Spring 2008
Lower Division Courses
German 1: Elementary German (5 Units)
Sec 1 (M-F, 8:00 - 8:50) CRN 49133
Sec 2 (M-F, 9:00 - 9:50) CRN 49134
Description of course: Introduction to German grammar and development of all language skills in a cultural context with special emphasis on communication. (Students who
have successfully completed German 2 or 3 in the 10th or higher grade in high school may receive unit credit for this course on a P/NP grading basis only. Although a passing grade
will be charged to the student's P/NP option, no petition is required. All other students will receive a letter grade unless a P/NP petition is filed).
Course format: Discussion - 5 hours; Laboratory - 1 hour.
Prerequisite: Course 1.
Textbook: Lovik, Vorsprung Workbook and Laboratory Manual and CD.
German 3: Elementary German (5 units)
Sec 1 (M-F, 8:00 - 8:50) CRN 49135
Sec 2 (M-F, 9:00 - 9:50) CRN 49136
Sec 3 (M-F, 10:00 - 10:50) CRN 49137
Description of course: Completion of grammar sequence and continuing practice of all language skills in a cultural context.
Course format: Discussion - 5 hours; Laboratory - 1 hour.
Prerequisite: Course 2.
Textbook: Lovik,
Vorsprung Workbook and Laboratory Manual and CD.
German 20: Intermediate German (4 Units)
Sec 1 (MWF, 10:00 - 10:50) CRN 49138, Chris Matthes
Description of course: This is the first course of 2nd year German. Students will review grammar, and begin to read and discuss short, literary texts of cultural and historical interest.
Course Format: Lecture/discussion - 3 hours; Short papers.
Prerequisite: German 3.
Textbooks: Rosemarie Morewedge, Larry Wells (eds.):
Mitlesen/Mitteilen; Jamie Rankin, Larry Wells (eds.):
Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik.
German 22: Intermediate German (4 Units)
Sec 1 (MWF 10:00 - 10:50) CRN 49139, Diana Lysinger
Description of course: This course continues along the lines of German 21 to provide further practice in the essential language skills, to expand command of vocabulary and
idiomatic usage, and to provide techniques for the interpretation and greater understanding of literary texts. Course conducted in German.
Course Format: Lecture/discussion - 3 hours.
Prerequisite: Course 21 or consent of instructor.
Textbooks: Rankin and Wells,
Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik; Brüder Grimm,
Kinder-und Hausmärchen.
German 22: Intermediate German (4 Units)
Sec 2 (MWF 11:00 - 11:50) CRN 66180, Professor Gerhard Richter
Description of course: Students will deepen their engagement with the particular logic, beauty, and possibilities of the German language through close reading and active
discussion of some of the most remarkable narratives ever penned in that language, the Grimm Brothers'
Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Course conducted in German.
Course Format: Lecture/discussion - 3 hours.
Prerequisite: Course 21 or consent of instructor.
Textbooks: Rankin and Wells,
Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik; Brüder Grimm,
Kinder-und Hausmärchen.
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Upper Division
German 103: Writing Skills in German (4 units)
MWF 9:00 - 9:50 CRN 66181, Professor Clifford Bernd
Description of course: This course, which will be conducted in German, is an advanced writing course whose goal is to fine-tune your writing along with improving your
skills to organize an essay and argue a point convincingly. You will be expected to master the principles of German punctuation. Essays will encompass a wide variety of topics, with
literary analysis being just one of them. A particular strength of this course is an in-depth study of word usage. Our book, in a great Wortgebrauch section, picks up where
traditional review grammars leave off. In short, you will leave this course feeling more confident and certainly more proficient in written and spoken German.
Course format: Lecture - 3 hours; Extensive writing.
Prerequisite: Course 22 or consent of instructor.
Textbooks: Brigitte Turneasure,
Der Treffende Ausdruck.
German 104: Translation (4 units)
TR 10:30 - 11:50 CRN 66182, Lecturer, Harriett Jernigan
Description of course: This course focuses on improving translation skills by striking a balance between the theory and practice of translation. The course will examine a
variety of topics, questions and challenges intranslating texts from German to English. By working with a wide range of texts, from poetry to technical and commercial texts,
participants will be exposed to different translating modes and approaches.
