Courses

GERM 3000 (3) Advanced German   

3:30 - 4:45 TR

Mr. Dobryden

TBA

GERM  3500 (1) Germany in Words

12:00-12:15 W

Ms. Achilles 

GERM  3559 (3) Rediscovering the GDR through Literature, Art & Film

11:00-11:15 MWF

Ms. Parker 

GERM  3559 (3) German Intellectual History

2:00- 3:15 TR

Mr. Bennett 

The main contribution of Germany to European intellectual history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is generally thought to be what Windelband calls “system of reason,” large systematic works which attempt to derive from a specific idea of reason the whole world, and especially human history. None of those large systematic works will be read in this course. Instead we will read (in German) short, often critical and entertaining texts from the environment of those works in the attempt to show how actual day-to-day thinking was being carried out. We will start with Kant (before his turn to system) and read texts by Novalis, F. Schlegel, Büchner, Heine, Nietzsche, Kraus, Hesse, Thomas Mann, and some post-1945 writers including Ingeborg Bachmann and Robert Musil. A midterm exercise and a final essay will be required.

GERM  3230 (3) Contemporary German: Speaking and Writing  

2:00 - 3:15 TR

Mr. McDonald 

GERM  1015/5015 (3) German for Reading Knowledge  

11:00-12:15 TR

 Mr. Bennett

TBA

GERM  4600 (3) Fourth Year Seminar  

3:30 -4:45 MW

 Mr. Grossman

GETR 3390 (3)  

10:00-10:50 MW

Ms. Achilles 

TBA 

GETR 3392 (3) Fairy Tales  

5:00 - 6:15 MW

Mr. Schmid

In fairy tales, everything is possible: throw a frog against the wall, it may well turn out to be a prince in disguise; go visit your grandmother and you may realize that she has been eaten and replaced by a wolf; and if you have plans for the next hundred years, you better beware of being pricked by a spindle. Entering the world of fairy tales often feels like passing into an elaborate dream: it is a world teeming with sorcerers, dwarves, wondrous objects, and animals that speak. In this seminar, we focus on tales from fairy tale traditions in Germany and around the world. Why did the Grimm brothers bother to collect fairy tales? How does Disney depict the fairy tale in film? –  These are some of the questions that our seminar addresses.  Requirements include regular attendance, active participation, exams, and written assignments. 

GETR 3393 (3) Serial Media   

3:30-4:45 MW

Mr. Schmid

Have you ever binge-watched a show on Netflix? Have you ever not been able to put down a book? You had to know what was going to happen in the next episode or the next chapter. In this class we will not only reflect on and analyze this experience, we will also investigate its history: the history of serial media. 

Over the past 20 years we have witnessed in a revolution in serial media: The medial possibilities made available through online streaming have inspired a trend away from the theater in favor of the laptop, and the primacy of feature length film has been upset by the advent of the so-called second golden age of television. Together we will explore the history of serial forms, particularly through its German tradition beginning with the 19th century serial journal projects of the Romantics and culminating with the contemporary German Netflix show “Dark,” a show that, like the American hit “Stranger Things,” involves parallel dimensions and supernatural elements. Finally, with the help of the work of German intellectuals such as Paul Kammerer and Carl Gustav Jung, we will explore the connection between seriality and coincidence

GETR 3462 (3)   

2:00-3:15 MW

Ms. Achilles

TBA 

GETR 3471 (3) Refugees and the Holocaust  

3:30-6:00 T

Mr.   Grossman

TBA 

GETR 3472 (3) Hollywood Exile   

12:30-1:45 TR

Mr. Dobryden

TBA 

GETR 3710 (3) Kafka and His Doubles    

11:00-12:15 TR

Ms. Martens   

TBA

GERM 1015/5015 (3) German for Reading Knowledge   

1:00 - 1:30 MWF

Ms. Schenberg

GERM 3000 (3)  Advanced German  

2:00 - 3:15 MW

Mr. Wellmon 

GERM 3290 (1) German Studies Round Table  

5:00-5:50 W

TBA

GERM 3300 (1) Language House Conversation  

TBA

TBA
 

For students residing in the German group in Shea House. May be taken more than once for credit. Departmental approval needed if considered for major credit. Prerequisite: instructor permission."

