printer friendly pageGERMAN 131: What is German Literature?
This course covers material from the fairy tales of German romanticism, expressionist poetry and painting, literary responses to Nazi Germany and reflections on a unified Germany. Exploring the shifting relationships between cultural aesthetics, entertainment, historical context, and "what is German" we will cover roughly 250 years of literary and artistic production, social and political upheavals, as well as the lives of numerous authors, both male and female. Taught in German.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Starkey, K. (PI)
GERMAN 132: Dynasties, Dictators and Democrats: History and Politics in Germany (COMPLIT 132A)
Key moments in German history through documents: personal accounts, political speeches and texts, and literary works. The course begins with the Prussian monarchy and proceeds to the crisis years of the French Revolution. Documents from the 1848 revolution and the age of Bismarck and German unification follow. World War I and its impact on Germany, including the rise of Hitler, as well as the aftermath, divided Germany in the Cold War through the fall of the Berlin Wall. Taught in German.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Berman, R. (PI)
;
Pohlmann, J. (PI)
GERMAN 133: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud
We read and discuss selections from works by the key master thinkers who have exerted a lasting influence by debunking long-cherished beliefs. Do these authors uphold or repudiate Enlightenment notions of rationality, autonomy and progress? How do they assess the achievements of civilization? How do their works illuminate the workings of power in social and political contexts? Readings and discussion in German.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Dornbach, M. (PI)
GERMAN 154: Poetic Thinking Across Media (COMPLIT 154B, JEWISHST 144B)
Even before Novalis claimed that the world must be romanticized, thinkers, writers, and artists wanted to perceive the human and natural world poetically. The pre- and post-romantic poetic modes of thinking they created are the subject of this course. Readings include Ecclestias, Zhaozhou Congshen, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Kafka, Benjamin, Arendt, and Sontag. This course will also present poetic thinking in the visual arts--from the expressionism of Ingmar Bergman to the neo-romanticism of Gerhard Richter.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Eshel, A. (PI)
GERMAN 181: Philosophy and Literature (CLASSGEN 81, COMPLIT 181, ENGLISH 81, FRENCH 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
Required gateway course for Philosophical and Literary Thought; crosslisted in departments sponsoring the Philosophy and Literature track: majors should register in their home department; non-majors may register in any sponsoring department. Introduction to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature. Issues may include authorship, selfhood, truth and fiction, the importance of literary form to philosophical works, and the ethical significance of literary works. Texts include philosophical analyses of literature, works of imaginative literature, and works of both philosophical and literary significance. Authors may include Plato, Montaigne, Nietzsche, Borges, Beckett, Barthes, Foucault, Nussbaum, Walton, Nehamas, Pavel, and Pippin. Taught in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
GERMAN 182: War and Warfare in Germany
Survey of Germany at war through historical, theoretical and literary accounts. War in the international system and the role of technology. Religious wars, rationalization of warfare, violence and politics, terrorism. War films, such as All Quiet on the Western Front. Readings by authors such as Clausewitz, Jünger, Remarque, Schimtt, and Arendt. Taught in English.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
GERMAN 184: Technology, Innovation, and the History of the Book
An historical perspective on the intellectual and social impact of developments in information technology will be examined. Focusing on the evolution of media from scrolls to codices to printed books we will look at the social, historical, cultural, and economic sources and ramifications of innovation in media and information technology, and explore why such innovation occurs in certain places and within certain social groups and not others. Examples draw from German cultural history, e.g. Gutenberg and the printing press, but also from the broader European history of the book. Students will have the opportunity to work with historical materials from Special Collections. Taught in English.
Last offered: Winter 2013
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
GERMAN 190: German Capstone: Reading Franz Kafka (COMPLIT 111, COMPLIT 311C, GERMAN 390, JEWISHST 147, JEWISHST 349)
This class will address major works by Franz Kafka and consider Kafka as a modernist writer whose work reflects on modernity. We will also examine the role of Kafka's themes and poetics in the work of contemporary writers. (Meets Writing-in-the-Major requirement)
Last offered: Winter 2013
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
GERMAN 218: Central European Literature
Central Europe is not a clearly defined region so much as an idea debated with particular intensity in the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Part reality part fantasy, "Central Europe" refers to a contested space between East and West, between cosmopolitanism and provincial narrowness, a space whose diversity has fostered cultural creativity, political conflict and utopian fantasy. Our survey will focus on fiction, memoires and essayistic commentary from the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. It will comprise the dissolution of the empire, the interwar years, the Cold War decades and the postcommunist era. Attention to the predicament of small nations, "minor" literatures and cultural cross-pollination. Authors include Musil, Kafka, Roth, Kosztolányi, Márai, Hasek, Svevo, Kis, Torberg, Hrabal, Kundera, Esterházy, Magris. Discussion and readings in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Dornbach, M. (PI)
GERMAN 220: Medieval and Early Modern German Literature (GERMAN 320)
This seminar offers a survey of literary, cultural and intellectual developments in German-speaking lands from ca.1200 to 1600. We will begin our investigation with a sampling of medieval heroic epic, romance, lyric poetry, and mysticism. From there we will move into humanism and consider the invention of print and the popular literary forms characteristic of Reformation culture in the German lands. Discussion in English. All texts are available in modern German or English translation. Undergraduates enroll in 220 for 5 units, graduate students enroll in 320 for 8 units.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5-8
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Starkey, K. (PI)
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