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Courses of Study: German Language and Literature Minor Major (BA)

Objectives How to Become a Major

The German section of the Department of German, Russian, and The department welcomes all students who wish to become majors in Asian Languages and Literature offers instruction in the German German language and literature. Nonmajors and majors are offered language and literature aimed at providing access to many computer-aided instruction in German, and work in the classroom is aspects of the culture, past and present, of Germany, Austria, and supplemented with regular German-speaking events. Majors in parts of Switzerland. German has always been one of the prime German literature are encouraged to spend their junior year in languages of international scholarship, and the reunification of Germany or any other German-speaking country. Students are Germany in 1990 has drawn renewed attention to the European especially encouraged to participate in the Brandeis Berlin Summer and worldwide importance of that country. German majors have Program, a six-week intensive program taught in the center of the gone on to graduate school in German literature to prepare for a German capital. See Scott Van Der Meid in the Study Abroad office career of teaching and research or to professional schools in law, for more details. medicine, or business, entered government work, or found employment with publishing companies or business firms with In addition to the major in German literature, the section offers a international connections. minor in German literature and participates in the program in European Cultural Studies. (The abbreviation GECS denotes German and European Cultural Studies courses.)

Faculty

See German, Russian, and Asian Languages and Literature.

Requirements for the Major Requirements for the Minor

A. ECS 100a (European Cultural Studies: The Proseminar) to be GER 103a or GER 104a and GER 105b are required, plus two German completed no later than the junior year. literature/culture courses above GER 105b. Successful completion of GER 30a or a departmental language exemption exam is a prerequisite B. Advanced language and literature study: Required are: GER for the minor. 103a, GER 104a, and GER 105a, plus any five German literature/ culture courses above GER 105b, at least two of which must be conducted in German.

C. Majors wishing to graduate with departmental honors must enroll in and complete GER 99d (Senior Thesis), a full-year course. Before enrolling, students should consult with the coordinator. Candidates for departmental honors must have a 3.50 GPA in German courses previous to the senior year. Honors are awarded on the basis of cumulative excellence in all courses taken in the major and the grade on the honors thesis. One semester of the Senior Thesis may be counted toward the six required upper-level courses.

A major in German may obtain the Massachusetts teaching certificate at the high school level by additionally completing requirements of the education program. Interested students should meet with the program director. 182 German Language and Literature

