Catalog of Courses for German
Introduces the essentials of German structure and syntax; emphasizes oral and written proficiency in German. Followed by GERM 1020.
For graduate students requiring reading knowledge of German. Open to 4th year undergraduates, but does not count toward fulfillment of the language requirement. Please note: graduate students may enroll for C/NC or as auditors. However, graduates must enroll via the GSAS Office, rather than on SIS. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses.
This intensive course begins with instruction in basic oral expression, listening comprehension, elementary reading and writing, and continues with further development of these four skills at the intermediate level. Part of the Summer Language Institute.
Designed for students with an elementary knowledge of German. Further develops the skills of speaking, listening, comprehension, reading, and writing. Followed by GERM 2010. Prerequisite: GERM 1010 or equivalent.
This intensive course begins with instruction in basic oral expression, listening comprehension, elementary reading and writing, and continues with further development of these four skills at the intermediate level.Part of the Summer Language Institute. Prerequisites: GERM 1016 or equivalent.
Introduces basic skills in listening, speaking, writing and reading at an accelerated pace. Introduces essential elements of German grammar and syntax. Develops basic knowledge of contemporary German-speaking world. Five class sessions. Language laboratory required. With instructor permission, students may continue in the accelerated track and enroll in GERM 2120 or switch to the non-accelerated track and continue with GERM 2010.
This is the non-credit option for GERM 1016.
This is the non-credit option for GERM 1026.
Increases accuracy and fluency through authentic literary and cultural materials with a focus on reading. Reviews essentials of German grammar and syntax. Exposes students to a wide variety of topics relating to contemporary Germany. Prerequisite: GERM 1020, or equivalent.
This intensive course begins with instruction in intermediate level oral expression, listening comprehension,reading and writing, and continues with further development of these four skills. Part of the Summer Language Institute. Prerequisites: GERM 1016 & 1026 or equivalent.
Builds upon skills developed in GERM 2010. Continues the review of grammar. Continues to expose students to a wide variety of topics relating to contemporary Germany. Prerequisite: GERM 2010, or equivalent.
This intensive course begins with instruction in intermediate level oral expression, listening comprehension, reading and writing, and continues with further development of these four skills. Part of the Summer Language Institute. Prerequisites: GERM 1016, 1026, & 2016 or equivalent.
Intensive intermediate course in German language. The course teaches all four language skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening comprehension), covering the same material as GERM 2010-2020, including a component in German culture. German Express allows students to acquire language skills at an accelerated pace, preparing them for advanced courses (300-level and above) and study abroad in German-speaking countries. Prerequisite: GERM 1020.
Covers the material of intermediate German. Builds upon skills developed in GERM 1110 and1020. Continues review of grammar exposes students to a variety of topics relating to contemporary Germany. Internet news and cultural programming in the classroom. Language laboratory required. Prerequisite: GERM 1110, GERM 1020, or instructor permission. With instructor permission, students may enroll directly in 3000-level courses after GERM 2120.
This is the non-credit option for GERM 2016.
This is the non-credit option for GERM 2026.
Builds upon GERM 2010 and is equivalent to GERM 2020. Develops the four essential skills in language learning (listening, speaking, reading, writing) on the basis of a theme-based approach that may be project-oriented. Topics vary per semester and instructor. Pre-requisites: GERM 2010 or equivalent.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of German.
This course builds on the first and second year German sequence and seeks to increase students' level of competence in both grammar and vocabulary. Students will produce more accurate and complex language and begin to discuss a diverse range of topics in German culture. Grammatical accuracy will be a central focus but also register, appropriacy, and fluency. Prerequisite: GERM 2020 or equivalent, or instructor permission
Employing a broad definition of text, this course allows students to develop a complex understanding of the relationship between meaning and linguistic form. Course readings may include poems, novels, films, historical documents, letters, memoirs etc. Specific grammatical topics will be addressed on the basis of the given material. This course is the prerequisite for all GERM 3000- level courses. Prerequisite: GERM 2020 or instructor permission.
German literature from 1890 to the present. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses. Prerequisite: GERM 3010.
German literature from 1750 to 1890. Prerequisite: GERM 3010.
Interprets and stages a representative play in German with students as actors and producers. May be taken more than once for credit, but only once for major credit. Prerequisite: GERM 2020 or comparable language proficiency.
Using mentor texts based on digital cultural programming, students focus on a range of topics of culture and civilization in the contemporary German-speaking world. Beyond cultural competence, the writing assignments test command of mature grammatical structures, contemporary language, advanced idioms, and punctuation. The goal, following Goethe Institute guidelines, is to write comprehensive texts on a range topics. Prerequisite: GERM 3000.
