternative for Germany party, and/or protests against coronavirus restrictions.

Taught in German.

German 4602 • German for the Professions II

Heck | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

4602 will continue to develop cultural and language skills in the business context. Particular areas of focus will be: issues involved in working in a team, e.g., clear communication and conflict, telephone etiquette, and developing strategies and techniques as well as the linguistic tools for writing an effective CV/resumé (Lebenslauf) in German and for interviewing. The final project for the class will be the submission of a cover letter and Lebenslauf for a job (of student’s choice) in Germany, followed by an interview.
CEFR level B1-B2.
Prereq: 3602 or equiv, or permission of instructor.

German 5194 • ALI German for the Professional World

Taleghani-Nikazm | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

The aim of the course is twofold: A) provide undergraduate and graduate students with intermediate to low-advanced German language skills knowledge about a range of professions and careers not only in German-speaking countries but also in German companies and government and cultural offices in the US. B) develop students’ German linguistic and cultural competencies to advanced and advanced-high proficiency levels. The course will consist of a series of units each focusing on one career field in the German professional world. For each career field, students will learn about the cultural context of a selected profession (e.g., archivist in a state library, or German language consultant at a big publishing company), the professional training and skills required, the application and hiring process, the professional organizational culture, and the details about a typical workday while concentrating on developing advanced level language skills.

This course is open to undergraduate (sophomore and up) and graduate students, and it will be listed as a required course in the department’s proposed new German BA/MA program. This course may be particularly of interest to graduate students who are curious about alternative, non-academic careers. Enrollment will be limited to max. 12 students.

Scandinavian

Scandinavian 4250 • Scandinavian Folklore of the Supernatural - Masterpieces of Scandinavian Literature

Kaplan | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

If you know one creature from Scandinavian folklore, it is the Troll, but there’s a lot more in the archive than just one cranky monster under a bridge. This course is an introduction to the folklore of Scandinavia and the Nordic area with emphasis on narratives and beliefs about the supernatural – trolldom – not just trolls but witches, water horses, the Hidden Folk, and the people in the next village who just aren’t right. We’ll read texts translated from Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Finnish, Sámi, and Greenlandic. Students will learn to interpret folklore as a reflection of the society that created it and of the interests of the scholars who collect it.

GEL lit course. No prerequisites.

Swedish

Swedish 1102 • Swedish II

Risko | 4 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

GEN World Languages
GEL 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 TV course: [see German 2251 above]
Cultural Memory and Mass Media

Johnson | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

German-Jewish and Yiddish TV: Cultural Memory and Mass Media

In the aftermath of World War II, television played an outsized role in the representation, reassessment, and memorialization of German-Jewish and Yiddish culture and society.

In the first part of this course, we will watch and analyze broadcast news reports about postwar trials, miniseries such as Holocaust, and survivor testimonies and oral history interviews.

In addition to serving as an introduction to German-Jewish and Yiddish culture and society, this course will equip students with the methodological tools to study media and culture more broadly.

No knowledge of German or Yiddish required.

GEL lit course. Taught in English.

Yiddish 1102 • Yiddish 2

Johnson | 4 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

GEN World Languages
GEL Foreign Language course

The course is designed to help you learn to communicate in culturally informed ways in Yiddish. It will help you develop balanced skills in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. In addition to completing exercises in the textbook In eynem: A Communicative Approach to Yiddish, we will read short texts by writers such as Sholem Aleichem and Anna Margolin and excerpts from contemporary Hasidic publications and from the recent Yiddish translation of Harry Potter.

Prereq: 1101. This course is available for EM credit.

Yiddish 3399 • The Holocaust in Yiddish and Ashkenazic Literature

Johnson | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

GEL Literature
GEL Diversity: Global Studies
*possible GEN in spring for “Citizenship for a Just and Diverse World” with a title change, "The Holocaust in Yiddish Literature and Film"

About six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II in a series of events that came to be known as the Holocaust or, in Yiddish, as the “khurbn” (“destruction”). While Yiddish was the first language of millions of the victims, the contributions of Yiddish speakers to the documentation and representation of the Holocaust have often been forgotten or effaced. In this course, we will learn about the systematic destruction of Yiddish culture, but we will also consider how Yiddish-language writers, artists, intellectuals, and filmmakers documented and resisted that destruction.

In class discussions and assignments, we will analyze texts, films, and other media produced during and after the Holocaust and consider how these materials, written in or incorporating a language that was itself victimized, open up different perspectives on a seemingly well-known history. We will also consider how these materials might shed light on ongoing debates about justice and restitution, the representation of violence, and cultural memory. In addition to serving as an introduction to the academic study of the Holocaust and Yiddish culture, this course will familiarize students with research methods and techniques in the humanities.

All readings and discussion in English. No prior knowledge of the subject or language is expected or required.

Not open to students with credit for 399 or German 399 or German 3252.01 or 3252.02. GEL lit and diversity global studies course.

