Courses taught in German and by German faculty
FALL 2009
German 001 - Intensive Elementary German
Students who start in the 001-002 sequence must complete 002 to receive credit for 001. This sequence qualifies students for enrollment in German 003 - Intensive Intermedatie German.
For students who begin German in college or who have had less than one year of high school German. Designed to impart an active command of the language. Combines the study of grammar with intensive oral practice, writing, and readings in expository and literary prose. See the explanatory note on language courses above. Normally followed by 003, 004, 013, or 014.
1.5 credits.
Professor Simon
Tu/Th: 11:20-12:35; Science Center 102
German 001 Drills
Senior Lecturer Elke Plaxton
M/W/F: 8:30-9:20; 9:30-10:20; KOHL 334
German 003 - Intensive Intermediate German
For students who have successfully completed German 001 and German 002 or who score 550 or higher in the Language Placement exam administered at the beginning of the semester.
A systematic review of German grammar (syntax and morphology), coupled with readings and discussions of journalistic and literary texts, and viewing and analysis of films. Emphasis is placed on improving speaking abilities and on how to write analytically in German.
1.5 credits.
Professor Werlen
Tu/Th: 8:30-9:45; KOHL 228
German 003 Drills
Senior Lecturer Elke Plaxton
Tu/Th 11:30-12:20; KOHL 318
German 005 German Conversation
A 0.5 credit-conversation course, concentrating on the development of the students' speaking skills. Prerequisite: German 004 in a current or a previous semester or the equivalent placement test score.
0.5 credit
Senior Lecturer Elke Plaxton
Wednesday: 1:15-2:30; KOHL 330
German 020 - Introduction to German Studies: Topics in German Literatures and Culture
This year, the class will focus on questions of literary periodization: can literary boundaries be viewed like historical periods? Does analysis of form, literary techniques, stylistic practices, and the preponderance of particulary themese allow for labels such as romanticism, realism,naturalism, modernism, post-modernism? How are radically different literary voices subsumed in such categorizations? Readings include works by Goethe, Tieck, Kleist, Hoffman, Büchner, Keller, Brecht, Kafka, and Bachmann.
1 credit.
Professor Werlen
Tu/Th 2:40-3:55; KOHL 334
German 108 - Wien und Berlin
Between 1871 and 1933, Vienna and Berlin were two cultural magnets drawing such diverse figures as Sigmund Freud, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gustav Klimt, Gustav Mahler, Leon Trotsky, Gerhard Hauptman, Käthe Kollwitz, Rainer Maria Rilke, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Tucholsky, Else Lasker-Schüler, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schönberg, and Adolf Hitler. This course will examine the multiple tensions that characterized "fin-de-siècle" Vienna and Berlin, such as the connection between gender and the urban landscape, the pursuit of pleasure and the attempt to scientifically explore human sexuality, and the conflict between avant-garde experimentation and the disintegration of political liberalism.
2 credits.
Professor Simon
Monday: 1:15-4:00 PM; KOHL 318
LITR 022G - Food Revolutions: History, Politics, Culture
Behind our current unsustainable system of industrialized food production lies a long history of technical and market innovations, political exigencies, and shifts in consumer culture, beginning with the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century and leading to today’s globalized market structures dominated by Northern oligopolies. In our class, we will focus on key moments that set this chain of events in motion, including: the French revolution, Napoleon’s food requirements for La Grande Armée, slavery and colonial food production, nutritional welfare for the emerging proletariat, technological breakthroughs (canning, freezing), the homogeneization of taste, and the convergence of military and agricultural production methods (mechanization of scale) after WWII.
As the social and environmental costs of a commodified food system only interested in profit maximation become more and more evident, a great number of resistance centers to these exploitative practices have emerged, especially in the Global South. An emphasis on sustainable, biodiverse, and local agriculture that restores the frayed social fabric of rural communities and serves human needs instead of corporate interests is the main characteristic of these diverse movements – all of which stress the rights of indigenous peoples and women. In our course, we will discuss the social, ethical, and ecological aspects of these movements and reflect on possibilities of our own involvement in this important “food fight.”
This class will make an excursion to meet with food producers who own successful sustainable and local food businesses. No prerequisites.
Please note: this class will alternate between Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore Colleges.
1 credit.
Professor Werlen
Wednesday: 1:15-4:00 PM; KOHL 318
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