Designed to expand and refine German writing skills, this course assumes mastery of the German language sufficient to write with progressive length and complexity. Using mentor texts based on digital cultural programming, the course focuses on contemporary issues related to the culture of German-speaking lands. The writing assignments test command of cultural competence, mature grammatical structures, advanced idioms, and punctuation. Prerequisite: GERM 3230 or Instructor Permission.
Prepares students to communicate and interact effectively in the business environment of German-speaking countries. Emphasis is placed on practical, career-usable competence. Prerequisite: GERM 3000 or equivalent
One-credit conversation on current themes. May be taken more than once for credit, but only once for major credit. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses.
For students residing in the German group in Shea House. May be taken more than once for credit. Departmental approval needed if considered for major credit. Prerequisite: instructor permission.
Studies selected aspects of German culture, such as opera. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: GERM 3010 or 3230.
Interdisciplinary seminar in German business. Topics vary annually and may include: green business practices, business ethics, the European Union, or the challenges of globalization. Taught in German. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses. Prerequisites: GERM 3000.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of German.
Major forms and themes in German lyric poetry. Prerequisite: GERM 3010.
In ¿New Voices in German¿ we will explore a selection of contemporary prose works and ask how these works critically engage with Germany¿s multilingual and transnational literary landscape. Readings include works by Fatma Aydemir, Katja Petrowskaja, Khuê Ph¿m, Saša Staniši¿, Sharon Dodua Otoo, and others. GERM 3620 is conducted in German. Prerequisite is GERM 3010 or Instructor Permission.
Generic course to be used when students are taking independent study with a faculty member. May be repeated for credit.
This is the capstone course for German language skills. Using digital mentor texts, students focus on a contemporary issues in German-speaking lands, to compose writing assignments that test mature language structures (including idiomatic expressions) and specialized vocabularies. The goal, following Goethe Institute guidelines, is to attain the ability to write in context and in the appropriate stylistic register. Prerequisite: GERM 3240 or permission of instructor.
Literary analysis for advanced students. Prerequisite: GERM 3010 and other literature courses.
Directed research for, and composition of, an extended essay. Prerequisite: Admission to the DMP, permission of undergraduate advisor and a supervising faculty member.
Prerequisite: Approval by a supervising faculty member.
Prerequisite: Admission to the DMP, permission of undergraduate advisor and a supervising faculty member.
This is the first semester of the year-long DMP thesis. Students who enroll in it will only receive a grade when the complete its sequel, GERM 4999, at which point they will receive 6 credits. Prerequisite: Admission to the DMP, permission of undergraduate advisor and a supervising faculty member.
This is the second semester of the year-long DMP thesis. Students should enroll in this course only if they have completed GERM 4998, and must enroll in GERM 4999 to receive credit for GERM 4998. Prerequisite: Admission to the DMP, permission of undergraduate advisor and a supervising faculty member; GERM 4998.
For graduate students who need to develop skills necessary for reading and translating scholarly German and/or to pass the graduate reading exam. Nightly homework assignments from the textbook, combined in the later part of the course with readings and translation of texts from students' chosen fields of study, will help students attain their desired research skills in German. No prior knowledge of German required.
Introduces Middle High German grammar and includes readings in Middle High German literature.
An overview of works from the Early Modern period in Germany, 1450-1700, drawing on three movements and intellectual spheres: Humanism, Reformation, and Baroque. Among the authors and works treated are Tepl's Plowman of Bohemia, Brant's Ship of Fools, Luther, Hans Sachs, the Historia von D. Johann Fausten, Fleming, Gryphius, and Hofmannsswaldau. Open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates of all disciplines.
German literature and intellectual history from 1795 to 1830.
Discusses the major literary movements at the turn of the century with analysis of representative works by Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, George, Rilke, Thomas Mann, Musil, Kafka, and others.
Introduces the main currents of German literature since 1920, emphasizing major authors and traditions.
Major figures, genres, or literary problems serve as the focus for an intensive course within any literary period. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of German.
Investigates the theory and practice of lyric poetry in Germany, emphasizing major authors and traditions.
Studies representative works of fiction (either novels or shorter forms) with special attention to formal and thematic developments, and representative theories of fiction.
Investigates dramatic theory and practice in Germany, emphasizing major authors and traditions.
Current theories of literature, including Marxist, psychoanalytical, formalist, structuralist, and hermeneutic approaches. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses.
