Courses – Spring 2027 | Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

German 2254.02 • Grimms' Fairy Tales and their Afterlives

| 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

GE Foundation: Literary, Visual & Performing Arts

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: 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.

All required texts are in English translation; taught in English.

German 3250 • Citizenship in the Age of Technology: Exploring Social Justice through Science Fiction in Germany

Richards | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

GE Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World

Investigating the promises & pitfalls that technologies once confined to the pages of science fiction pose to our relationships, our communities, and our world, with a specific focus on the challenges they will bring to our concept of citizenship. Recent German science fiction will illuminate the debate on the future of democracy as it unfolds in Germany, the USA & in a broader global context.

Taught in English. DL course.

German 3252.02 • The Holocaust in Literature and Film

Richards | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

GE 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/Scandvn 3354.02 • From Viking Saga to Climate Fiction: Nature in Nordic and Germanic Literatures

Mergenthaler | 4 credit units | Autumn Semester 2026

GE THEME: Sustainability; Integrative Practice: Research and Creative Inquiry (two 80-minute sessions and one 55-minute research session per week)

How do the first Viking settlers in Iceland use nature to tell their story and create a legacy? Did they know that their farming practices would deplete the island’s lush forests? How do contemporary Icelanders remember the Vikings and regrow old woods?

How do 17th- and 18th-century German authors and educators imagine dwelling as a hermit in the woods or on a remote island, far away from the ills of civilization? How do they conceive of indigenous populations’ relationship to their environment?

How do Scandinavian 19th- and 20-century authors and philosophers conceive of living in deep harmony with nature, whether flying on the back of a goose or hiking and sleeping high up the mountains?

How do current environmental activists seek to find support for their causes—from climate change to climate justice—through social media? What internal and external challenges do they face?

Finally, how do we evaluate all these efforts to imagine human life as sustainable, in harmony with nature, from medieval times to the present, from our own diverse intellectual perspectives? How do they live up to our own ideals of human-nature relationships and new technological advances? What are possible ways of living sustainably? How do people conceive of sustainability, historically, and today?

In this course, with two 80-minute in person classes/week, and a 55-minute weekly mandatory DL research discussion meeting, students will explore these and other related questions, as well as develop their own questions, about the stories, images, and ideas of sustainability in German and Scandinavian literature and culture, in different media and from a variety of perspectives. Students will engage critically and creatively with cultural objects like Viking Sagas, German Robinson Crusoe adaptations, fantastic travel narratives, Sami folk and pop music, philosophical essay, Disney and Cli-Fi movies, as well as with research on these topics.

Assignments will include short reading/viewing reflections papers, audios or videos, two writing assignments with a variety of choices of formats and topics, and discussions posts and contributions.

In their final research project that comprises the 4th credit of this 4ch course (or 25%), students will expand on the topics and questions discussed in class and integrate them into their own investigation of and active engagement with sustainability in German, Scandinavian, and Nordic cultures. Students are also encouraged to combine approaches from the Environmental Humanities and Ecocriticism with approaches from their major field(s) of study. This final research project encompasses three scaffolded assignments (15%) and the final research essay (10%) as well as a public demonstration and exchange of your research findings.

For more information on course assignments, structure, and requirements see the detailed syllabus (LINK forthcoming). Additional details about individual assignments, including deadlines, guidelines, helpful suggestions, and grading rubrics, will be provided on CarmenCanvas.

All readings available in English; taught in English.

German 3434 • Bad Science

Aupiais | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

GE Theme: Traditions, Cultures, and Transformations

Developments in science and technology raise key political questions and often reveal global fault lines. Recent debates around AI, climate change, pandemics and public health show this.

This course delves into the sometimes-toxic cultural politics of science historically, surveying key case studies (in biology, linguistics, medicine and more) from German history between 1780 and 1940.

-- taught in English!

