Summer Sessions 2008

Fall Quarter Spring Quarter

Summer Session I: June 23 - August 1

GERMAN 118C - Germany Under Hitler's Third Reigh (In English) (4 Units)

Professor Winder McConnell
(MTW, 12:10-1:50) CRN 61656, 1134 Bainer

Description of course: Unlike most history courses on Nazi Germany, this course (held entirely in English) deals with the aesthetics of National Socialism. How did Hitler and the Nazi Party view art, architecture, sculpture, film and music during their twelve-year reign (1933-1945)? Particular attention is paid to artists such as Arno Breker (sculpture), Leni Riefenstahl (film), and Albert Speer/Hermann Giesler (architecture). Students will have the opportunity to view a considerable amount of video material about - and also from - the period.

The instructor, Professor Winder McConnell, is Chair of the Department of German and Russian. He has offered this course as a Summer Abroad Program from 2000 through 2008. He has visited the architectural sites examined on many occasions and knew personalities in the immediate vicinity of Adolf Hitler, including his chauffeur, Erich Kempka, and last adjutant, Otto Günsche. One of his guest lecturers in Germany was the late Dietrich Giesler, an engineer, and son of Hitler's architect, Hermann Giesler. The readings and videos are supplemented by anecdotes originating from those who served those at the center of power during the Nazi period. GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt.

Prerequisite: backgound in modern European history; course 118B recommended. Knowledge of German not required.

Summer Session II: August 4 - September 12

GERMAN 141 - The Holocaust and Its Literary Representation (4 Units)

Professor Gerhard Richter
(Lecture: MW 11:00-12:40; Discussion: MW 12:41-1:30) CRN 81047, 117 Olson

Description of course: We will study cultural attempts to come to terms with an event that eludes full comprehension, asking how understanding is transformed when straightforward meaning and legibility can no longer be assumed. Taking as our point of departure a new reading of Theodor W. Adorno's famous and often misunderstood dictum that "to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric," we will study the ways in which exemplary works of literature, art, film, and philosophy engage the challenge of speaking after the very idea of speaking has become suspect. Witnessing, mourning and melancholia, personal and historical loss, the relation between language and disaster, and the uneasy conjunction of ethics and art will be thematized in this course. Writers, artists, and filmmakers to be studied will include Theodor W. Adorno, Giorgio Agamben, Maurice Blanchot, Sigmund Freud, Paul Celan, Berel Lang, Claude Lanzmann, Primo Levi, Art Spiegelman, and Steven Spielberg. Taught in English. Students from a variety of fields are welcome. GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt.

Textbooks:
Art Spiegelman, Maus I (Pantheon Books), [ISBN: 0-394-74723-2]
Art Spigelman, Maus II(Pantheon Books), [ISBN: 0-679-72977-1]
Maurice Blanchot, The Writing of the Disaster. (University of Nebraska Press), [ISBN:0-8032-6120-9]
Giorgio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive.(New York: Zone Books) [paperback edition]
Neil Levi and Michael Rothberg (eds.), The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings (Rutgers University Press, 2003), [ISBN: 0813533538]

Special Summer Session: June 23 - September 12

GERMAN 001A - Intensive Elementary German (15 Units)

V. Hutter, M. Livi, E. Caddy
(MTWRF 12:10-2:40) CRN 61127, 125 Olson

Description of course: This is an intensive introduction to German grammar, vocabulary, and culture with an emphasis on the development of basic communicative competence through classroom activities involving listening and speaking, reading and writing. No previous experience studying German is assumed. Completion of this program with a passing grade fulfills a one-year foreign language requirement.

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