Studies the development of the concepts of 'education' and 'evolution,' and the predominance of aesthetics in German culture. Includes lectures on the impact of Leibnitz, Kant, and Schopenhauer; and readings in Lessing, Kant, Schiller, Fichte, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche.
Readings in and discussion of the intellectual, philosophical, and social history of Germany from the late nineteenth century to the present.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of German.
Study and comparison of major theories of narrative, including Booth, Stanzel, Barthes, Genette, Cohn, Bakhtin, and others.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of German.
Studies the theory and practice of language teaching with supervised classroom experience. One group meeting per week plus extensive individual consultation. Required of all teaching assistants in the teacher training program.
Studies the theory and practice of language teaching with supervised classroom experience. One group meeting per week plus extensive individual consultation. Required of all teaching assistants in the teacher training program.
Supervised reading, directed toward the formulation of a dissertation proposal by the individual student.
Supervised reading, directed toward the formulation of a dissertation proposal by the individual student.
Special research projects for advanced students. Individually directed.
Non-Topical Research, Preparation for Research
For master's thesis, taken under the supervision of a thesis director.
Non-Topical Research, Preparation for Doctoral Research
For doctoral dissertation, taken under the supervision of a dissertation director.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of German in translation.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of German in translation.
What does it mean for a country to confront its past, define its present, and imagine its future? This course will introduce you to modern German history and culture by looking at the interaction between culture and memory. We will approach the cities of Berlin and Weimar not just as a collection of streets and buildings, but as multi-layered cultural and historical texts. On-site visits will combine lectures with active student participation.
A survey of German cultural history from the enlightenment to the present, and an introduction to the field of German Studies. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses. .
Taking an interdisciplinary and cross-historical approach, this course introduces students to key texts in dream theory and discusses the implications of these theories for prose and poetry, film, and political writing. Students will learn to identify, compare, and contrast different dream theories, understand the importance and limitations of dream interpretation, and explore the significance of dreaming and dream theory for art and literature.
This course provides a wide-ranging exploration of the culture and thought of German-speaking Jewry from 1750 to the present. It focuses on the Jewish response to modernity in Central Europe and lasting transformations in Jewish life. We read the works of such figures as Moses Mendelssohn, Rachel Varnhagen, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, Else Lasker-Schüler, Inge Deutschkrohn, and Katja Petrowskaja.
Students will read and discuss the most important short works of Kafka, with an ultimate focus on the problem of the self and the idea of materiality. Short readings from other literatures and other disciplines are included in order to provide historical context and interpretive parallels. Method will be discussion rather than lecture. Two papers required.
Detailed survey of the historical origins, political structures, cultural dynamics, and every-day practices of the Nazi Third Reich. Cross-listed in the history department. Taught in English.
Entering the world of fairy tales often feels like passing into an elaborate dream: it is a world teeming with sorcerers, dwarves, wondrous objects, and animals that speak. This seminar explores fairy tales and dream narratives in literature and film from the romantic period into the present. Authors to be discussed include: Goethe, the brothers Grimm, Bettelheim, Hoffmann, Freud, Saint-Exupery, Tolkien, and others.
In this class we will explore the historical context of serial media, from the journal projects of the German Romantics to the second golden age of television. After a historical survey and a discussion of terminology ("series," "serial") we will examine certain specific "series" including Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers, Marcel Duchamp's Ready-mades, or the German Netflix show "Dark."
Reading and discussion of central theoretical texts in the German tradition 1700-1810, including works by Leibniz, Herder, Lessing, Kant, Schiller, Fichte, and Hegel.
Readings in philosophical and social history of Germany from the late 19th century onward.
Explores the friend/foe nexus in German history, literature and culture, with an emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses.
This course traces the lineage and shapes of the Arthurian legend as witnessed in medieval literature and modern adaptations, including film and television ("Games of Thrones," "Star Wars," etc.) The aim is familiarity with the story of King Arthur and his court, as well as an ability to appreciate the permutations of the legend in all forms of media.
Introduces the most significant texts and films dealing with the Holocaust and surveys important philosophical and historical reflections on the meaning of the Holocaust. Meets second writing requirement.
This course explores the film culture of the Weimar period (1918-1933). Rife with ambition, experimentation, and sometimes disastrous failure, Weimar cinema forces us to confront fundamental questions of how moving images work, what they can do, and how they relate to the sociopolitical conditions that produce them.