Course format: Lecture/discussion - 3 hours; Extensive writing.
Prerequisite: Course 22 or consent of instructor.
Textbooks: Hervey, Loughridge,
Thinking German Translation: A Course in Translation Method German to English; Baker, Mona,
In Other Words: A Coursework on
Translation.
German 120: Survey of German Culture (4 units)
MWRF 11:00 - 11:50 CRN 49160, Professor Clifford Bernd
Description of course: The course addresses itself to the colorful picture of major German contributions to Western civilization. Lectures in German, readings from
well-annotated texts, and slide shows will acquaint the student with such topics as: (1) Charlemagne and the founding of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, (2) the flowering
of the arts in the Middle Ages, (3) Albrecht Dürer and the Renaissance, (4) the Protestant Reformation, (5) the Catholic Counter-Reformation, (6) Classicism, (7) Romanticism, (8) the
era of Bismarck, (9) the roaring 1920s, (10) the rebirth of German culture out of the ashes of World War II.
GE credit: ArtHum.
Course format: Lecture/discussion - 4 hours; No term paper.
Prerequisite: Course 22 or consent of instructor.
Textbooks: A course reader will be used.
German 133: The German Drama (4 units)
TR 1:40 - 3:00 CRN 66183, Lecturer, Harriett Jernigan
Description of course: This course is designed to introduce participants to major
works of German-language drama, from the 18th century to the present day. The course will cover leading dramatists, such as Lessing, Schiller, Kleist, Wedekind, Hauptmann, Büchner
and Brecht, and take in part a newhistoricist approach to the texts.
GE credit: ArtHum.
Course format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term paper.
Prerequisite: Course 22 or consent of instructor.
Textbooks: Course Reader, available at Davis Copy Shop.
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Graduate Courses
German 241: The German Drama: The Anti-Aristotelian Tradition (4 Units)
[Two-Track: Conducted in English; Readings in Either German or English]?
R 3:10-6:00 CRN 66185, Professor Gail Finney
Description of course: Studies the tradition in German theater that opposes the classical drama of Goethe, Schiller, Grillparzer, and others who adhere to the conventions
established by Aristotle's
Poetics. Topics such as the following will be explored: the attractions and limitations of Aristotelian theory; romantic irony in the theater; the
proletarian protagonist; politics and drama; the grotesque on stage; the doctrine of epic theater and its sexualization; the dramatic parable; women as playwrights; the critical folk
play; socialist feminism and theater. Plays will be illuminated by theoretical and critical writings (in English) by such thinkers as Jacques Lacan, Sue-Ellen Case, Erika
Fischer-Lichte, Janelle Reinelt, Susan Cocalis, Elin Diamond, Katrin Sieg, Judith Butler, and others.
Course format: Seminar - 3 hours, Term paper.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.
Required Texts (for German track): Büchner, Georg,
Woyzeck. Studienausgabe; Hauptmann, Gerhart,
Vor Sonnenaufgang; Brecht, Bertolt,
Die Dreigroschenoper;
Fleisser, Marieluise,
Ingolstädter Stücke; Frisch, Max,
Andorra: Stück in zwölf Bildern; Jelinek, Elfriede,
Theaterstücke; Lenz, J.M.R,
Der Hofmeister; Tieck,
Ludwig,
Der gestiefelte Kater; Wedekind, Frank,
Lulu: Erdgeist. Die Büchse der Pandora.
Required Texts (for English track): Wedekind, Frank,
Wedekind Plays: One; Frisch, Max,
Andorra; Lenz, J.M.R.,
Three Plays; Büchner, Georg,
Woyzeck;
Brecht, Bertolt,
The Threepenny Opera; Butcher (trs),
Aristotle's Poetics. Other readings will be available in a course reader.
