Fall 2017

Please click here to see the schedule as a PDF

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German 001. Elementary German (5 units)

Course Description: This is an introduction to German grammar and development of all language skills in a cultural context with special emphasis on communication.

Course Placement: Students who have successfully completed, with a C- or better, German 002 or 003 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. For more information, please directly contact the instructor or the German staff adviser, Amy Lowrey (allowrey@ucdavis.edu). This course is not open to students who have completed German 001A.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities and World Cultures.

Format: Discussion - 5 hours; Laboratory - 1 hour.

Textbooks:

• TBA
   

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German 002. Elementary German (5 units)
Kirsten Harjes

MTWRF 9:00-9:50A
108 Hoagland Hall
CRN 45332

Course Description: This is the continuation of German 001 in areas of grammar and the basic language skills, and the second course in the Elementary German series.

Prerequisite: German 001.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities and World Cultures.

Format: Discussion - 5 hours; Laboratory - 1 hour.

Textbooks:

• Robert Di Donato and Monica D. Clyde, Deutsch: Na klar! An Introductory German Course [7th Edition]  (McGraw-Hill Education, 2015)
• Jeanine Briggs and Lida Daves-Schneider, Workbook/Laboratory Manual to accompany Deutsch: Na klar! [7th Edition]  (McGraw-Hill Education, 2015)
   

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German 020. Intermediate German (4 units)
Astrid Exel

MWF 9:00-9:50A
1120 Hart Hall
CRN 45334

Course Description: 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. Class is conducted in German.

Prerequisite: German 003.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, Oral Skills, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Extensive Writing.

Textbook:

• Denk Mal! Deutsch ohne Grenzen - with SuperSite Access [2nd Edition]  (Vista Higher Learning, 2016) 
  Available via the Vista Higher Learning website (be sure to purchase the bundle with the following ISBN:9781626809475) 

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German 021. Intermediate German (4 units)
Will Mahan

MWF 11:00-11:50A
235 Wellman Hall
CRN 45335

Course Description: Review of grammatical principles by means of written exercises, expanding of vocabulary through readings of modern texts.

Prerequisite: German 020.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities and World Cultures.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Extensive Writing.

Textbook:

• Tobias Barske, et al., Denk Mal! Deutsch ohne Grenzen - with SuperSite Access [2nd Edition]  (Vista Higher Learning, 2016)
   

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German 101A. Survey of German Literature, 800-1800 (4 units)
Carlee Arnett

TR 9:00-10:20A
209 Wellman Hall
CRN 62342

Course Description: This course will acquaint students with literary works from 800-1800.   This includes the older Germanic languages like Gothic, Old High German and Middle High German.  We will also talk about the development of the German language and the history that influenced language.  We start off with runes and charms and end with young Goethe.  On the way, we will discuss the Nibelungenlied, Humanism, Mathias Claudius, and Moses Mendelssohn.

Prerequisite: German 022.

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, Oral Literacy, Visual Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours.

Textbook:

• Gudrun Clay, 1000 Jahre Deutsche Literatur [2nd Edition]  (Focus Publishing, 2008)

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German 127. Major Writers in German: Franz Kafka (4 units)      Taught In English
Sven-Erik Rose

TR 10:30-11:50A
1038 Wickson Hall
CRN 62343

Course Description: In this course we will explore one of the 20th century’s most brilliant and enigmatic prose writers, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), in the literary and historical context of early 20th-century Central Europe. Kafka wrote most of his works between 1912 and 1924 (though few were published during his lifetime), and we will be able to read most of them: his three novels, and his most important short fiction and parables. In order to gain perspective on Kafka’s originality, we will also read texts by two of Kafka's modernist contemporaries, Thomas Mann (1875-1955) and Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931).

