Methods of Teaching
G51.1100  Dortmann. 4 points.
Focuses on the principles and practices of teaching German as a foreign language. Readings, video class demonstrations, and discussions, with an individually tailored “praktikum” for each participant. Develops techniques for working with aural, oral, reading, and writing skills.

Theories of Literary Interpretation
G51.1111  Ronell. 4 points.
Introduction to debates concerning definitions of literary texts and the methodologies of interpretation: deconstructionist, hermeneutical, structuralist, poststructuralist; historicist; and dialectical theories of textuality and reading.

Problems in Critical Theory
G51.1112  Ronell. 4 points.
Past topics have included “Kant’s third critique and Arendt’s lectures” and
“theories of history.”

Origins of German Critical Thought I
G51.1115  Fleming. 4 points.
A systematic introduction to German intellectual history with special emphasis on the role of art. Authors include Baumgarten, Herder, Kant, Schiller, Schlegel, Schelling, and Hegel.

Origins of German Critical Thought II
G51.1116  Fleming. 4 points.
A continuation of
G51.1115, this course presents Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Adorno, Derrida, de Man, and Luhmann.

Theories of the Comic
G51.1300  Fleming. 4 points.
Focuses on the emergence of notions of the comic in 18th-century German (and European) writing, tracing their development into the early 20th-century thought. Careful attention is paid to differentiating between different comic phenomena—wit, irony, the ridiculous, humor—as well as to their increasing centrality in both theoretical and literary works.

German Enlightenment from Lessing to Goethe
G51.1335  4 points.
Examines the philosophical roots and historical legacy of the German Enlightenment, addressing such topics as the public use of reason and the structural transformation of the public sphere; the dialectic of enlightenment; religious tolerance; the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah); representation and the sublime; opera and enlightenment; the idea of progress and the French Revolution. Texts by Leibniz, Mendelssohn, Kant, Lessing, Hamann, Goethe, Kleist, Mozart, Horkheimer, Adorno, Habermas, Benjamin, Foucault, and others.

Early German Cinema
G51.1301  4 points.
Analysis and discussion of early German films with a special emphasis on documentaries.

Goethe
G51.1410  Goebel. 4 points.
Introduction to major works of Goethe, including Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, Faust, Wilhelm Meister, and selections of poetry.

Goethe’s Faust
G51.1411  Ulfers. 4 points.
Focusing on Goethe’s transformations of the Faust myth, the following are examined: the historical sources of Faust, the work from the viewpoints of classicism and romanticism, the figure of Gretchen, and Faustian striving as a value of Western culture.

German Romanticism
G51.1420  Ulfers. 4 points.
Examines the Romantic Movement as a way of living and writing. Attention is given to the development of a “new” mythology connecting poetry and myth, to romantic irony as a specific aesthetic process, and to the discovery of the unconscious and the irrational.

Introduction to Trauma Studies
G51.1490  Baer. 4 points.
Introduction to a new field in cultural and literary studies that investigates responses to and definitions of subjective and collective trauma.

Rilke and European Modernism
G51.1491  Baer. 4 points.
This seminar explores the poetry and prose of Rainer Maria Rilke in the context of European modernism.

Franz Kafka
G51.1512  Ulfers. 4 points.
Kafka’s work in the light of his preoccupation with language, particularly with the way this preoccupation affected his writing. The point of departure is the problematization of the referential function of language. An examination of Kafka’s diaries and letters follows.

Bertolt Brecht
G51.1513  Cohen. 4 points.
Topics may include the disintegration of human and sexual relations in the early works; the destruction of identity and the construction of a “collective individuality”; the experience of the modern metropolis; Brecht’s Marxism and his contribution to a new dialectics; Brecht’s formal innovations in drama and poetry; and Brecht’s theatre theories.

Modern German Drama
G51.1520  Baer. 4 points.
Modern German plays after 1945 to the present. Major theoretical essays on the function of the theatre as a public institution and the problem of how to represent the world on the stage are discussed in conjunction with the plays.

German Poetry
G51.1550  Baer. 4 points.
Provides some of the tools to approach lyrical texts, based on the premise that there is a distinct “lyrical language” with its own rules, grammar, and syntax. Readings include Klopstock, Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Hölderlin, Möricke, Eichendorff, George, Trakl, Rilke, Lasker-Schüler, Brecht, Sachs, Bachmann, Celan, Enzensberger, and Grünbein.