German 297: Toward a European Cinema: Genre, Space, Globalization (4 Units)
W 2:10-5:00 CRN 66184, Professor Jaimey Fisher
Description of course: This seminar queries the current state of film in Europe by looking at various genres that have contributed to the development of what is
increasingly called "European cinema." In considering the emergence of European cinema, the seminar will give special attention to those genres that have become dominant in
contemporary European cinema and to the ways in which those genres negotiate national and, increasingly, transnational spaces. For example, the "heritage film" of the 1980s has
enjoyed a strong revival but also refiguration in the post-1989 historical melodrama which navigates cross-border spaces in new ways (as in "The Lives of Others"). Works and genres
examined will include British heritage films, French and German historical films (especially representations of World War II and the Holocaust as a European legacy), Italian landscape
films, Almodovar as well as Fatih Akin and the (Fassbinderian) persistence of melodrama, as well as films underscoring the afterlife of socially critical, neorealist cinema, a kind
of aesthetics of reduction in our spectacular age (films of the so-called "Berlin School," of the Danish Dogma films, of the Belgian Dardenne brothers, of Michael Haneke, and the
recent films of Eastern Europe). We will read important critics of recent cinema, in particular Thomas Elsaesser, Andrew Higson, and Rosalind Galt as well as relevant theorists of
space, including David Harvey, Marc Auré, and Saskia Sassen.
Course format:
Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.
Required Texts: Silverman, Kaja,
Subject of Semiotics; Galt, Rosalind,
New European Cinema: Redrawing the Map.
German 396: Teaching Asst. Training Practicum. (1-4 units)
Time TBA CRN 49231, Professor Carlee Arnett
Description of course: Theoretical instruction in modern teaching methods and demonstration of their practical application. Required of new teaching assistants.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.
Textbook: None.
Other Courses Taught by German Faculty
COM 161A: Tragedy (4 units )
TR 12:10-1:30pm, 103 Wellman, CRN 66634, Professor Gail Finney
Description of course: Persistent and changing aspects of the tragic vision in literature from ancient times to the present.
The course will study the formal features of tragic drama as well as perennial concerns of the tragic, such as the tension between individual will and fate/divine power/sociohistorical
forces; guilt and redemption; and the role of family relationships.
Plays treated, which will be complemented by historical and critical readings,will include the following:
Euripides (Greek),
Medea (5th century B.C.E.)
Classical
Japanese drama: a 14th-century Noh play and an 18th-century Kabuki play
William Shakespeare (English),
Hamlet (1602)
Jean Racine (French),
Phaedre (1677)
August
Strindberg (Swedish),
Miss Julie (1888)
Bertolt Brecht (German),
Mother Courage and Her Children (1939)
Arthur Miller (American),
Death of a Salesman (1949)
Samuel Beckett (Irish),
Endgame (1957)
Wole Soyinka (Nigerian),
Death and the King's Horseman (1975)
Heiner Muller (German)
Hamletmachine (1979)
Suzan Lori-Parks (American),
Topdog/Underdog (2001)
Film Studies 1: Introduction to Film Studies (4 Units)
Lecture: MW 11:00 - 11:50, Film Viewing: M 6:10 - 9:00 CRN Various, Professor Jaimey Fisher
Description of course: The course aims to introduce students to various aspects of film studies, including film analysis, film history, as well as film (especially genre
and auteur) theory. The main focus of the course, however, is on film analysis, particularly on the technical and narrative analysis of feature films that will entail a close viewing
of the films. The course introduces students to the technical aspects of film, including cinematography, editing, mise-en-scene, and sound; it also offers a survey to film history as
well as important international movements, including early cinema, Soviet Montage, German Weimar Cinema, neorealism around the world (incl. India), the U.S. film noir, and "New Asian" cinema. We shall be examining, among other topics, the social, cultural, and political contexts of film as a medium as well as of particular films. The main objective
for the course is for students to be able to view films critically, to develop a systematic and convincing interpretation of the film out of this critical viewing, and to articulate
this analysis in a well-constructed and persuasive essay. Not open to students who have completed HUM 10.
GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt.
