Three courses from the following list are normally offered each semester.
16:470:501The Teaching of College German (3) Introduction to the nature of language acquisition; critical examination of instructional materials; principles of cultural analysis; and theory and practice of teaching literature. Patterned to the practice of college instruction.
16:470:502Teaching Apprenticeship in German (N1.5) Weekly workshops for teaching, testing, and evaluation techniques in elementary and intermediate language courses. Observation of language classes.
16:470:510Literary Theory and Methodology (3) Study and practice of scholarly techniques, the use of critical literature for research, the writing of papers, and an overview of literary theories. Behrmann, Helfer, Levine, Naqvi, Rennie. Recommended during the first year.
16:470:513Analysis of Literary Texts (3) Study of selected works of poetry, drama, and prose with a view to increasing a teacher's faculties of literary interpretation and aesthetic judgment.
16:470:516Introduction to Middle-High German (3) Phonology and grammar. Reading of representative texts from the Middle-High German period AD 1050 to AD 1350, with special emphasis on the popular epic, court epic, and Minnesänger.
16:470:520Literature of the Middle Ages (3) Analysis of the folk epic (Nibelungenlied) and its sources; the courtly romances by Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Strassburg; the saint's legend and poems by prominent Minnesänger.
16:470:521Literature of the Renaissance, Reformation, and Baroque (3) Sociohistorical overview of German literature of the 16th and 17th centuries. Rennie
16:470:522From Rococo to Classicism (3) Literature of the 18th century with emphasis on Anakreontik, Sturm und Drang, and the Weimarer Klassik, focusing mainly on contemporaries of Goethe and Schiller. Rennie
16:470:523German Romanticism (3) Aims and characteristics of the romantic movement as reflected in the works of Hölderlin, Novalis, Kleist, Brentano, Eichendorff, and Hoffmann. Helfer
16:470:524Nineteenth-Century Realism (3) Studies in the theory, themes, and styles of
German literary realism in the 19th century, focusing on the works by Buchner, Droste-Hülshoff,
Hebbel, Stifter, Ebner-Eschenbach, Keller, Meyer, Storm, and Fontane.
Behrmann, Helfer, Rushing
16:470:525Literature of the 20th Century before 1945 (3) Study of significant literary works and trends against the background of late Wilhelminian Germany, the Weimar Republic, and the Nazi era. Behrmann, Naqvi
16:470:526Literature of the 20th Century after 1945 (3) Study of German writers after World War II, including Bachmann, Bernhard, Böll, Borchert, Grass, Handke, Johnson, Mayröcker, Sebald, and Weiss. Naqvi
16:470:550Kafka (3)Kafka's parables, short stories, novels, diaries, and
correspondence, with a particular focus on questions of translation,
intertextuality, gesture, and the relationship between writing and the body.Levine
16:470:555Benjamin, Scholem, Arendt (3) Examines three towering figures of 20th-century
thought: Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), and Hannah
Arendt (1906-1975).Levine
16:470:601,602Independent Study in Germanic Languages and Literatures (3,3) Independent study or directed research. Intended for exploring areas not covered in depth by regularly scheduled courses. Prerequisites: Permission of instructor and approval of graduate director.
16:470:610Old Norse Literature (3) Principal genres of saga literature; Eddic and Scaldic poetry. Conducted in English.
