GERLIT 16N:
Music, Myth, and Modernity: Wagner's Ring Cycle and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (MUSIC 16N)
Preference to freshmen. Roots of Wagner's operatic cycle and Tolkien's epic trilogy in a common core of Norse, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon mythology. The role of musical motive and characterization in Wagner's music dramas and the film version of Tolkien's trilogy. Music as a key element in the psychological, political, and cultural revision of ancient myth in modern opera and film.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom
GERLIT 127:
Uncanny Literature in the Nineteenth Century
From ghost children and animated statues, the walking dead to machine women and doppelgangers, 19th-century German literature teems with things that go bump in the night. The history of this tradition of fantastic literature in Germany, its origins, main authors, and defining features. Authors include E.T.A. Hoffmann, Wilhelm Hauff, Friedrich Schiller, Joseph von Eichendorff and Jeremias Gotthelf. Readings and writing in German.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 127A:
German Sports Movies
How sports movies represent changing body cultures and conceptions of sports and media, and allow a glimpse into the life of German societies and history since the 20s. Sports include alpinism, boxing, cycling, football (soccer), gymnastics, track and field, and volleyball. Movies in German.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
GERLIT 131:
Goethe: Poetic Vision and Vocation in the Age of Reason
Introduction to Goethe¿s major works, reading across genres of poetry, drama, the novel, and autobiography; critical writings on art, nature, and aesthetics. Central trends in Goethe¿s thought; the interrelatedness of poetic vision and philosophical thinking in his works. Goethe in relation to other intellectual and philosophical movements of the period, including romanticism.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
GERLIT 132:
German Sports Culture
Peculiarities of sports in Germany as a point of access to past and present German culture. Concepts of competition and performance; relations between sports and politics in different periods of modern German history. Sources include theoretical and literary texts in English and German, and media representations of athletic contests.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 136:
Berlin Topographies in the 20th Century
Development of Berlin¿s spatial imaginaries from the boulevards of the late 19th century to the Weimar Republic's urban agendas, and to the repeated reconstructions by the Nazis, the GDR and Berlin Republic. Sources: Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, Berthold Brecht, Peter Weiss, Mascha Kaleko, Peter Schneider, Blixa Bargeld, Wolf Biermann, Christoph Hein, Monika Maron, Thomas Hettche, and Wim Wenders. In German.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 137:
Introduction to German Poetry
Major poets writing in German including Gryphius, Goethe, Hölderlin, Novalis, Eichendorff, Heine, Rilke, Lasker-Schüler, Trakl, Benn, Celan, Brecht, Enzensberger, and Falkner. Close reading technique. Interpretive tools and theoretical concepts. Poetic form, voice, figural language, and the interaction of sensory registers. In German.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
GERLIT 138:
Introduction to Germanic Languages (GERGEN 38A)
The oldest attested stages of the Germanic language family, including Gothic, Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old English, Old Frisian, Old Low Franconian (Old Dutch), and Old High German. The linguistic interrelationships, prehistory, Germanic tribal groupings, and literature.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 147:
The Avant Garde (GERLIT 247)
What happens to art in an age of movies, machines, and two world wars? Who is still making it, and why? What does the avant garde actually mean, and to whom? What are the techniques that distinguish it, in the minds of its most revolutionary practitioners, from all that came before? And why should people care about these techniques today? German materials explored in a wider European context, with emphasis on the avant garde movements of France and Russia.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 189A:
Honors Research
Senior honors students enroll for 5 units in Winter while writing the honors thesis, and may enroll in 189B for 2 units in Spring while revising the thesis. Prerequisite: DLCL 189.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
GERLIT 189B:
Honors Research
Open to juniors with consent of adviser while drafting honors proposal. Open to senior honors students while revising honors thesis. Prerequisites for seniors: 189A, DLCL 189.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2
GERLIT 199:
Independent Reading
36 hours of reading per unit, weekly conference with instructor. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-10
| Repeatable
for credit
GERLIT 201A:
SACRAMENTAL REPRESENTATIONSacramental Representation: German Literature and Religion
In the early modern period, the sacrament became a major focus of negotiations on signification and performance. Literature is written in reference to these debates and thus influenced by the paradoxes of the representation of the unpresentable. The relation between religion and German literature from the Reformation to the 19th century with a focus on the sacrament. Theoretical approaches of Louis Marin and Regina Schwartz.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-3
GERLIT 201B:
Theories of Secularization
With the recent renaissance of religion in public and theoretical discourse, the concept of secularization has returned as well. Despite 70s criticism as opaque, biased, and imprecise, secularization proves indispensable to describe the complexities of the modern world. The history of the concept and its criticism from Max Weber to Giorgio Agamben. The ambiguity and diversity of the notion in contexts such as theology and literary theory.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-3
GERLIT 215:
Gottfried Benn and Francis Ponge: Mid-20th-Century European Poetry and the Problem of the Referent (COMPLIT 215A, FRENGEN 215)
