GERM 3000 (3)  Advanced German: Identity and Belonging 

10:00 - 10:50 MWF
Ms. Zuenner

TBA

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

2:00-3:15 TR

Mr. Bennett 

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 4600 (3) Fourth Year Seminar  

3:30-4:45 TR

Mr. Grossman 

TBA

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."

GETR 3372 (3) German Jewish Culture and History 

11:00-12:15 TR

Ms. Gutterman 

TBA

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 3470 (3) Writing and Screening the Holocaust 

3:30 - 6:00 W

Mr. Grossman

The French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard likened the effect of the Holocaust to that of an earthquake that “destroys not only lives, buildings, and objects but also the instruments used to measure earthquakes directly and indirectly.” In the death camp Treblinka, as many as two to three thousand people per day were gassed to death for months on end; at Auschwitz, nearly 1.1 million were killed; and as many as 2 million Jews were rounded up and murdered in mass shootings and associated massacres in Poland, Ukraine, and other locations, mostly in Eastern Europe. How, to follow upon Lyotard, have survivors and others concerned with the events contributing to the Holocaust and with its impact sought to write it? Or to represent it visually, e.g., in film?  What role does memory, whether individual or collective, play in their attempts? Can their works give expression to the trauma experienced by the victims and survivors? And if so, how? This course explores different approaches taken by writers and filmmakers and others who have grappled with these questions. 

Readings drawn from Primo Levi, Art Spiegelman, Hannah Arendt, Charlotte Delbo, Theodor Adorno, Alexander Kluge, Ruth Kluger, Tadeusz Borowski, and others, and others; screenings of the films Casablanca (1942), dir. Michael Curtiz, Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog (1956); parts of Claude Lanzman’s Shoah (1985), Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993), and possibly others.

The course assumes no prior knowledge of the subject matter. 

GETR 3505/HIEU 3505 (3) History and Fiction - Hitler 

2:00-3:15 MW

Ms. Achilles 

Who was Adolf Hitler, and why does he remain a figure of public fascination? Was his rise to power a political accident or the product of deeper historical forces? How much did his personality matter compared to structural factors, and what are the ethical stakes of representing Hitler in popular culture today? This course explores Hitler's life and afterlife on the basis of a wide range of sources, including scholarly texts, Nazi propaganda, short stories, films, and digital media. We will examine the interplay between individual agency and systemic power, processes of individual and societal radicalization, as well as the representational frameworks that that influence how Hitler is remembered and how history is told. Requirements include weekly responses, one presentation, two projects. No prerequisites.  

GETR 3505/HIEU 3505 (3) Kafka and the Kafkaesque 

2:00-4:30 R

Ms. Achilles 

One of Franz Kafka’s most haunting short stories begins with a startling metamorphosis. Gregor Samsa, a young traveling salesman, wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect. The initial surprise gives way to horror and despair as Gregor becomes trapped in his room. Cut off from his family, he loses his voice and wastes away until only a dried-out shell remains. The story captures central themes in Kafka’s writing, such as the breakdown of human connection in a rapidly modernizing world and the individual’s subjection to systems of power that confine and erode the self.  In this course, we read Kafka’s short fiction and letters alongside historical documents and film. We explore the social and political upheavals of the late Habsburg Empire, and trace the idea of the Kafkaesque through the mass violence of the 20th century and into the present. Along the way, we consider how Kafka, a German-speaking Jew in Prague, turned marginality into a creative force and dismantled authority by revealing its hollow rituals and illogical justifications. Weekly responses, one presentation, two projects. No prerequisites.

GETR 3559 (3) Illness and Disability in Fiction 

2:00 - 3:15 TR

Ms. Gutterman 

TBA 

GETR 3590 (3) Nietzsche 

5:00 - 6:15 TR

Mr. Bennett 

The course will focus primarily on selections from Nietzsche’s aphoristic works, works composed of short (mainly one paragraph), self-contained mini-essays on philosophical and critical topics.  How can such works be called “philosophy,” since they lack the strong systematic quality to which especially German philosophy had accustomed nineteenth-century readers?  Is Nietzsche attempting to train a new kind of reader?  Is philosophy’s job to construct (as in large systems) or to destroy, and how can the latter possibility be justified, if at all?  Near-philosophical and non-philosophical works will be used to provide context, including short texts by Jarry, Cocteau, Emerson, and British and American poets of the twentieth century.  Two papers will be required, one (5 pages) on an assigned topic at midterm, and a final paper (10 pages) on a topic of the student’s choosing.  Reading (on schedule), attendance, and participation in class discussion are mandatory.  Grading (roughly):  final paper 40%, midterm paper 25%, participation 35%.