Lower Division Courses
German 2: Elementary German (5 Units)
Karina Deifel, Instructor (sec. 1, M-F 08:00-08:50, TBA) CRN 46433
Anja Stender, Instructor (sec. 2, M-F 09:00-09:50, TBA) CRN 46434
Jared Loehrmann, Instructor (sec. 3, M-F 10:00-10:50, TBA) CRN 46435
This is a continuation of course 1. Students will continue to develop their German grammar and hone all language skills in a cultural context with special emphasis on communication.
Prerequisite: course 1 or language placement exam.
Course Format: Discussion - 5 hours; Laboratory - 1 hour.
Textbooks:
- Thomas A. Lovik, Vorsprung, 2nd edition (Textbook)
- Thomas A. Lovik, Student Activities Manual - Used with Vorsprung (Workbook)
German 3: Elementary German (5 units)
Kevin Wolf, Instructor (M-F 09:00-09:50, TBA) CRN 46436
Course Description: This is the third course of the elementary language series. It will cover the completion of grammar sequence and continuing practice of all language skills in a cultural context.
Prerequisite: course 2.
Course Format: Discussion - 5 hours; Laboratory - 1 hour.
Textbook:
- Thomas A. Lovik, Vorsprung, 2nd edition (Textbook)
- Thomas A. Lovik, Student Activities Manual - Used with Vorsprung (Workbook)
German 21: Intermediate German (4 Units)
Sascha Gerhards, Instructor (sec. 1, MWF 09:00-09:50, TBA) CRN 46438
Tina Boyer, Instructor (sec. 2, MWF 10:00-10:50, TBA) CRN 46439
Course Description: This is the second course of intermediate level of German. Students will continue to review grammar, read and discuss short, literary texts of cultural and historical interest. Class is conducted in German.
Prerequisite: course 20.
Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Short papers.
Textbooks:
- Rosemarie Morewedge and Larry Wells (eds.), Mitlesen/Mitteilen
- Jamie Rankin and Larry Wells (eds.), Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik
German 22: Intermediate German (4 Units)
Marcella Livi, Insructor (MWF 11:00-11:50, TBA) CRN 46440
Course Description: 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 uage, and to provide techniques for the interpretation and greater understanding of literary texts. This course will be conducted in German.
Prerequisite: course 21 or consent of instructor.
Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Short Papers.
Textbooks:
- A Course Reader on SmartSite
German 40: Great German Short Stories (4 Units)
Carlee Arnett, Associate Professor (TR 10:30-11:50, TBA) CRN 63356
Course Description: This course will introduce students to the world of great German short stories. We will read stories from the major German writers from the past to the present, which include Kafka, Brecht, Grass, Rilke, and Schnitzler. Knowledge of German is not required. GE credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.
Prerequisite: None (The class will be conducted in English).
Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks:
- A Course Reader
Upper Division Courses
German 101B: Survey of German Literature (4 units)
Gail Finney, Professor (TR 01:40 - 03:00, TBA) CRN 46463
Course Description: This course provides an introduction to dominant movements and major authors in German literature within a social, historical, and cultural context from the age of Romanticism (1800) to the present. GE Credit: ArtHum.
Prerequisite: course 22 or Consent of Instructor.
Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbook: A Course Reader
German 103: Writing Skills in German (4 units)
Clifford Bernd, Professor (MWF 09:00-09:50, TBA) CRN 46464
Course Description: 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 skulls 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. GE credit: ArtHum.
Prerequisite: course 22 or Consent of Instructor.
Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbooks: Brigitte Turneasure, Der treffende Ausdruck
German 117: Jews in Post-1945 Germany (4 Units)
Jaimey Fisher, Associate Professor (TR 03:10-04:30, TBA) CRN 64040
Course Description: This course considers the place of Jews and Jewish life and culture in Germany after 1945. The focus will not so much be on representations of the Holocaust – although, obviously, the topics addressed will dovetail and be overdetermined by the Holocaust – but rather on how Jews, the Jewish community, and representations of Jews have played a role in German culture, society, and politics after the war. In no other country has history, memory, and the place of one minority – as well as the long history of collective hatred against that minority – played such an important role in the political and civic life of a nation. Yet, most courses have focused on Jews up to and in the Holocaust rather than on the role Jews and Jewish life have played in Germany since World War II. The course contends that many of the most important debates and controversies in and about postwar Germany and its status as a nation have intersected, in fundamental ways, with Germany’s long and complicated history with Jewish peoples.
We will examine these debates and controversies, including, among others, the migration of Jews to and through Germany after the war; the place of memoirs by Jewish authors in postwar German culture; the “Historians’ debate”; the lengthy debates about Holocaust memorialization in Germany; the reception of Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners; the controversy surrounding comments and the writing of German author Martin Walser; and the impact of the immigration of a large number of Jews from the former Soviet Union on the German Jewish community. The course has considerable topical breadth because, in foregrounding the relationship of a long history to recent culture and society, it examines not only literary and historical writings, but also the role of diverse media like photography, television, and film as well as the so-called new media in memory and memorializing. For instance, in terms of film, we shall examine the wave of mid-1990s and early post-2000 films about German-Jewish relations including Aimee and Jaguar and Jew-Boy Levi; in terms of photography and new media, we shall examine the controversy around the late-1990s exhibition about the Wehrmacht (the German army), which led to the exhibitions being taken down, revised, and then re-released.