Comparative readings of the two poets in their respective national contexts, with attention to biographical and poetological frameworks. Canonic status and scholarly reception histories. Renewed interest in their work with regard to their distinctive practices of connecting prosodic form and extra textual referents. Prerequisite: reading knowledge of German or French.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 246:
Memory, History, and the Contemporary Novel (COMPLIT 221)
How the watershed events of the 20th century, the philosophic linguistic turn, and the debate regarding the end of history left their mark on the novel. How does the contemporary novel engage with the past? How does its interest in memory and history relate to late- or postmodern culture of time or to political and ethical concerns? Novels by Toni Morrison, W. G. Sebald, J. M. Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro, and A. B. Yehoshua; theoretical works by Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson, Paul Ricoeur Awishai Margalit, and Walter Benn Michaels.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 247:
The Avant Garde (GERLIT 147)
What happens to art in an age of movies, machines, and two world wars? Who is still making it, and why? What does the avant garde actually mean, and to whom? What are the techniques that distinguish it, in the minds of its most revolutionary practitioners, from all that came before? And why should people care about these techniques today? German materials explored in a wider European context, with emphasis on the avant garde movements of France and Russia.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 250B:
German Romanticism and Its Repercussions
Works by Novalis, the Schlegel brothers, Tieck, Wackenroder, Hoffmann, Klingemann. Theory of the subject; transformative politics and conservative-religious retreat into inwardness; the fragment form and the novel; reflection, play, irony; the productive self-movement of language; the hieroglyph of nature; animating effects of Romantic desire and its impasses; interactions among literature, music, and painting. Ambivalent and critical responses to Romanticism (Hegel, Heine, Nietzsche) and recent revivals (Benjamin, Lacoue-Labarthe, Nancy, and Frank). Readings in German, discussion in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 250C:
Postwar German Culture and Thought: 1945 to the Present
How German culture and thought confronted the legacy of National Socialism, German guilt, and the possibility of a new beginning. German culture and the memory of communism (the German Democratic Republic) after 1989. Fiction of Thomas Mann, Gunter Grass, Alexander Kluge, and Hans Ulrich Treichel; poetry of Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann; philosophical essays of Martin Heidegger, Theodor Adorno, Jürgen Habermas; films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Florian Henkel (The Life of Others), and Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall).
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 255:
Middle High German
Introduction to medieval German language and culture. Readings include Hartmann von Aue and Gottfried von Strassburg; genres include Minnesang, epic, and romance. Grammar review; emphasis is on rapid and accurate reading.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 298:
Individual Work
Open only to German majors and to students working on special projects, including written reports for internships. Honors students use this number for the honors essay. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-15
| Repeatable
for credit
GERLIT 369:
Introduction to Graduate Studies: Criticism as Profession (COMPLIT 369, FRENGEN 369, ITALGEN 369)
Major texts of modern literary criticism in the context of professional scholarship today. Readings of critics such as Lukács, Auerbach, Frye, Ong, Benjamin, Adorno, Szondi, de Man, Abrams, Bourdieu, Vendler, and Said. Contemporary professional issues including scholarly associations, journals, national and comparative literatures, university structures, and career paths.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
GERLIT 399:
Independent Study
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-15
| Repeatable
for credit
GERLIT 400:
Dissertation Research
For graduate students in German working on dissertations only.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-12
| Repeatable
for credit
GERLIT 802:
TGR Dissertation
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 0
| Repeatable
for credit
GERLIT 121:
Hannah Arendt
One of the most important political thinkers on the epochal events in the 20th century. Her central concepts and ideas such as her notion of totalitarianism and its origins, the banality of evil, the life of the mind, and the idea of revolution. Her reflections on art, literature, and history.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 123N:
The Brothers Grimm and Their Fairy Tales
Preference to freshmen. Historical, biographical, linguistic, and literary look at the Kinder- and Hausmärchen of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Readings from the fairy tales, plus materials in other media such as film and the visual arts. Small group performances of dramatized fairy tales. In German. Prerequisite: GERLANG 3 or equivalent.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 130A:
Pop Literature in the Federal Republic of Germany
Peter Handke¿s protest against Gruppe 47¿s defining power; Rolf Dieter. Brinkmann¿s connection with Leslie Fiedler (acceptance of mass culture) and the aesthetic orientation of the beat generation. The establishment of a counter-counterculture in the 80s, pop music as a German version of new journalism, the narrative tradition in the wake of Raymond Chandler, the impact of disk jockey culture in the 90s, and the cataloging and archiving of media and youth culture.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 131A:
Immigrant/Minority Literature and the Emergence of Multiculturalism in Germany
Immigrant culture and literature in Germany across genres, including stories, drama, memoirs, and film. What do immigrants in Germany write about? What role does immigrant literary culture play in the formation of notions of cultural difference and dialogue? How do the dynamics of ethnic and cultural diversity influence concepts and notions of culture and nationhood in Germany?
