Courses

GERM B001 Elementary German

Fall 2025

Meets five hours a week with the individual class instructor, and one additional hour with a TA. This course is designed for students with no previous knowledge of German and will provide them with ample training across all modes of communication to develop their language competence in speaking, reading, listening, and writing. This course will cover an overview of German grammar and vocabulary that will allow students to talk about themselves and a variety of familiar and everyday topics, hold basic conversations, and describe events in the past while exploring contemporary life in German-speaking countries.

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GERM B002 Elementary German

Spring 2026

Meets five hours a week with the class instructor, and one additional hour with a TA. This course is designed as a continuation of 001, building on all skills and topics covered in the first semester. Strong emphasis on communicative competence both in spoken and written German in a larger cultural context and expanding learners' understanding of key aspects of contemporary life in German-speaking countries and selected literary genres. Prerequisite: GERM 001 or its equivalent as decided by the department and/or placement tes

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GERM B101 Intermediate German

Fall 2025

Meets three hours per week with the course instructor, and one additional hour with a TA. This course is designed to improve students' reading, speaking, listening, and writing skills through a thorough review of grammar and completion of exercises in composition and conversation. Study of selected literary and cultural texts and films will allow students to explore connections between language and culture and hone their communication skills. By engaging with authentic texts and materials, students will also explore the topography and recent history of contemporary Germany as visualized in the dynamic cityscapes across Germany and German-speaking countries. Prerequisite: Completion of GERM 002 or its equivalent as decided by the department and/or placement test.

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GERM B102 Intermediate German

Spring 2026

Meets three hours per week with the course instructor, and one additional hour with a TA. This course is the continuation of GERM 101,. We will concentrate on all four language skills--speaking, reading, writing, and listening comprehension and build on the knowledge that gained in the elementary-level courses and then honed in the previous semester. Study of a variety of authentic media and literary texts on course topics prepare students for advanced coursework in German. Prerequisite: GERM 101 or its equivalent as decided by the department and/or placement test.

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GERM B201 Advanced Training: Language, Text, Context

Not offered 2025-26

Emphasis on the development of conversational, writing and interpretive skills through an introductory study of German political, cultural and intellectual life and history, including public debate, institutional practices, mass media, cross-cultural currents, folklore, fashion and advertising. Taught in German. Course content may vary.

Current topic description: This course considers German-language works that focus on women's experiences and recollections of major historical events of the 20th- and 21st centuries, such as the turn of the century, the post-war period, division of Germany and multiculturalism. Selected works include television, film, dramas and short stories such as the Netflix series Charité (2017), Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Der Besuch der alten Dame (1956), Claudia Rusch's collection of short stories Meine freie deutsche Jugend (2005), and works from May Ayim, Yoko Tawada and Emine Özdamar.

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GERM B202 Introduction to German Studies

Not offered 2025-26

This is a topics course. Topics may vary.

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GERM B217 Representing Diversity in German Cinema

Spring 2026

German society has undergone drastic changes as a result of immigration. Traditional notions of Germanness have been and are still being challenged and subverted. This course uses films and visual media to examine the experiences of various minority groups living in Germany. Students will learn about the history of immigration of different ethnic groups, including Turkish Germans, Afro-Germans, Asian Germans, Arab Germans, German Jews, and ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. We will explore discourses on migration, racism, xenophobia, integration, and citizenship. We will seek to understand not only the historical and contemporary contexts for these films but also their relevance for reshaping German society. Students will be introduced to modern German cinema from the silent era to the present. They will acquire terminology and methods for reading films as fictional and aesthetic representations of history and politics, and analyze identity construction in the worlds of the real and the reel. This course is taught in English

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Film Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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GERM B223 Topics in German Cultural Studies

Section 001 (Fall 2024): Gender and Artificial Life

Not offered 2025-26

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Taught in English.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Comparative Literature; History; History of Art.

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GERM B245 Interdisciplinary Approaches to German Literature and Culture

Not offered 2025-26

This is a topics course. Taught in German. Course content varies. Previous topics include, Women's Narratives on Modern Migrancy, Exile, and Diasporas; Nation and Identity in Post-War Austria.

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GERM B259 Unnatural Encounters: The Environment in German Literature

Fall 2025

Germany is recognized as world leader in innovative sustainability practices and has long been a site of social and political organization around the environment. This course will explore encounters with and in the natural world in German literature, film, and the visual arts as reflections of or agents of social, political, and technological change. While these encounters are rooted in the philosophical divide between self and world, they embody questions of gender, urbanism, preservation, alienation, marginalization, and "homeland" in ways that galvanize political and social movements locally and nationally, real and imagined. The course is centered on different loci of encounters with the environment, including forests of fairy tales, coastlines and rivers, mountains, mines, agricultural and industrialized urban spaces. It will also consider the human-made environment, waste, and energy sources as places of encounter and transformation.