Courses of Instruction (100–199) For Both Undergraduate GER 109b Meisterwerke Deutscher Kurzprosa and Graduate Students [ hum ] (1–99) Primarily for Undergraduate Conducted in German. Students Tailored to suit the needs of advanced The abbreviation GECS denotes German intermediate students, this course explores and European cultural studies courses in detail several short prose masterworks by which are taught in English. GER 10a Beginning German writers including Martin Buber, Franz Intended for students with little or no Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Mann, GER 103a What You Always Wanted to previous knowledge of German. Emphasis is GER 103a What You Always Wanted to Rainer Maria Rilke, and Arthur Schnitzler. Know placed on comprehending, reading, writing, Know Usually offered every third year. [ hum fl ] and conversing in German and the Mr. Dowden Prerequisite: GER 30a presentation of basic grammar. Class work Why is 1870 an important date in German is enhanced by various interactive GER 110a Goethe history? What/who is Wilhelm Tell of classroom activities and is supplemented by [ hum ] Switzerland? What exactly is the Weimar extensive language lab, video, and Intensive study of many of Goethe’s Republic? Why was it so easy for Hitler to computer-aided exercises. Usually offered dramatic, lyric, and prose works, including seize power? Was Hitler German or every year in the fall. Goetz, Werther, Faust I, and a Austrian? What is “Zwolftonmusik”? What Ms. von Mering comprehensive selection of poetry. Usually is Dadaism? Is Wagner’s music anti- offered every third year. semitic? What was the relation between GER 20b Continuing German Ms. von Mering “Bauhaus” and the Nazi regime? What is Prerequisite: GER 10a or the equivalent. the “new German film”? The “Ossies” and Continuation of comprehending, reading, GECS 118a Seduction and Enlightenment the “Wessies” and their trouble in getting writing, and conversing in German, with an [ hum ] along—why is that? All that and much emphasis on basic grammar concepts. Open to all students. Conducted in English more are elaborated in this cultural Special attention is paid to the development with readings in English translation. overview course that aims to cover German, of speaking skills in the context of cultural Explores the dialectic of reason and the Swiss, and Austrian history and culture, topics of the German-speaking countries. irrational from the late eighteenth century while at the same time strengthening and Extensive language lab, video, and in Germany and Austria until its collapse in enhancing German language competency. computer-aided exercises supplement this World War I. Works by Beethoven, Kant, Ms. Geffers Browne course. Usually offered every year in the Mendelssohn, Goethe, Lessing, Mozart, spring. Heine, Novalis, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, GER 104a Let’s Talk! Shall We? Ms. Geffers Browne GER 104a Let’s Talk! Shall We? Thomas Mann, and others. Usually offered [ fl hum ] every third year. Prerequisite: GER 30a. GER 30a Intermediate German Ms. von Mering Designed to focus on fostering students’ [ fl ] oral skills. Numerous mock situations and Prerequisite: GER 20b or the equivalent. GECS 119b Nietzsche to Postmodernism roleplaying exercises provide students with In concluding the development of the four [ hum ] the opportunity to develop and polish oral language speaking skills—comprehending, Open to all students. Conducted in English competency in the German language. writing, reading, and speaking—this course with readings in English translation. Various mock social gatherings like student focuses on finishing up the solid grammar Explores the dialectic of reason and the outings and parties, festive family events, foundation that was laid in GER 10a and irrational from the late nineteenth century romantic dates, and academic and GER 20b. It also presents additional audio in Germany and Austria to the present. professional interview situations offer the and video material, films, radio plays, and Works by Adorno, Benjamin, Brecht, Celan, know-how for interns to be successful and newspaper and magazine articles, as well as Habermas, Heidegger, Junger, Kiefer, gain the most out of their experience a variety of extensive interactive classroom Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Nietzsche, abroad. Travel and restaurant “language,” activities. Usually offered every year in the Schoenberg, Spengler, and expressionist and also a certain amount of business fall. painting and film. Usually offered every German, all this and more are practiced in Ms. Geffers Browne second year. this course. Mr. Dowden Ms. Geffers Browne GER 98a Independent Study May be taken only with the permission of GER 120a German Enlightenment and GER 105a Learning Language through the chair or the advising head. GER 105a Learning Language through Classicism Literature/Learning Literature through Readings and reports under faculty Literature/Learning Literature through [ hum ] Language supervision. Usually offered every year. Language Prerequisites: GER 39a, A– or better in GER [ fl hum wi ] Staff 30a, or the equivalent. Prerequisite: GER 30a or the equivalent. Careful reading and discussion (in German) Provides broad introduction to GER 98b Independent Study of some of the most moving dramatic contemporary German literature while May be taken only with the permission of scenes and lyrical poems written by further enhancing various language skills the chair or the advising head. Lessing, Klopstock, Lenz, Goethe, Schiller, through reading, writing, student Readings and reports under faculty Holderlin, and others will provide an presentations, class discussion, and partner supervision. Usually offered every year. overview of those fertile literary and and group activities. “Covers” the entire Staff intellectual movements—enlightenment, twentieth century, examining ways in storm and stress, and idealism—that which literature reflects culture, history, GER 99d Senior Thesis eventually culminated in German and politics, and vice versa. Focuses on a Students should consult advising head. classicism. Usually offered every third year. significant expansion of vocabulary as well Usually offered every year. Ms. von Mering as ironing out some subtle grammar Staff “traps.” Students’ writing skills improve by means of numerous creative writing assignments. Speaking skills are challenged in every class since the course is designed as an interactive language/literature course. Usually offered every year. Ms. Geffers Browne German Language and Literature 183