16:470:611Courtly Poetry and Medieval Drama (3) Major lyrics of the Minnesänger and its later developments. The Latin and romance origins of German lyric poetry. Selected dramas from the 13th to the late 15th centuries. Rushing
16:470:622The German Enlightenment (3) The concept and question of German Enlightenment, especially as it relates to modernity. Readings by Leibniz, Kant, Mendelssohn, Gottsched, Bodmer, Lessing, Klopstock, Wieland, and Gellert. Helfer, Rennie
16:470:625Goethe (3) Study of Goethe's poetry, drama, and prose, focusing on three major areas: works of the Storm and Stress, works of Goethe's classical period, and the "Alterswerk," including Faust.Helfer, Rennie
16:470:626Faust in German Literature (3) The Faust tradition from biblical days to contemporary German literature. Emphasis on the Volksbuch, the Faust theme in the Storm and Stress period, Goethe's Faust, and Faust's works of the 20th century. Rennie
16:470:627Schiller (3) Schiller's development as an author through detailed study of his prose, poetry, and plays, including Die Räuber, Kabale und Liebe, Don Carlos, and Wallenstein. Helfer
16:470:632Heine and His Contemporaries (3) Development of German literature of the 19th century in the context of social and political change brought about by the end of feudalism and the rise of industrialism in the period 1813 to 1849. Levine
16:470:642The Expressionist Movement (3) German expressionism from its early prewar phase to the mid-1920s, with emphasis on its philosophical foundations, sociopolitical aims, and poetic styles. Readings by Ball, Benn, Brecht, Döblin, Hennings, Heym, Kraus, Lasker-Schüler, Mynona, Sternheim, Stramm, Toller, and Werfel.
Behrmann
16:470:645Contemporary Germany (3) Study of present day Germany with consideration of pertinent cultural, historical, political, geographical, and sociological factors and their impact on contemporary literary life. Levine, Naqvi
16:470:646Postwar German Film (3)Study of feature films in German after 1945; issues of displacement, trauma, memory, gender, terrorism, nation, changing media, and ecological issues. Directors may include Farocki, Fassbinder, Geyrhalter, Haneke, Hausner, Herzog, Kluge, Petzold, Sander, Schanelec, Seidl, Staudte, and Wenders.
Naqvi
16:470:650Lyrical Poetry from the Middle Ages to the Present (3) Study of significant poets, with special emphasis on the development of literary movements and the intellectual background of the times. Levine
16:470:651German Drama from the Baroque to the Present (3) Readings of selected plays with background studies in the theory and historical development of the drama. Levine, Rennie
16:470:652Short Forms of German Prose (3) Short prose forms such as the Anekdote, Skizze, Novelle, Erzählung, and Kurzgeschichte. Historical, theoretical, and analytical approaches to representative works. Behrmann, Naqvi
16:470:653The German Novelle (3) Development of the Novelle as a specific German narrative form and as an expression of social, philosophical, and metaphysical viewpoints. Behrmann, Naqvi
16:470:654The German Novel (3) Development of the novel as a literary genre in German literature. Emphasis on European influences, the novel and the court, the rise of the bourgeoisie, women and writing, and the theory of novel. Naqvi, Rennie
16:470:660Austrian Narrative of the 19th and 20th Centuries (3) Comparative study of representative works that use various narrative techniques. Special emphasis on the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Austrofascism and National Socialism, and the period after 1945. Naqvi, Rennie
16:470:661Folklore in German Literature (3) Archetypal patterns, motifs, figures in folklore, folksong, hagiography, and sources in pagan and biblical tradition as a basis for study of adaptations and interpretations in literary works of various genres and periods to the present.
16:470:662German Feminist Writers (3) The rise of literary feminism and
an analysis of writings by
authors such as Aichinger, Bachmann, Mayröcker, Jelinek, Oezdamar, and Wolf. Behrmann, Helfer, Naqvi
16:470:663Literature and Ideology (3) Study in the history of ideas, dealing specifically with the conflict of ideologies in varying periods of German culture as expressed in the works of such authors as Gottfried von Strassburg, Luther, Gryphius, Goethe, Büchner, Nietzsche, Wagner, and Brecht. Levine, Rennie, Rushing
16:470:670,671,672,673Topics in German Literature I,II,III,IV (3,3,3,3) Special topics devoted to the investigation of a single author, text, critical or philosophical problem, theme or motif, historical period, film, or development.
Programs, Faculty, and Courses 