GERM 3559 (3)  Rediscovring the GDR (German Democratic Republic) through Literature, Art, and Film      

11:00 - 11:50 MWF 

Ms. Parker

GERM 3600 (3) Lyric Poetry: From Minnesang to Mic Drop

3:30 - 6:00  T   

Ms. Gutterman 

What role does poetry play in our lives—and what can you do with a poem? In this course, we’ll explore how German poetry has shaped and responded to the world, from medieval love songs to contemporary voices tackling migration, memory, and resistance.

We’ll read poets like Walther von der Vogelweide, Goethe, Brecht, Else Lasker-Schüler, May Ayim, and more, diving into themes of love, nature, animals, crisis, and personal experience. Along the way, you'll sharpen your reading and speaking skills through in-depth discussion and close reading—all in German.

This course is especially suited for students looking to expand their vocabulary, strengthen conversational fluency, and discover the power of poetry. Prerequisite GERM 3000. (If you haven’t taking GERM 3000 but are interested in the course, please email me!)

GERM 3559 (3) Contemporary Literature

10:00 - 10:50  MW    

Ms. Zuerner 

GETR 1559 (3) Fairy Tales

3:30 - 4:45  TR  

Mr. Schmid

GETR 1559 (3)  Illness and Disability in Fiction

 2:00 - 3:15 MW

Ms. Gutterman

This course explores the dynamic relationships between illness, disability, and the literary imagination. We will engage with a wide range of shorter texts to ask: how do narratives convey the lived experiences of health, illness, and disability? What cultural understandings of the body and mind, of health, and of dis/ability do these texts reflect—or help to shape? And what ethical challenges arise in listening to, reading, or writing stories about illness and disability? This course is open to students of all levels and disciplines—whether in the medical and health fields, critical disability and literary studies, or simply with an interest in reading stories. Texts include works from English-speaking contexts and, in translation, from German and French traditions. Please email Prof. Gutterman (jg4mt@virginia.edu) with any questions. 

GETR 2559/ENWR 2510 (3) Faust: The Dilemmas of Desire 

 3:30 - 6:00 T

Mr. Grossman 

Goethe's Faust has been called an “atlas of European modernity” and “one of the most recent columns for that bridge of spirit spanning the swamping of world history.” The literary theorist Harold Bloom writes:  “As a sexual nightmare of erotic fantasy, [Faust] ... has no rival, and one understands why the shocked Coleridge declined to translate the poem. It is certainly a work about what, if anything, will suffice, and Goethe finds myriad ways of showing us that sexuality by itself will not.  Even more obsessively, Faust teaches that, without an active sexuality, absolutely nothing will suffice.”  

 Taking Goethe's Faust as its point of departure, this course will trace the Faust legend from its rise over 400 hundred years ago to the modern age.  Retrospectively, we will explore precursors of Goethe's Faust in the form of the English Faust Book and Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. We will then turn to Goethe's Faust. Although now central to the European canon, Goethe sought in his Faust to radically shake up the legend at its foundations and, in that way, to challenge many conventions of European culture, politics, and society. We will later venture into the twentieth century, viewing first F.W. Murnau's avant-garde Faust film (1926) as a response to modern European/German society and technology, and Istvan Szabo’s film Mephisto (1981), which wrestled with Nazism in the land of Goethe's Faust. 

Our aim will be to ask why writers and artists repeatedly returned to the Faust legend and how, in re-working Faust, they sought to confront the political, social, and cultural problems of their own times.  

This course is cross-listed with ENWR 2510. Students who enroll under the GETR course mnemonic will receive credit for the Artistic, Interpretative, and Philosophical Inquiry (AIP) “discipline” requirement. They may, however, opt to have GETR 2559 meet the FWR+ “literacy” requirement instead.

GETR 3360 (3) The Art of Dreaming

3:30-4:45 MW 

Ms. Gutterman

What do our dreams mean—if anything? Are they just brain static, or windows into our deepest selves? In this course, we explore how dreams have fascinated thinkers for centuries. From Freud’s groundbreaking Interpretation of Dreams to dystopian fiction, political nightmares, surrealist films, and your own dream journal, we’ll examine how dreams shape and reflect human experience.