Visual Culture
G51.1650  Bronfen. 4 points.
Focuses on the role of visuality in modernist thought, with an emphasis on the German tradition. Examines how epistemological models are oriented to a subject defined as a viewer and producer of images. Readings in critical theory, art history, and theories of film and photography.

Heinrich von Kleist
G51.1695  4 points.
Kleist’s major works are discussed, concentrating on Prinz von Homburg, Der zerbrochene Krug, and several of his novellas and essays.

Photography and the World
G51.1698  Baer. 4 points.
An investigation into the ways photography has been conceptualized since its inception until its recent transformation brought about by the advent of digital imaging. Particular attention is paid to the notion of the “world” as it informs most theoretical attempts to grasp photography; the way in which the rise of photography is indissociably linked to the emergence of psychoanalysis and phenomenology; theories of perception; issues of veracity, mimesis, and aesthetics; and the relation between photography and its historical moment.

Friedrich Nietzsche
G51.1842  Ulfers. 4 points.
Examination of Nietzsche’s terms “Appollonian” and “Dionysian” in The Birth of Tragedy that serves as the basis for an investigation of his aesthetic theory, epistemology, and ethics. Uses other writings as background and source. Traces Nietzsche’s impact on 20th-century literature.

Psychoanalysis and Philosophy
G51.1863  Ronell. 4 points.
Explores the fundamental structures of psychoanalysis with a view to its philosophical implications. Readings range from scrupulous analyses of Freud, Lacan, Klein, Derrida, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Nancy to “Heideggerian psychoanalysis” or cryptonymy (Abraham and Torok).

Robert Musil
G51.1868  Goebel. 4 points.
Introduction to a major author of early 20th-century German literature. Selected essays and fictional texts are studied as examples of modernism in German prose literature: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, Drei Frauen, Nachlass zu Lebzeiten.

Skepticism and Modern Literature
G51.1900  4 points.
Explores skepticism’s two basic questions: whether true knowledge can be found and a life in pursuit of moral good is possible. Examines the skeptical tradition through the end of the 19th century.

Literature of the Weimar Period
G51.1919  Cohen. 4 points.
Topics include Weimar modernity, Weimar theatre, women, Jewish aspects and anti-Semitism, the rise of fascism, and the postexpressionist aesthetics of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Sobriety) in novels, drama, poetry, and journalism, with an interdisciplinary interest in the other arts. Works by Roth, brothers Mann, Brecht, Seghers, Horváth, Fleisser, Tucholsky, Polgar, and Kisch.

Culture and Critique—The Frankfurt School’s Theories on Modernity and Culture in Context
G51.1920  4 points.
Seminar attempting both a reconstruction of philosophical preconditions and the methodological framework of the Frankfurt School and a critical assessment of its theories of aesthetics and the modern condition. Works by Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Benjamin, and Freud are examined.

Fascism and Sexuality
G51.1936  4 points.
Explores the relationships between fascism (primarily, but not exclusively in its German form) and sexuality. Primary topics of analysis are the central importance of sexuality to fascism, not only in historical practice but in theory, as well as the (dubiously) privileged status of sexuality in theories of fascism continuing through today. Readings/viewings include Mann, Hitler, Genet, Sontag, Mosse, Theweleit, Fassbinder, Visconti, Cavani, Pasolini, LaBruce, and others.

Postwar Modernism: Max Frisch and Peter Weiss
G51.1945  Cohen. 4 points.
Max Frisch and Peter Weiss, outsiders who confronted Germans with the Nazi past and became key figures in the reconstitution of (West) German postwar literature. Emphasis is on the experimental and innovative aspects of their works and on theories of diaristic and autobiographical prose.

Realism: Problems in 19th-Century Prose
G51.1994  Fleming. 4 points.
Systematic introduction to problems of representation in 19th-century prose. Authors include Tieck, Hebbel, Keller, Stifter, and others.

Modern Scandinavian
G51.2124  Arranged on demand. 2 or 4 points.

Criticism, Critique, and Crisis: Walter Benjamin
G51.2900  Goebel. 4 points.
To this day, Walter Benjamin figures as one of the most important intellectual figures of our time. The purpose of this course is to provide a more comprehensive and contextualized introduction to his oeuvre, from the earliest engagement with German youth-culture to the latest work, the gigantic project of writing the history of the Parisian arcades.

Philosophy and Literature
G51.2912  Taught annually in conjunction with the Departments of German, English, and Comparative Literature. Ronell. 4 points.
Recent themes include “forgiveness and violence,” “sovereignty,” “trauma.”

Research
G51.3000  Open to advanced students with permission of the director of graduate studies and chair of the department. 2-6 points.

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