German 5194 • ALI German for the Professional World

Taleghani-Nikazm | 3 credit units | W/F 12:45-2:05pm Spring Semester 2023

German 6194 • Graduate Fundamentals Group Studies

Porter | 3 credit units | Wed. 2:30-5:15pm Spring Semester 2023

German 6194 is a German graduate student seminar to guide students through some of the basics in preparing for their post-graduate careers. German 6194 is designed to offer students two tracks:

Track A is geared toward the writing and publishing of an academic article or writing project for publication.

Track B is set up for students who feel the creation of a media project would best serve their professional portfolio.

Media projects completed by students who have adopted Track B for the semester include, but are not limited to, informational videos, podcasts, social media accounts, visual art (digital, is preferred, for easy distribution and access), recorded class sessions to demonstrate pedagogical practices, and/or music composition or performance. Cynthia will share examples of her own media projects that she created over the course of her graduate career in
preparation for the job market.

The class will be visited by faculty and professionals who offer their first-hand knowledge on subjects pertaining to professionalization and prep for entering the job market. The course will be typically split into two hours – the first hour will focus on large group discussion and will be reserved for our guests and the second hour will be geared toward small group work and peer-discussion pertaining to your Track of choice.

Prereq: Grad standing in GLL

German 6200 • Introduction to German Literary History and Analysis from the Enlightenment to the Present

Holub | 3 credit units | T/R 3:55-5:15pm Spring Semester 2023

The course introduces new graduate students to central texts, authors, periods, genres, and analytical tools relevant to the study of German literature. When possible, particular authors, genres, and periods will be introduced by guest lecturers from the Department’s faculty, offering students the opportunity to meet some of their future teachers.
Prereq: Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

German 6601 • Teaching Practicum

Rocker | 1 credit unit | ARR Spring Semester 2023

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 • Narrative as Social Action: Theory and Practice - Seminar in Literature and Literary Culture

Byram | 3 credit units | Mondays 8:30-11:00 | Spring Semester 2023

This course will consider the relationship between literature and its social context and, in the conclusion of the course, of narrative in public settings. It will combine readings in classic and contemporary narrative theory (including work by authors such as George Lukacs, Virginia Woolf, Mikhail Bakhtin, Stephen Greenblatt, Susan Lanser, Sue J. Kim, Patrick Colm Hogan, Sarah Copland and Greta Olson, Richard Walsh, Katra Byram) with readings of literary texts, testing out the theoretical ideas against the literary works. Literary test cases will be from the German-language tradition and will be chosen according to student interests and previous reading histories. The course is open to students from outside the Germanic Department and will be taught in English (with English-language readings available) if non-German speakers wish to enroll.

Prereq: Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

German 8300 • Marx's Comedy - Seminar in Intellectual History and Cultural Studies

Reitter & Alexander Kling (Uni Bonn) | 3 credit units |
Mondays 4:00-6:45 | Spring Semester 2023

Whether or not it makes sense to categorize Karl Marx’s writings as literature, we can say—should say—that they have literary qualities. Foremost among these, perhaps, is Marx’s use of comedy. Many notable critics—Edmund Wilson, to name just one—have claimed that this feature occupies a central place Marx’s work, and especially in Capital, his magnus opus. Yet Marx’s comedy has received little sustained attention. The right thing to do, then, is to study it, and that is in fact what we will be doing in this course. More specifically, we will put selected parts of Marx’s writings into conversation with major theories of comedy by Mikhail Bakhtin and Henri Bergson, and we will also turn our critical lens on some of the few attempts to examine the operations of the satire and irony in Capital, testing them against our own readings of the text. Since in addition to producing comedy Marx has inspired it, we will spend some time looking at comedic representations of Marx.

Readings will include selections from Capital, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx’s early unfinished work Scorpion and Felix, Bergson’s “Laughter,” and Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World.

The major requirement (beyond coming to class, preparing the reading assignments, and participating in class discussions) is a paper (format/genre negotiable), due on April 28, 2023, at 5 pm.

Prereq: Grad standing, or permission of instructor.

German 8500 • Doctoral Colloquium

Mergenthaler | 1 credit unit | ARR Spring Semester 2023

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.

German 8600 • Grammar at work: The intersection of German language and interactional contexts - Seminar in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics

Taleghani-Nikazm | Mondays 1:00-3:30
3 credit units | Spring Semester 2023

In this course, we explore some recent trends in German linguistics research that examine the grammatical structure of contemporary German. We will first establish basic understanding of morphology, syntax, and semantic-pragmatic properties of German language, then move to survey a range of empirical studies on the grammatical structure of German and how it is used in different modalities and contexts (e.g., chats, text messaging, and conversation). The aim is to investigate and gain deeper knowledge about how German language structures are adapted to interactional contexts and how interactive contexts shape linguistics structures. In addition, students will learn about digital corpora of written and spoken German and advance experience analyzing empirical data. Finally, students will engage in conversations with German linguist guest speakers and work to develop independent research projects.
This course will be taught in German.
Prereq: Grad standing, or permission of instructor.