Texts include works by Descartes, Freud, Charlotte Beradt (“Dreams under Dictatorship”), Ursula Le Guin, and the anime film Paprika. Along the way, you’ll sharpen your skills in literary and cultural analysis, creative writing, and interdisciplinary thinking through vibrant discussions and hands-on activities.

GETR 3462 (3) Neighbors and Enemies 

2:00 - 3:15 MW

Ms. Achilles

GETR 3464 (3) Medieval Stories of Love and Adventure

2:00-3:15 TR  Sec. 1

3:30-4:45 TR  Sec. 2 

Mr. McDonald 

An interactive course, involving reading, discussion, music, and art, that seeks, through selected stories of the medieval period, to shed light on institutions, themes, and customs. At the center is the Heroic Circle, a cycle with connections to folklore, the fairy tale, and Jungian psychology—all of which illuminate the human experience. Discover here the genesis of Arthurian film, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and more. All texts on Collab.

Second Writing Requirement

Cultures and Societies of the World

GETR 3472 (3) Hollywood Exile: German Filmmakers Flee Fascism  

12:30 - 1:45 TR

Mr. Dobryden

In the 1930s, many people employed in the German film industry whose lives were threatened by Nazism took refuge in Hollywood. This course examines the contributions exiled directors, writers, actors, and others made in genres ranging from comedy and melodrama to film noir. In addition to indicting fascism and reflecting on the trauma of forced migration these films often turned a critical eye on the U.S.. 

GETR 3559 (3) Body Horror: From Kafka to Cronenberg and Beyond 

 3:30 - 4:45 TR

Mr. Dobryden

This course explores the terrifying and thrilling experience of being (in) a body through the film genre of “body horror.” Beginning with early influences (Kafka, German expressionism), we will examine ‘80s classics (The Thing, The Fly) and more recent examples (The Skin I Live In, The Substance). Readings in psychoanalysis, disability studies, and gender studies will help us grapple with the question of what makes bodies so fascinatingly scary. 

GETR 3710 (3) Kafka and His Doubles

11:00 - 12:15 TR

Ms. Martens 

The course will introduce the enigmatic work of Franz Kafka: stories including "The Judgment," "The Metamorphosis," "A Country Doctor," "A Report to an Academy," "A Hunger Artist," "The Burrow," and "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk"; one of his three unpublished novels (The Trial); the Letter to His Father; and some short parables. But we will also look at Kafka's "doubles": the literary tradition he works with and the way in which he, in turn, forms literary tradition. Thus: Kafka: Cervantes, Kafka: Bible, Kafka: Aesop, Kafka: Dostoevsky, Kafka: Melville; Kafka: O'Connor, Kafka: Singer; Kafka: Calvino, Kafka: Borges. Readings will center on four principal themes: conflicts with others and the self (and Kafka's psychological vision); the double; the play with paradox and infinity; and artists and animals. A seminar limited to 20 participants. Requirements include a short midterm paper (5-7 pages) and a longer final paper (10-12 pages).

GETR 3780 (3) Memory Speaks 

2:00 - 3:15 TR

Mr. Martens

Memory is a crucial human faculty. Our ability to remember our own past is one of the things that make us human. Memory has long been thought to ground identity: without memory, one has no sense of self. Memory has been seen as fundamental to psychic health, and even as a remedy in times of trouble, as well as essential to our ability to imagine the future. Remembering has its delights. Certainly the idea of losing one’s memory, through shock or illness for example, is terrifying to contemplate. Yet having too many memories of the wrong kind is believed to endanger our equilibrium. Maddeningly, given its power to make us healthy or sick, memory often lies beyond our conscious control. It operates according to its own laws, giving us what we want only sometimes. Undeniably useful, it has also been seen as deceptive. It is demonstrably suggestible. It is not surprising, therefore, that memory is a subject of vital importance in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences alike.

This course will focus on individual memory and in particular on autobiographical memory (our memories of our own lives). We will read autobiographies and works of fiction, written from the early twentieth century to the present, by Patrick Modiano, Marcel Proust, Rainer Maria Rilke, Mary McCarthy, Vladimir Nabokov, and Marguerite Duras. We will also study two films on the theme of memory: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Inside Out. Concurrently, we will read psychological, psychoanalytic, and neuroscientific work on memory. Some attention will be paid to the issues of false memory, external memory, and mediated memory, as well.