Our exploration of Kafka will be organized by major themes, such as Kafka's treatment of family relations; the nature of art and the role of the artist; the cultural and socio-political situation of European Jews; and the individual in modern bureaucratic society. Throughout, we will pay special attention to Kafka’s fascinating treatment—and derangement—of place and space, of which examples include: a mysterious court that has no official address but can appear seemingly anywhere; an unapproachable castle; and an America in which the Brooklyn Bridge stretches from New York City to Boston.

All readings will be in English, and no previous background in literary studies or German is expected.

Prerequisite: German 022 or consent of instructor (serose@ucdavis.edu).

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Writing.

Textbooks:

• Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis, translated by Stanley Corngold  (Bantam Classics, 1972)
• Franz Kafka, Kafka's Selected Stories, translated and edited by Stanley Corngold  (W.W. Norton & Company, 2006)
• Franz Kafka, Amerika: The Missing Person: A New Translation Based on the Restored Text, translated by Mark Harman  (Schocken Books, 2011)
• Franz Kafka, The Trial: A New Translation Based on the Restored Text, translated by Breon Mitchell  (Schocken Books, 1999)
• Franz Kafka, The Castle, translated by Mark Harman  (Schocken Books, 1998)

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German 143. Languages Through Media (4 units)
Carlee Arnett

TR 12:10-1:30P
1128 Bainer Hall
CRN 63134

Course Description: This course will focus on the various types of media in the German-speaking world.  We will look at what types of media are popular, such as television, Internet and social media and who the participants in the use of media.  We will address such questions as who makes films and what are they trying to show about Germany.  What role to contemporary writers play on talk shows structuring discourse about current political events or societal concerns?  What social critique is made in television programs and who controls the programming?  Why has radio fallen out of favor or who is listening and to what?  What role in society do blogs, cabaret, hip-hop and other creative expressions play and what is their media outlet?

Prerequisite: German 022 or consent of instructor (clarnett@ucdavis.edu).

GE credit (Old): Arts & Humanities.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, Oral Literacy, Visual Literacy, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

• A Course Reader

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German 297

Section 001. Graduate Film Studies: The Case of Cinema in Germany (4 units)      Taught In English
Jaimey Fisher

W 1:10-4:00P
412B Sproul Hall
CRN 63226

Course Description: The seminar introduces graduate students to research and teaching in film studies, primarily by offering an overview of the history of German cinema. The course will take up the major periods of German film history, including the Weimar, the Nazi, the 1950s-60s, the New German Cinema, and the contemporary (Berlin-School) periods, but also probe this conventional periodization. The seminar will engage each film in its historical, political, and economic context and provide some theories of how these contexts can relate to film itself. Special attention will be to attendant theories of film and media as well as to how to effectively teach with them. The seminar will focus on the formal and technical aspects of these films, particularly how they represent via a technique that self-consciously mimics or resists (even when instrumentalizing) the classical Hollywood system. Among the historical and national themes this very rich cinema brought forth are: modernity and trauma in the Weimar era, the impact of the Nazi movement on media, postwar German reconstruction, feminism, political radicalism and terrorism in the 1970s, the “micropolitics” of the home and sexuality, and its relationship to Hollywood as well as to American political hegemony. Knowledge of German welcome, but not required.

Format: Seminar - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

• Anton Kaes, Shell Shock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War  (Princeton University Press, 2011)
• Thomas Elsaesser, Fassbinder's Germany: History, Identity, Subject  (Amsterdam University Press, 1996)
• Eric Rentschler, The Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlife  (Harvard University Press, 1996)
• Thomas Elsaesser, Weimar Cinema and After: Germany's Historical Imaginary  (Routledge Press, 2000)
• Marco Abel, The Counter-Cinema of the Berlin School  (Camden House, 2015)

 

Section 002. Literature of the Holocaust (4 units)
Sven-Erik Rose

M 1:10-4:00P
412B Sproul Hall
CRN 63307

Course Description: Various special topics in German literature, which may cut across the more usual period and genre rubrics. May be repeated for credit when topic differs.

Format: Seminar - 3 hours; Term Paper.

Textbooks:

• TBA