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 131B:
German Lyric and the Oriental Tradition
How the translation of Oriental poetry and poetics into German in the late 18th and early 29th centuries inspired poetry incorporating Oriental models by writers such as Goethe, Rückert, Platen, and Heine. German translations of Oriental poets and writers. Poetry as a transcultural and crosstemporal phenomenon.The lyric¿s relationship to music in the context of Germany and the Orient.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 133C:
German Romanticism (GERLIT 233)
The literary and theoretical innovations of early Romanticism, and works from the later phase. In German. (Dornbach)
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 133F:
German Self-Understandings: Between Culture and Civilization (GERLIT 233F)
German-language writers' attempts to come to terms with German culture from 1800. Visions of a national Kultur in opposition to the universalistic civilization of modernity; the role of language and the arts in this ideal; the emergence of militant nationalism and attempts to counter this tendency with enlightened patriotism; and the quandaries of postwar and post-1989 German self-understanding.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 133Q:
Modernism and Fiction
Preference to sophomores. Innovative ideas and narrative forms in German modernism. International and specifically German features. Problems of narration. Texts such as Musil's Törless, Mann's Tod in Venedig, Kafka's Die Verwandlung, and Broch's Pasenow. Close reading technique. Prerequisite: reading knowledge of German.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 135:
Literature and the Limits of Self-Determination: Introduction to 19th-Century German Prose
Works registering a heightened sense of the precarious position of the modern individual including Goethe, Kleist, Buechner, Nietzsche, Freud, Mann, and Kafka. In German; attention to improvement of linguistic skills. WIM
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 139:
Love, Marriage and Passion in German Literature of the 19th and 20th Centuries (GERLIT 339)
The thesis that love relationships, in shifting social, cultural, and communication contexts, reflect and determine the dominant value system of a society. How the concepts of romantic, passionate, and pragmatic love evolved and competed with one another in texts by Goethe, Schlegel, Keller, Sacher-Masoch, Fontane, and Böll. In German.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 140:
Postcolonialism and German Literature
Goal is to re-read texts without the constraints of political correctness. Colonial and gender discourse, ambivalence towards foreigners from outside Europe: between desire and fear (Heinrich von Kleist, Theodore Storm, Theodore Fontane); colonialism as a system of repression (Franz Kafka); the third world and the literary left (Peter Weiss, Heiner Müller); drawing parallels between colonial history and National Socialism (Sebald); post-Communist migration discourse (Hans Magnus Enzensberger) and German-Turkish literature (Feridun Zaimoglu).
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 148:
Heart to Heart: Theories of Expression at the Turns of Two Centuries (GERLIT 248)
Paradigms of expression around 1800 and 1900, from Empfindsamkeit (sensibility) to German Expressionism. The heart that overflows into speech in the works of Klopstock, Goethe, Tieck, and Kleist, and the reformulation a century later of this idea as avant garde practice and modernist credo. Readings of poets, philosophers, and artists on relationships between inside and out, heart and voice, emotion and language, and self and art. Discussion in English.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 151:
German Underworlds (GERLIT 251)
German theories about what lies beneath: is it hell or the subterranean foundations that keep the world from collapsing? Cosmic architecture and the question of the inferno in Kant, Novalis, Wagner, Marx, Freud, Kafka, and the films of Fritz Lang.