In the 1930s, many people employed in the German film industry whose lives were threatened by Nazism took refuge in Hollywood. This course examines the contributions exiled directors, writers, actors, and others made in genres ranging from comedy and melodrama to film noir. In addition to indicting fascism and reflecting on the trauma of forced migration these films often turned a critical eye on the U.S..
Analyzes the aesthetics and semiotics of film, with a focus on German expressionism and New German Cinema.
Explores the relationship between facts and fiction in the representation of the past. Course materials range from archival sources and scholarly articles to novels, films, paintings, sculptures, poems and other creative articulations of the historical imagination. The role of the new media and media analysis in the representation of history will also be examined. Topics vary annually.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of German in translation. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses.
Introduces students to the history of the Frankfurt School in Europe and the University States.
This course explores how West German art cinema of the 1960s-80s reinvented filmmaking, remembered the Nazi past, and rebelled against cultural and political institutions. In dialogue with films by Werner Herzog, Helke Sander, R. W. Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, and others, we will examine the aesthetic and political possibilities of cinema, in the context of an affluent consumer society with a violent past that many preferred to forget.
This writing-intensive, discussion-based seminar invites students to explore the topic of the spiritual journey both academically and personally. Different disciplinary perspectives and experiential approaches to reading and writing will deepen our exploration of such themes as: religiosity vs. spirituality, becoming a hero, confronting evil, being different, achieving autonomy, faith and doubt, and the magical and the miraculous.
The course reflects on the often complicated ways in which representations of violence are related to gender codes. we will look especially at films that depict and document the topos of Lager/Camp: the Camp functions as metaphor, as fantasy, gendered space, laboratory, and heterotopia,. Critical look at films that imagine the camp both as a historical site or as a hiding place.
Reading and discussion of German texts compared to texts from other literatures (all in English translation), with the aim of illuminating a central theoretical, historical, or social issue that transcends national boundaries. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses.
Taking Goethe's Faust as its point of departure, this course traces the emergence and transformations of the Faust legend over the last 400 hundred years. We explore precursors of Goethe's Faust in the form of the English Faust Book, Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, and possibly other popular re-workings of the text. We will Goethe's Faust in its entirety, and then proceed to Bulgakov's response to Stalinism in The Master and Margharta and
This course aims to clarify basic facts and explore competing explanations for the origins and unfolding of the Holocaust--the encounter between the Third Reich and Europe's Jews between 1933 and 1945 that resulted in the deaths of almost six million Jews. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses.
This course explores what it means not only to read or listen to but also to see testimony by Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. We will also view and analyze testimony by survivors of other genocides and atrocities. The purpose of this course is to enable students to develop the theoretical background and skills of close reading and close viewing necessary to analyze oral testimony.
This course explores the pursuit of legal justice after the Holocaust. Study of legal responses to the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews in Europe, Israel, and the United States from the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust to the present. Focus on the Nuremberg, Eichmann Trial, Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, among others. The course ask how the pursuit of legal justice after the Holocaust affects our understanding of the legal process.
In formulating his model of the psyche and his theory of psychoanalysis, Freud availed himself of analogies drawn from different disciplines, including literature. Freud's ideas were then taken up by many twentieth-century literary writers. After introducing Freud's theories through a reading of his major works, the course will turn to literary works that engage with Freud.
Studies in the poetry and prose of these three modernist poets, with emphasis on their theories of artistic creation. The original as well as a translation will be made available for Rilke's and Valery's poetry; their prose works will be read in English translation.
Childhood autobiography and childhood narrative from Romanticism to the present.
Cross-cultural readings in women's childhood narratives. Emphasis on formal as well as thematic aspects. For more details on this class, please visit the department website at: http://www.virginia.edu/german/Undergraduate/Courses.
Comparative studies in the European novel. Dominant novel types, including the fictional memoir, the novel in letters, and the comic "history."
This course focuses on women writers from any era who address the topic of femininity: what it means or implies to be a woman.
Interdisciplinary course on memory. Readings from literature, philosophy, history, psychology, and neuroscience.
Fictions of happiness pursued -- and found! Through the ages, people have sought happiness and formulated conceptions of what happiness means. This course compares ideas and stories of happiness from antiquity through the present day in all genres: prose fiction, poetry, essays, film, and humanistic and scientific theory.
Guided study
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of German in translation.
This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of German in Translation.
Readings in recent theories, findings, and methods from cognitive science, psychology, and neurobiology that have been applied to the study of literature, whether by the scientists themselves or by literary scholars. Examples include the embodied mind thesis, conceptual metaphor, prototypes, neurobiological theories of the self, blending, emotion theory, memory theory, theory of mind, and the empirical study of reader response.