Two short papers, presentations, exam.

GETR 4559 (3) Faust

2:00 - 3:15 MW

Mr. Grossman

GERM 3000 (3)  Advanced German: Identity and Belonging 

12:30-1:45 TR
Mr. Schmid

How do the languages we speak shape our identity? Where do we belong? What does it mean to be a speaker of German? In this content-based language course, we will investigate questions of language, identities and belonging. Among other topics, we’ll explore German as a pluricentric language and discuss what it means to feel “at home” in the German language, by reading texts from authors like the Japanese and German-language writer, Yoko Tawada and the Afro-German activist and poet, May Ayim, and others. Together, we will work on your communication skills in German and practice your speaking and writing. To help you communicate confidently in German, we will systematically review grammar topics at the upper intermediate level, selectively target grammar topics at the advanced level, and place special emphasis on questions of German sentence structure.

Prerequisite GERM 2020 or GERM 2050 or instructor’s permission. If you haven’t taken GERM 2020 or GERM 2050, and are interested in taking this course, please email Marcel Schmid at ms5qt@virginia.edu!

GERM 3010 (3)  Texts and Interpretations

2:00-3:15 TR

Ms. Gutterman 

TBA

GERM 3230 (3) Contemporary German II: Writing and Speaking  

2:00-2:50 MWF

Ms. Schenberg

Improve your German communication skills through an innovative German conversation and writing method that draws on contemporary online resources, spanning culture, politics, technology, literature, art, and sports. Among these resources are Deutsche Welle, Tagesschau, German online newspapers, and online dictionaries.  Students develop and refine writing and conversation strategies through writing assignments and oral presentations. Daily conversation and comprehension exercises build vocabulary and introduce students to idioms. Select grammar review as needed.  No textbook is required.

GERM 3290 (1)  German Studies Round Table

5:00-5:50 W

TBA 

TBA

GERM 3300 (1) Language House Conversation  

6:00-7:00 W 
TBA 

For students residing in the German group in Shea House. May be taken more than once for credit. Departmental approval needed if considered for major credit. Prerequisite: instructor permission."

GERM 3610 (3)  Lyric Poetry

11:00-12:15 TR

Ms. Gutterman 

TBA

GETR 3390 (3) Nazi Germany

12:00-12:50  MW  Discussion 9:00-9:50, 10:00-10:50, 11:00-11:50
Ms. Achilles 

This course examines the historical origins, political structures, social dynamics, and cultural practices of the Nazi Third Reich. Fulfills the historical studies and second writing requirements. No prerequisites.

GETR 3393 (3) Fairy Tales

9:30-10:45 TR

Mr. Schmid

GETR 3392 (3) Fairy Tales

9:30-10:45 TR

Mr. Schmid

In fairy tales, everything is possible: throw a frog against the wall, it may well turn out to be a prince in disguise; go visit your grandmother and you may realize that she has been eaten and replaced by a wolf; and if you have plans for the next hundred years, you better beware of being pricked by a spindle. Entering the world of fairy tales often feels like passing into an elaborate dream: it is a world teeming with sorcerers, dwarves, wondrous objects, and animals that speak. In this seminar, we focus on fairy tales and dream narratives from the romantic period into the present. Why did the Grimm brothers bother to collect fairy tales? What does all this have to do with Germany’s emergence as a nation? How does Disney depict the fairy tale in film? –  These are some of the questions that our seminar addresses. Authors to be discussed include: Goethe, the brothers Grimm, Bettelheim, Hoffmann, Freud, Saint-Exupéry, Tolkien, and others. Requirements include regular attendance, active participation, and short written assignments.

GETR 3393 (3) Serial Media

5:00-7:30 W

Mr. Schmid

Have you ever binge-watched a show on Netflix? Have you ever not been able to put down a book? You had to know what was going to happen in the next episode or the next chapter. In this class we will not only reflect on and analyze this experience, we will also investigate its history: the history of serial media. 