German 3456 • Global Changemakers

Birkhold | 4 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

GE Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World
[4 credits - High-Impact Practice - Interdisciplinary and Integrated Collaborative Teaching]

This course explores what it means to be a global changemaker, emphasizing critical thinking, truth- telling, and advocacy for change. Students will study the qualities of changemakers through and examine global citizenship, cultural diversity, and social equity. Team-taught with faculty members in South Asian Studies and Slavic.
-- Taught in English!
note: Not open to students with credit for SASIA 3456 or Slavic 3456.
- cross-listed with Slavic and SASIA 3456

Scandinavian 3270 • Revenge

Kaplan | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

GE Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World

Revenge is the engine of the medieval Icelandic sagas, stories of a Viking Age society just beyond the reach of kings, where honor is the main currency, and a pithy verse or a legal stratagem may overmatch even a steel axe. Learn about the workings of blood feud, about a distant society’s concepts of citizenship and justice, and find unexpected parallels in our here and now.
-- Taught in English!

Yiddish 3222• Jewish Humor

Zaritt | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

GE Theme: Traditions, Cultures, and Transformations

In this course, we will examine the history of Jewish humor, exploring the concept of therapeutic joking, the politics of self-deprecation, and strategies of masking social critique behind a well-timed joke. Rather than reach some essential definition, we investigate literature, stand-up comedy, film, and television of the twentieth and twenty-first century.

German 1101.01 • German I

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

GE World Languages
Introduction to language and culture of the German-speaking world, with emphasis placed on the acquisition of basic communication skills in cultural context. CEFR Level A1.
Text:

German 1102.01 • German II

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

GE World Languages
Text:
Prereq: 1101.01, 1101.02 or 4 sem cr hrs of 1101.51

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 A1/A2

German 1103.01 • German III

4 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

GE World Languages
Development of skills for independent use of German. Discussions, presentations, writing, & listening/viewing activities that address topics of contemporary German-speaking world. CEFR Level A2.
Text:
Prereq: 1102.01, 1102.02 or 4 sem cr hrs of 1102.51

German 1101.02 • 1102.02 • 1103.02

Distance Learning option

GE World Languages
4 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

German On The Ground series

1 credit unit per online course | Spring Semester 2027

GERMAN 1201.01 (online)
Basic Language Skills
1 credit hour; taught in German
Learn basic German language and vocabulary useful for traveling and interacting with locals.

GERMAN 1201.02 (online)
Navigating German-speaking Europe
1 credit hour; taught in English
Learn information about the cultures in the countries of German-speaking Europe, and
how to navigate a variety of contexts and to interact with the German speakers.

GERMAN 1201.03 (online)
Navigating the professional world in German-speaking Europe
1 credit hour; taught in English
Learn information about professional cultures in the countries of German-speaking Europe, and
navigate a variety of professional life and contexts and to interact with German-speaking colleagues.

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

Beringer | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

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

Byram | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

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 3101 • Texts and Contexts III: Historical Perspectives

Taleghani-Nikazm | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

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 3102 • News & Views

Mergenthaler | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

This course aims to improve your German reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills through an engagement with current affairs in the German-speaking world. The course will hone your ability to interpret, paraphrase, summarize, and critically analyze German-language media content in different communicative contexts.
Prereq: 2102 or equiv, or permission of instructor.

German 3300 • Rivers, Mountains, Forests - Topics in German Culture Studies, Social and Intellectual History

Birkhold | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

Course description forthcoming

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.

Prereq: 2102 or equiv, or permission of instructor.

German 4604• From the German: Translation in the 21st Century - ALI

Aupiais | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

ALI seminar on translation for students of German using project-based learning to cultivate advanced strategic communication and intercultural skills for the contemporary world. Develops student A.I. competencies, rhetorical skills, and media literacies (including legacy and social media) across modules on literary, marketing, and legal translation, as well as trans-medial content adaptation.

Scandinavian 3270 • Revenge

Kaplan | 3 credit units | Spring Semester 2027

GE Theme: Citizenship for a Diverse & Just World

Revenge is the engine of the medieval Icelandic sagas, stories of a Viking Age society just beyond the reach of kings, where honor is the main currency, and a pithy verse or a legal stratagem may overmatch even a steel axe. Learn about the workings of blood feud, about a distant society’s concepts of citizenship and justice, and find unexpected parallels in our here and now.
-- Taught in English!

note:

Swedish language courses are offered online via BTAA CourseShare.