The class will be a seminar with strong emphasis on active participation and, given the recent nature of much of the materials, the interpretation of primary sources. The seminar and assignments are geared to encourage debate and writing among the students. GE Credit: ArtHum, Div, Wrt.
Prerequisite: None.
Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; Term Paper.
Textbook: A Course Reader (To be purchased at Davis Copy Shop)
German 176A: Classic Weimar Cinema (4 Units)
Jaimey Fisher, Associate Professor (Lecture - TR 12:10-01:30, TBA; Film Viewing - M 06:10-09:00, TBA) CRN 63357
Course Description: Weimar Cinema - the diverse film culture of 1920s Germany - gave birth or early impetus to some of the most important film genres for global cinema, including horror, film noir, science fiction, and melodrama. The course will chart how it was within the context of Weimar Germany and, above all, its uneasy confrontation with modernity and modernization that the horror film, film noir, science-fiction film, and the melodrama all emerged.
In these cultural products, the class will discuss various topics like: the twentieth-century revolution in aesthetics, the impact of war on society, Expressionism in text and in film, technology and the metropolis, changing gender roles as well as the changing nature of work. Focusing on these questions of modernity and cinema as well as the origins of these film genres, the course will reevaluate the canonical films of this period, including The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, Metropolis, and M as well as address lesser known works like Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, The Last Laugh,and Girls in Uniform. This course will analyze these films but also the varied and variegated scholarly approaches to Weimar Cinema. A study of Weimar cinema, in fact, affords an indispensable occasion on which to engaged with what is probably the most famous single book of film criticism, Siegfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler. But the course will not only address Kracauer's canonical work, but also set Kracauer in a mutually illuminating dialogue with Lotte Eisner and Thomas Elsaesser - and thereby offer diverse approaches to film, an approach that will highlight the range of approaches and stakes in film studies. This course is cross-listed with Film Studies 176A.
Prerequisite: Humanities 1 or Consent of Instructor.
Course Format: Lecture/Discussion - 3 hours; Film Viewing - 3 hours.
Textbook:
- Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler - Revised & Expanded
Graduate Courses
German 206: Cognitive Grammar for Applied Linguistics (4 Units)
Carlee Arnett, Associate Professor (T 12:10 - 03:00, 812B Sproul) CRN 63385
Course Description: This course will focus on the role of grammar in the first and second year language classroom. We will read articles that describe a new syntactic theory, Cognitive Grammar, as well as articles on the acquisition of certain grammatical structures by classroom learners. The course will alternate between lecture, student led discussion of the readings and hands-on application of CG to the grammar presented in first and second year textbooks in Spanish, French and German. At the end of the course, students will be able to discuss the role of grammar in language instruction and critically evaluate materials used to teach grammar in the first and second year. Students will also be able to identify and discuss the theoretical framework used in their textbooks. In the term paper, students will design a classroom research project that evaluates how effectively a grammatical structure is taught.
This course is taught in English and counts toward the Designated Emphasis (DE) in Second Language Acquisition.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing or Consent of Instructor.
Course Format: Seminar - 3 hours; Extensive Term Paper.
Textbook:
- A Course Reader
German 291: Foreign Language Learning in the Classroom (4 Units)
Bruce Anderson, Assistant Professor of French (R 01:10-04:00, TBA) CRN 46517
Course Description: This course will provide an overview of approaches to university-level foreign language instruction in the United States and the theoretical notions underlying current trends in classroom practices across commonly taught foreign languages. Course objectives are the following: (1) to acquaint students with issues and research in foreign language teaching; (2) to show ways of using that research to achieve more effective classroom instruction; (3) to develop students’ skills in evaluating teaching performance and instructional materials; and (4) to prepare students for continued professional development, including the use of technology in the classroom. Class meetings will be devoted to lectures by the course instructor and invited guest speakers, student-led discussion, and short presentations and/or demonstrations by students and the instructor. Students will use professional journals to explore topics of interest; prepare their own classroom materials; evaluate the instructional materials developed by others; and complete a final exam.
This course is cross-listed with French 291 and Spanish 291.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing or Consent of Instructor.
Course Format: Seminar - 3 hours; Extensive Term Paper.
Textbook: A Course Reader on SmartSite.
German 396: Teaching Assistant Training Curriculum (1-4 Units)
Carlee Arnett, Associate Professor (CRN 36679)
Course Description: Theoretical instruction in modern teaching methods and demonstration of their practical application. Required of new teaching assistants.
Prerequisite: Graduate standing or Consent of Instructor.
Other Courses Taught by German Faculty
Critical Theory 200B: Problems in Critical Theory - "Inheriting Hegel: Heidegger, Adorno, Derrida" (4 Units)
Gerhard Richter, Professor
For more information, please click HERE (This will lead you to the Critical Theory Program Website).
Comparative Literature 7: Literature of Fantasy and Supernatural (4 Units)
Gail Finney, Professor
For more information, please click HERE (This will lead you to the Comparative Literature Program Website).
Humanities 13: Witches (4 Units)
Elisabeth Krimmer, Associate Professor
For more information, please click HERE (This will lead you to the Humanities Program Website).