GER 121a Der Eros und das Wort: Lyrik seit GECS 155a Modern German Jewish History GECS 180b European Modernism and the Goethe [ hum ] German Novel [ hum ] Course to be taught at Brandeis summer [ hum ] Focuses on poets, poems, and cycles of program in Berlin. Open to all students. Conducted in English poems in the German lyric tradition since Study of Germany and the European Jews with readings in English translation. Goethe, and introduces the various forms of from the period of emancipation in the late A study of selected novelists writing after poetry. Acquaints the student with some eighteenth and early nineteenth century to Nietzsche and before the end of World War important critics of German lyric, including the present. Examines the role of German II. Explores the culture, concept, and Adorno, Benn, Gadamer, Heidegger, Heller, Jews in German politics, economic life, and development of European modernism in Hofmannsthal, Kommerell, Szondi, and culture; the rise of antisemitism in the works by Broch, Canetti, Döblin, Junger, others. Usually offered every third year. nineteenth century; the Nazi government’s Kafka, Mann, Musil, Rilke, and Roth. Mr. Dowden anti-Jewish policies to the postwar period. Usually offered every second year. Usually offered every year. Mr. Dowden GER 130b Die Prinzessin und der Golem: Ms. von Mering Marchen GER 181a Franz Kafka’s Erzahlungen [ hum ] GECS 160a In the Shadow of the Holocaust: [ hum ] Prerequisite: GER 30a. Conducted in Global Encounters Prerequisites: GER 105a is recommended. German. [ hum ] A detailed exploration of Kafka’s works, An introduction to the genre of fairy tale in Traces the experience of German exiles in life, and thought. Emphasis will be given to German literature, focusing especially on different parts of the world. Addresses his place in the larger scheme of literary the narratives collected by Jakob and issues of identity, linguistic displacement, modernism. Usually offered every third Wilhelm Grimm, but also exploring the problems of integration, (post) colonial year. Kunstmarchen and calendar stories encounters, antisemitism and xenophobia, Mr. Dowden composed by German writers from nostalgia, and the experience of those who Romanticism into the twentieth century. eventually returned to Germany. Usually GECS 182a Franz Kafka Usually offered every third year. offered every third year. [ hum ] Mr. Dowden Ms. von Mering Open to all students. Conducted in English. A detailed exploration of Kafka’s works, GER 140a Bertolt Brecht und das Theater GECS 167a German Cinema: Vamps and life, and thought. Emphasis is given to his des 20.Jahrhunderts Angels place in the larger scheme of literary [ hum ] [ hum ] modernism. Usually offered every third Prerequisite: GER 103a or equivalent. Open to all students. Conducted in English year. Conducted in German. with readings in English translation. Mr. Dowden Examines the role of theater and drama as From silent film to Leni Riefenstahl and “moral institution” and entertainment. Nazi cinema, from postwar cinema in the GECS 185b Contemporary German Fiction How does theater hold postwar Germans East and West to new German film after [ hum ] accountable for remembering the past and unification, this course traces aesthetic Open to all students. Conducted in English promoting social justice? Students will also strategies, reflections on history, memory, with readings in English translation. work collaboratively on a performance subjectivity, and political, cultural, and Explores the postmodernist rejection of the project. Usually offered every second year. film-historical contexts with an emphasis German tradition in fiction after World War Ms. von Mering on gender issues. Usually offered every II, a multifaceted confrontation with second year. German history and organized amnesia that GER 145a Berlin in Literature/Literature in Ms. von Mering has continued into the present. Works by Berlin Koeppen, Grass, Johnson, Bernhard, [ hum ] GECS 170a Viennese Modernism, 1890- Handke, Bachmann, Seghers, Treichel, Prerequisites: GER 103a, 104a, or 105a. 1938 Sebald, and others. Usually offered every Course to be taught at Brandeis summer [ hum ] year. program in Berlin. Open to all students. Conducted in English Mr. Dowden Berlin as the covert capital of the twentieth with readings in English translation. century and newly revitalized modern An interdisciplinary exploration of cultural GECS 190b German Masterworks metropolis has served as background to and intellectual life in Vienna from the end [ hum ] many literary masterpieces. Follows the life of the Habsburg era to the rise of Nazism: Offers students the opportunity to immerse and work of Berlin authors, both male and film, music, painting, theater, fiction, themselves in the intensely detailed study female, including site visits. Usually offered philosophy, psychology, and physics. Works of a single masterpiece of pivotal every summer. by Berg, Broch, Canetti, Freud, importance. Any one of the following Ms. Opitz-Weimars Hofmannsthal, Klimt, Kraus, Mach, Mahler, works, but only one, is selected for study in Musil, Schoenberg, Webern, Wittgenstein, a given semester: Goethe’s Faust (parts I GECS 150a From Rapunzel to Riefenstahl: and others. Usually offered every fourth and II); Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Real and Imaginary Women in German year. Zarathustra; Kafka’s Castle; Musil’s Man Culture Mr. Dowden Without Qualities; Thomas Mann’s Doctor [ hum ] Faustus; Walter Benjamin’s Origin of Open to all students. Conducted in English German Tragic Drama; Celan’s with readings in English translation. Sprachgitter. Usually offered every year. Exploring German cultural representations Mr. Dowden of women and real women’s responses. From fairy-tale princess to Nazi filmmaker, HUM 125a Topics in the Humanities from eighteenth-century infanticide to [ hum ] twentieth-century femme fatale, from An interdisciplinary seminar on a topic of beautiful soul to feminist dramatist, from major significance in the humanities; the revolutionary to minority writer. Readings course content and instructor vary from include major literary works, feminist year to year; may be repeated for credit with criticism, and film. Usually offered every instructor’s permission. Usually offered third year. every third year. Ms. von Mering Staff 184 German Language and Literature