Course format: Lecture - 3 hours; Film viewing - 3 hours; Discussion - 1 hour.
Prerequisite: None.
Required Texts: David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson,
Film Art: An Introduction with Tutorial CD-ROM. David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson,
Film Art
(text only).
Jewish Studies 112: Jewish-German Culture (4 Units)
MWF 12:10 - 1:00 CRN 66928, Professor Carlee Arnett
Description of course: Historical tradition of Jewish thought in the German cultural context; unique contributions of Jewish writers to culture of the German speaking world;
what it means to be "other" in the mainstream culture. May be repeated for credit twice when topic differs. Not open for credit to students who have completed Humanities 121. Offered
in alternate years.
GE credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.
Course format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours, term paper.
Prerequisite: Religious Studies 23 or consent of instructor.
Required Texts:
Medieval Studies 130A: Themes Medieval Culture (4 Units)
MW 10:00 - 11:50 CRN 55171, Professor Winder McConnell
Description of course: Each offering concentrates on an interdisciplinary aspect of medieval culture in the Middle East and Europe: the idea of the hero, mysticism, urban
development. Extensive readings focused on medieval source material. May be repeated for credit.
G.E. Credit: ArtHum, Wrt.
Course format: Lecture/Discussion - 4 hours.
Prerequisite: None.
Required Texts:
Freshman Seminar: Life and Art in Hitler's Germany (2 Units)
T 10:00-11:50am CRN 48129, 109 Olson, Professor Winder McConnell
Description of course: The purpose of this Freshman Seminar is to introduce students to an area of National Socialist Germany that is rarely discussed in courses on the
Third Reich - the idea of "national aestheticism." What was the national Socialist concept of beauty? How did it manifest itself in the spheres of painting, sculpture, and film? What
was the role of the Propaganda Ministry in disseminating an ideal of beauty? The course will also attempt to elucidate the role of Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP in arriving at a
determination of "national aesthetics."
Course Format: The course will meet for two hours each week for eight weeks. A reader compiled by the instructor will be available in the bookstore. Weekly sessions will
consist of lectures by the instructor, the showing the film excerpts and discussion of group projects assigned during the first session.
Grading: There will be two papers
assigned in the course, the first, consisting of three pages, for 40%; the second, consisting of four pages, for 60% of the final grade.
About the Instructor: Professor McConnell was born in Belfast, Ireland. He received his B.A. in History and German from McGill University, Montreal, and holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Medieval German
literature from the University of Kansas. He is the author/editor/translator of eleven books and has written numerous articles on Medieval German romance and heroic epic. His hobbies
include drumming with jazz bands and collecting books on German elite military formations in World War II.
Freshman Seminar: Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents (1 Unit)
W 12-12:50 CRN 48159, Professor Gerhard Richter
Description of course: We will read and discuss one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud's
Civilization and Its Discontents (Das
Unbehagen in der Kultur), published in 1930. Called by many Freud's major achievement, this important work lays out for us the main aspects of his understanding of the relation
between psychoanalysis and culture in accessible, even entertaining ways. Analyzing the fundamental antagonisms between culture and our instinctual life, Freud explains some of his
main assumptions about anxiety (Angst), sex, religion, war, death, being "in love," neurosis, beauty, fetishism, memory, freedom, and the delusion of happiness. We will study Freud's
arguments closely and wonder why, having considered the perpetual struggle between aggression and eros in light of humanity's technological potential to annihilate itself completely,
he ends his major book not with a period but with a question mark. While there is a tendency today toward "speed reading," that is, glossing over texts with quick and superficial
readings - and thus missing what is most important and valuable - we will read slowly, carefully, and caringly, paying attention to the beauty and rigor of Freud's language and
appreciating his special tone and style of argumentation. For this reason, we will "only" read about 12 pages of Freud's brilliant book per session, but those really well.
Course format: Our one-unit university freshman seminar, offered on a pass/no pass basis, will meet for one hour per week for the duration of the quarter. While there will
be some informal lectures, emphasis will be placed on intensive discussion and on the development of intellectual community.
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