Current topic description: Germany is recognized as a world leader in innovative sustainability practices and has long been a site of social and political organization around the environment. This course will explore encounters with and in the natural world in German literature, film, and the visual arts as reflections of or agents of social, political, and technological change. While these encounters are rooted in the philosophical divide between self and world, they embody questions of gender, urbanism, preservation, alienation, marginalization, and "homeland" in ways that galvanize political and social movements locally and nationally, real and imagined. The course is centered on different loci of encounters with the environment, including forests of fairy tales, coastlines and rivers, mountains, mines, agricultural and industrialized urban spaces. It will also consider the human-made environment, waste, and energy sources as places of encounter and transformation.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies.

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GERM B320 Topics in German Literature and Culture

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Ethics of Innovation in German Context

Fall 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Taught in German. Recent topics include: Die Erzählkunst des Krimis; Funny Germans.

Writing Attentive

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GERM B321 Advanced Topics in German Cultural Studies

Section 001 (Spring 2025): Weimar Cinema (1918-1933)

Not offered 2025-26

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Recent topic titles include: Asia and Germany through Film; The Letter, the Spirit, and Beyond: German-Jewish Writers and Jewish Culture in the 18th and 19th Century.

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Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Film Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Growth and Structure of Cities.

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GERM B400 Senior Seminar

Senior Seminar. Students are required to write a long 40-page research paper with an annotated bibliography.

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GERM B403 Supervised Work

Major Writing Requirement: Writing Intensive

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GERM B421 German for Reading Knowledge

This course is designed to prepare students to read and translate challenging academic texts from German into English. It presents an intensive examination of basic German grammar and syntax, together with strategies that will enable students to read and understand German texts essential for advanced study or learning in disciplines across the arts, social sciences, and humanities. Previous experience in German is an asset, but is not a class prerequisite. This course does not fulfill the Language Requirement

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COML B213 Theory in Practice: Critical Discourses in the Humanities

Spring 2026

What is a postcolonial subject, a queer gaze, a feminist manifesto? And how can we use (as readers of texts, art, and films) contemporary studies on animals and cyborgs, object-oriented ontology, zombies, storyworlds, neuroaesthetics? By bringing together the study of major theoretical currents of the 20th century and the practice of analyzing literary works in the light of theory, this course aims at providing students with skills to use literary theory in their own scholarship. The selection of theoretical readings reflects the history of theory (psychoanalysis, structuralism, narratology), as well as the currents most relevant to the contemporary academic field: Post-structuralism, Post-colonialism, Gender Studies, and Ecocriticism. They are paired with a diverse range of short stories across multiple language traditions (Poe, Kafka, Camus, Borges, Calvino, Morrison, Djebar, Murakami, Ngozi Adichie) that we discuss along with our study of theoretical texts. We will discuss how to apply theory to the practice of interpretation and of academic writing, and how theoretical ideas shape what we are reading. The class will be conducted in English, with an additional hour taught by the instructor of record in the target language for students wishing to take the course for language credit.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Africana Studies; East Asian Languages & Culture; English; French and Francophone Studies; German and German Studies; History of Art; Italian and Italian Studies; Philosophy; Russian; Spanish.

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ITAL B221 What is Aesthetics? Theories on Art, Imagination, and Poetry

Not offered 2025-26

This course investigates how global thinkers, poets, and artists reflected in their works on the roles and powers of art, poetry, and human creativity. The course approaches this theme through a cross-cultural and trans-historical approach, which encompasses the Italian Humanism, which argued for the first time for the importance of aesthetic knowledge, as well as the Age of Enlightenment, which founded 'aesthetics' as a specific scientific discipline. Readings from these writers will show how artistic products, human imagination, and poetry are not just light-hearted activities but powerful cognitive tools which can reveal aspects of human history. If the human being is deemed to be a combination of reason and feeling - soul and body - art and poetry, which border both the rational and irrational realms, appear the most appropriate scientific tool to reveal the human essence and its destiny. The discussion will focus on pivotal global writers and philosophers such as Giambattista Vico and Giacomo Leopardi, who pioneered aesthetic, historical, literary, and anthropological ideas which are still crucial in the current theoretical debate on arts and poetry. All readings and class discussion will be in English. Students will have an additional hour of class for Italian credit.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: German and German Studies; History; History of Art; M Eastern/C Asian/N African St; Middel Eastern Central Asian; Philosophy.

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POLS B381 Nietzsche

Not offered 2025-26

This course examines Nietzsche's thought, with particular focus on such questions as the nature of the self, truth , irony, aggression, play, joy, love, and morality. The texts for the course are drawn mostly from Nietzsche's own writing, but these are complemented by some contemporary work in moral philosophy and philosophy of mind that has a Nietzschean influence.

Counts Toward: Comparative Literature; German and German Studies; Philosophy.

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