Cross-Listed Courses

ECS 100a European Cultural Studies Proseminar: Modernism

ECS 100b European Cultural Studies Proseminar: Making of European Modernity

FA 177b Twentieth-Century European Art and Architecture in Berlin

MUS 65a Music, the Arts, and Ideas in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Department of Courses of Study: See Chinese. German, Russian, and See East Asian Studies. See European Cultural Studies Asian Languages and Literature See German Language and Literature. See Japanese. See Russian Language and Literature. See South Asian Studies.

Faculty Yu Feng Hiroko Sekino, Language Coordinator Chinese language. (Japanese) (on leave fall 2007) Japanese. Robin Feuer Miller, Chair Matthew Fraleigh Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Nineteenth- Classical and modern Japanese literature Harleen Singh century Russian literature and comparative and language. Cultural and literary South Asian studies. Comparative literature. The novel. Reader-response exchange between China and Japan. literature. Postcolonial theory and studies. criticism. Literature and travel. Sabine von Mering Stephen Dowden, Chair, European Cultural Christine Geffers-Browne, Language Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Studies Coordinator and Undergraduate Advising German literature. German women writers. German modernism. Romanticism. The Head (German) Feminist theory. Language pedagogy. Novel: Kafka, Bernhard, Thomas Mann, Foreign language acquisition. German Drama. Broch, Musil, Goethe. Austrian literature. realism. Christianity and literature. German-Jewish identity. Irina Dubinina, Language Coordinator (Russian) David Powelstock, Undergraduate Advising Bilingualism. Russian heritage speakers. Head (Russian); Chair, Russian and East Teaching language through culture/film/ European Studies theater. Second-language acquisition in Nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian Russian. First-language attrition. literature. Romanticism. Modernism. Czech literature. Poetry. Translation. Literary theory.

Greek See Classical Studies.