2009 Winter Courses

Lower Division Courses

German 2: Elementary German (5 Units)

Sec 1 (M-F, 8:00 - 8:50) CRN 36560

Sec 2 (M-F, 9:00 - 9:50) CRN 36561

Sec 3 (M-F, 10:00 - 10:50) CRN 36562

Course Description: Continuation of course 1 in areas of grammar and basic language skills.

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, 9:00 - 9:50) CRN 36563

Sec 2 (M-F, 10:00 - 10:50) CRN 36564

Course Description: 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 21: Intermediate German, Composition and Conversation (4 Units)

Sec 1 (MWF, 9:00-9:50) CRN 36565, Staff

Sec 2 (MWF, 10:00 - 10:50) CRN 36566, Jaimey Fisher

Course Description: Practice in short essay writing. Discussion based on readings from a variety of German texts. This course will be conducted in German.

Course Format: Discussion - 3 hours.

Prerequisite: Course 20 or consent of instructor.

Textbooks: Larry Wells and Morewedge(eds.): Mitlesen/Mitteilen; Rankin and Wells, Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik.

German 22: Intermediate German (4 Units)

Sec 1 (MWF 11:00 - 11:50) CRN 36567, Staff

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 usage, and to provide techniques for the interpretation and greater understanding of literary texts. This course will be conducted in German.

Course Format: Lecture/discussion - 3 hours.

Prerequisite: Course 21 or consent of instructor.

Textbooks: Ende, Momo; Rankin and Wells, Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik.

Upper Division Courses

German 101B: Survey of German Literature 1800 to Present (4 units)

TR 1:40 - 3:00 CRN 36590, Professor Gail Finney

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.

Authors such as the following will be studied: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Novalis, Heinrich von Kleist, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Heinrich Heine, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, Paul Celan, Wolfgang Borchert, Heinrich Böll, and Christa Wolf.

Course Format: Lecture/discussion - 3 hours.

Prerequisite: Course 22 or consent of instructor.

Textbooks: A course reader will be available.

German 103: Writing Skills in German (4 units)

MWF 9:00-9:50 CRN 53369, Professor Clifford Bernd

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.

Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; extensive writing.

Prerequisite: Course 22 or consent of instructor.

Textbooks: Turneasure, Der Treffende Ausdruck.

German 109A: Business German (4 units)

TR 9:00-10:20 CRN 53368, Professor Elisabeth Krimmer

Course Description: Specialized language course using business-oriented information and publications as the basis for discussions, role play, reports, compositions and translations.

Course Format: Lecture/discussion - 3 hours.

Prerequisite: Course 22 or consent of instructor.

Textbooks: Patricia Paulsell, et al., German for Business & Economics: Die Volks und Weltwertschaft.

German 120: Survey of German Culture(4 units)

(Lecture: MWF 12:00-12:50, Discussion: R 11:00-11:50) CRN 53370, Professor Clifford Bernd

Course Description: This 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 1920's, (10) the rebirth of German culture out of the ashes of world War II. GE Credit: ArtHum.

Course Format: Lecture - 3 hours; discussion - 1 hour.

Prerequisite: Course 22 or consent of instructor.

Textbooks: A Reader will be available at Navins Copy Shop.

Graduate Courses

German 261: Brecht, his Critics & his Legacy (4 units)

M 2:10 - 5:00 CRN 53764, Professor Jaimey Fisher

Course Description: Bertolt Brecht is widely regarded as one of the most important playwrights - and probably the most important dramatic theorist - since 1900. This seminar will examine the contribution of Brecht to theatre, theory, and cinema. The course will focus on two aspects of Brecht's work and legacy: first, the relationship between his theories and his plays, including the application of notions like epic theatre, alienation, gest, the fostering of critical audience, and historicizing; second, the responses to his work and theories, both by contemporaries like Walter Benjamin and also by his successors, including Heiner Müller, Peter Weiss, and Peter Handke. We shall also examine films that involved Brecht himself (Three Penny Opera) as well as those influenced by him (including works by Jean-Luc Godard, Alexander Kluge, and R.W. Fassbinder).

Course Format: Seminar - 3 hours.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.

Textbooks: Brecht's, Saint Joan of the Stockyards; Mother Courage and Her Children; Baal, a Mans a Man & the Elephant Calf; The Jewish Wife and Other Short Plays; Brecht on Theatre; Mutter Courage; Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe; Die Maßnahme; Die Dreigroschenoper; Baal; Mann ist Mann; Calandra, Rainer Warner Fassbinder: Plays; Dürrenmatt's, The Visit; Der Besuch der alten Dame; Fassbinder, Sämtliche Stücke; Müller's, Hamletmachine and Other Texts for the Stage; Germania Tod in Berlin; Weiss, Marat/Sade; The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat.

German 291: Foreign Language Learning In the Classroom (4 units)

M 12:10 - 3:00 CRN 53435, Professor Carlee Arnett

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.

Course Format: Seminar - 3 hours.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing or consent of instructor.

Textbooks: No text required. Readings will be made available.

German 396: Teaching Asst. Training Practicum. (1-4 units)

Time TBA CRN TBA, Professor Carlee Arnett

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.

Textbook: None.

Other Courses Taught by German Faculty

Critical Theory 200A: Approaches to Critical Theory (4 Units)

T 1:10-4:00 CRN 27859, Professor Gerhard Richter

Course Description: Through close and careful reading of influential texts, we will familiarize ourselves with some of the central issues in modern critical theory. While the seminar will have some historical range, it is not primarily a course in the history of theory. Instead, we will take as our point of departure a willingness to work toward "understanding" in the unsettling terrain of theory by attempting to enter it ourselves rather than by holding it at a safe distance. Always in intimate conversation with the text at hand, we will strive to develop a "feeling" for theory and the ability to think for ourselves. The authors to be studied are likely to include Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Saussure, Heidegger, Benjamin, Horkheimer & Adorno, Lacan, de Man, Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, Jameson, Bhabha, and Butler. This seminar will be of interest to graduate students in the humanities as well as those graduate students in the social sciences whose work has a theoretical bent. Participants are asked to read Jonathan Culler's extended essay Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction prior to our first session.

Course Format: Seminar - 3 hours; term paper.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

Humanities 144: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud (4 Units)

TR 10:30-11:50 CRN 53812, Professor Gerhard Richter

Course Description: This course will introduce students to some of the fundamental insights of Karl Marx (1818-1883), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), and Sigmund Freud (1855-1939), who revolutionized the way we understand ourselves and the modern world. We will examine such timely topics as capitalism and the ideology of the "market"; forms of religious fundamentalism and claims of truth; and the notion that, as a human being, I am fundamentally at odds with myself in elusive ways that nevertheless make me who I am. The course is intended for intellectually curious students from a wide variety of fields who do not wish to leave the university without first having seriously grappled with the deeply unsettling ideas of these three major thinkers and writers. (Regular attendance, midterm, final, and term paper.) GE credit: ArtHum, Wrt.

Course Format: Lecture/discussion - 3 hours; term paper.