- For day, time, room, CRN, and TA information, see our PDF SCHEDULE or the course search tool https://registrar-apps.ucdavis.edu/courses/search/index.cfm.
- Spring Quarter German Teaching Methodology
- For all courses not described below, please refer to the General Catalog course descriptions: https://catalog.ucdavis.edu/courses-subject-code/ger/
Language Courses
GER 1, 2, 3: Elementary German
Our language program has adapted to the current remote teaching situation with a robust mixture of interactive online learning portals, regular synchronous Zoom instruction by our wonderful Teaching Assistants and Associate Instructors, and personalized reading projects tailored to each class and instructor. We offer Elementary German for complete beginners this spring (GER 001), as well as the continuation of our elementary and intermediate series (GER 003, 020, and 022). Continuing courses will stay with the same textbooks we’ve had this fall and winter.
If you are new to our program and have questions about our classes, or where to start, email the Language Program Coordinator Dr. Kirsten Harjes (kharjes@ucdavis.edu).
GER 20, 21, 22: Intermediate German
Our language program has adapted to the current remote teaching situation with a robust mixture of interactive online learning portals, regular synchronous Zoom instruction by our wonderful Teaching Assistants and Associate Instructors, and personalized reading projects tailored to each class and instructor. We offer Elementary German for complete beginners this spring (GER 001), as well as the continuation of our elementary and intermediate series (GER 003, 020, and 022). Continuing courses will stay with the same textbooks we’ve had this fall and winter.
If you are new to our program and have questions about our classes, or where to start, email the Language Program Coordinator Dr. Kirsten Harjes (kharjes@ucdavis.edu).
Undergraduate Courses
GER 045 Vampires & Other Horrors
Kirsten Harjes
Monsters ask us a question: Why did we create them? What are the questions to which a particular monster is the answer? Great fears, deep desires, and urgent questions about life and beyond are personified in our monsters. Vampires and other undead souls throughout the centuries have proven to be extremely adaptable lenses through which we face fears about political instability, gender relations, sexuality, race and racism, epidemics, religious and moral uncertainty, technology, and, above all, human mortality. We will explore these topics in history, literature, and film. For the first five weeks, the course focuses exclusively on the figure of “Dracula” in European folklore and literature, Weimar Cinema (Germany), Hollywood, and the British Hammer Studios. In the second half of the quarter, we will turn to the Zombie and its racialized origins in the colonial history of Central America, and examine the legacy of Frankenstein and other artificial intelligence in contemporary culture and cinema.
GER 101B: Survey of German Literature 1800-2000
Kirsten Harjes
Synchronous Zoom Instruction in Spring ‘21
Course Description: 221 Jahre deutsche Literatur in 10 Wochen? Wir schaffen das: Wir konzentrieren uns auf bekannte, kanonisierte oder preisgekrönte Kurzgeschichten und Gedichte von SchriftstellerInnen wie Heinrich v. Kleist, Bettina v. Arnim, Heinrich Heine, Franz Kafka, Else Lasker-Schüler, Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Bertolt Brecht, Ilse Aichinger, May Ayim und Fatma Aydemir. Alle Aufgaben, die in der Klasse aufgegeben werden und auf Canvas zur Verfügung stehen werden, beziehen sich auf diese Autoren und ihre Texte. Im Zoom Klassenzimmer werden wir Hintergründe zu den historischen Rahmenbedingungen dieser Schriftsteller erarbeiten, um den Kontext ihrer Werke besser verstehen zu können. Alle Texte und Aufgaben in diesem Kurs sind auf Deutsch, wobei einige der Kurzgeschichten in unserem Kurstext als deutsch-englische Paralleltexte stehen.
Kursmaterial:
* Five Great German Short Stories: A Dual-Language Book, edited by Stanley Appelbaum (Dover Publications, 1993). ISBN: 978-0-486-27619-9
* Course reader, links, and video material on Canvas
GER 112 Topics
TBA
Course Description: See catalog.
GER 114 German Women & Film
Elisabeth Krimmer
Course Description: See catalog.
Graduate Courses
GER 241—The German Drama
Professor Gail Finney
Studies 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.
Course format: Seminar – 3 hours, Term paper.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.
Authors such as the following will be treated:Georg Büchner; J.M.R. Lenz; Ludwig Tieck; Gerhart Hauptmann; Frank Wedekind; Marieluise Fleißer; Bertolt; Brecht; Max Frisch; Elfriede Jelinek