Over the past 20 years we have witnessed in a revolution in serial media: The medial possibilities made available through online streaming have inspired a trend away from the theater in favor of the laptop, and the primacy of feature length film has been upset by the advent of the so-called second golden age of television. Together we will explore the history of serial forms, particularly through its German tradition beginning with the 19th century serial journal projects of the Romantics and culminating with the contemporary German Netflix show “Dark,” a show that, like the American hit “Stranger Things,” involves parallel dimensions and supernatural elements. Finally, with the help of the work of German intellectuals such as Paul Kammerer and Carl Gustav Jung, we will explore the connection between seriality and coincidence.

GETR 3462 (3) Neighbors and Enemies

2:00-3:15 MW

Ms. Achilles 

A biblical injunction, first articulated in Leviticus and then elaborated in the Christian teachings, stipulates that one should love one’s neighbor as oneself. This course explores the friend/enemy nexus in German history, literature and culture. Of particular interest is the figure of the neighbor as both an imagined extension of the self, and as an object of fear or even hatred. We will examine the vulnerability and anxiety generated by Germany’s unstable and shifting territorial borders, as well as the role that fantasies of foreign infiltration played in defining German national identity. We will also investigate the racial and sexual politics manifested in Germany’s real or imagined encounters with various foreign “others.” Most importantly, this course will study the tensions in German history and culture between a chauvinist belief in German racial or cultural superiority and moments of genuine openness to strangers. In the concluding part of this course, we will consider the changing meanings of friendship and hospitality in a globalizing world. Fulfills the historical studies and second writing requirements. No prerequisites.

GETR 3464 (3) Medieval Storeis of Love and Adventure

2:00-3:15 TR, 3:30-4:45 TR

Mr. McDonald 

An interactive course, involving reading, discussion, music, and art, that seeks, through selected stories of the medieval period, to shed light on institutions, themes, and customs. At the center is the Heroic Circle, a cycle with connections to folklore, the fairy tale, and Jungian psychology—all of which illuminate the human experience. Discover here the genesis of Arthurian film, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and more. All texts on Collab.

Second Writing Requirement

Cultures and Societies of the World

GETR 3559 (3) Revolution

2:00-3:15 MW

Mr. Bennett

TBA

GETR 3559 (3) Ancient and Modern Dramatic Theater

4:00-5:15 MW

Mr. Bennett   

TBA

GETR 3559 (3) History of Data - Knowledge, Information and Technology

3:30-4:45 MW

Mr. Wellmon  

In this course, we will study the history and gradual confluence of statistical methods and practices, data and information sciences, and technological change over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, especially as they relate to what is now known as data analysis. In short, this course provides a history of "data" as both an object of analysis and scientific and technological way of studying and organizing the world.

GETR 3600/ENGL 3500-3 (3) Faust

12:30-1:45 TR

Mr. Grossman   

Goethe's Faust has been called an “atlas of European modernity” and “one of the most recent columns for that bridge of spirit spanning the swamping of world history.” The literary theorist Harold Bloom writes:  “As a sexual nightmare of erotic fantasy, [Faust] ... has no rival, and one understands why the shocked Coleridge declined to translate the poem. It is certainly a work about what, if anything, will suffice, and Goethe finds myriad ways of showing us that sexuality by itself will not.  Even more obsessively, Faust teaches that, without an active sexuality, absolutely nothing will suffice.” 

Taking Goethe's Faust as its point of departure, this course will trace the Faust legend from its rise over 400 hundred years ago to the modern age.  Retrospectively, we will explore precursors of Goethe's Faust in the form of the English Faust Book, Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, and possibly one of the various other popular re-workings of the text.  We will then read Goethe's Faust, parts I and II (part II, either in its entirety or in excerpts).  Although now viewed as central to the European canon, Goethe sought in his Faust to radically transform the central tenants of the legend and to challenge many conventions of European culture, politics, and society.  Beyond Goethe, we will study Byron's melancholy attempt in Manfred to create a theater of the emotions that explores problems of power, sexuality, and guilt.  And we will venture into the twentieth- century, reading texts that re-worked the Faust legend in response to authoritarian politics: Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, which wrestles with Nazism in the land of Goethe's Faust. We will also consider F.W. Murnau's film version of Faust and may consider Faust works in other media (e.g., music, painting).

GETR 3710 (3) Kafka and His Doubles

11:00-12:15 TR

Ms. Martens   

TBA

GETR 3780 (3) Memory Speaks

2:00-3:15 TR

Ms. Martens 

TBA