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 158:
German Dialects
Linguistic characteristics of dialect areas. History of the study of language variation in Germany; traditional dialect grammars; dialect-geographical revolution; and insights of modern sociolinguistics. Sources include native speakers, professionally-made tapes with transcripts, and secondary readings.
| Units: 3-4
GERLIT 163:
Readings in 19th-Century German Literature (GERLIT 263)
Works by Goethe, Tieck, Kleist, Hoffmann, Heine, Büchner, Grillparzer, Droste-Hülshoff, Stifter, and Keller. Their divergent responses to artistic, ethical, and political challenges of modernity. Prerequisite: GERLANG 3 or equivalent. In German.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 195:
The Culture of Reason and its Discontents: Introduction to Modern German Intellectual History (GERLIT 295)
Characteristics of modernity such as rational self-legislation, growing separation of spheres of life, and liberating and disorienting loss of traditional frameworks of meaning. Texts include Kant, Schiller, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Adorno, and Horkheimer. Discussion and written work in English. Students may read texts in translation; assistance provided to those reading in German.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 206:
Narrative, Visuality, Memory (GERLIT 306)
Moments in the history of the relationship between verbal and visual: the classical ars memoriae; the ekphrasis debates of the 18th century; and the emergence of a new visuality and mnemonic art as structuring principles for modernist narrative. Authors include Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Winkelmann, Lessing, Diderot, Goethe, Moritz, Flaubert, Rilke, and Proust.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 233:
German Romanticism (GERLIT 133C)
The literary and theoretical innovations of early Romanticism, and works from the later phase. In German. (Dornbach)
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 233F:
German Self-Understandings: Between Culture and Civilization (GERLIT 133F)
German-language writers' attempts to come to terms with German culture from 1800. Visions of a national Kultur in opposition to the universalistic civilization of modernity; the role of language and the arts in this ideal; the emergence of militant nationalism and attempts to counter this tendency with enlightened patriotism; and the quandaries of postwar and post-1989 German self-understanding.
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 241:
Deutsche Geistesgeschichte I: German Aesthetic Thought, 1790-1872
The seminal tradition of writing about art including the German idealists (Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Schiller), romantics (Schlegel, Novalis, and Hoffmann), and Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. In English.
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
GERLIT 248:
Heart to Heart: Theories of Expression at the Turns of Two Centuries (GERLIT 148)
Paradigms of expression around 1800 and 1900, from Empfindsamkeit (sensibility) to German Expressionism. The heart that overflows into speech in the works of Klopstock, Goethe, Tieck, and Kleist, and the reformulation a century later of this idea as avant garde practice and modernist credo. Readings of poets, philosophers, and artists on relationships between inside and out, heart and voice, emotion and language, and self and art. Discussion in English.
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 250A:
Modern Drama
Problems of drama as genre, especially in relationship to problems of modernism. Transitions from classical and popular theater. New structures of action and conflict; epic theater; competition with film; transformed theatrical practices. Authors: Nestroy, Hauptmann, Hofmannsthal, Brecht, and Horvath. (Satisfied by enrollment in GERLIT 369 in 2008-09.)
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 251:
German Underworlds (GERLIT 151)
German theories about what lies beneath: is it hell or the subterranean foundations that keep the world from collapsing? Cosmic architecture and the question of the inferno in Kant, Novalis, Wagner, Marx, Freud, Kafka, and the films of Fritz Lang.
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 256:
Old High German
Introduction to the grammar and the texts of the earliest attested stage of high German
| Units: 3-4
GERLIT 263:
Readings in 19th-Century German Literature (GERLIT 163)
Works by Goethe, Tieck, Kleist, Hoffmann, Heine, Büchner, Grillparzer, Droste-Hülshoff, Stifter, and Keller. Their divergent responses to artistic, ethical, and political challenges of modernity. Prerequisite: GERLANG 3 or equivalent. In German.
| Units: 4
GERLIT 295:
The Culture of Reason and its Discontents: Introduction to Modern German Intellectual History (GERLIT 195)
Characteristics of modernity such as rational self-legislation, growing separation of spheres of life, and liberating and disorienting loss of traditional frameworks of meaning. Texts include Kant, Schiller, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Adorno, and Horkheimer. Discussion and written work in English. Students may read texts in translation; assistance provided to those reading in German.
| Units: 4
GERLIT 306:
Narrative, Visuality, Memory (GERLIT 206)
Moments in the history of the relationship between verbal and visual: the classical ars memoriae; the ekphrasis debates of the 18th century; and the emergence of a new visuality and mnemonic art as structuring principles for modernist narrative. Authors include Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Winkelmann, Lessing, Diderot, Goethe, Moritz, Flaubert, Rilke, and Proust.
| Units: 3-5
GERLIT 339:
Love, Marriage and Passion in German Literature of the 19th and 20th Centuries (GERLIT 139)
The thesis that love relationships, in shifting social, cultural, and communication contexts, reflect and determine the dominant value system of a society. How the concepts of romantic, passionate, and pragmatic love evolved and competed with one another in texts by Goethe, Schlegel, Keller, Sacher-Masoch, Fontane, and Böll. In German.
| Units: 3-5
