Free University of Berlin

This course studies the development of public and private architecture in Berlin from the 19th century to the present. Following an introduction to architectural terms, and an examination of the urban development and architectural history of the Modern era, the Neo-Classical period is surveyed with special reference to the works of Schinkel. This is followed by sessions on the architecture of the German Reich after 1871, characterized by both modern and conservative tendencies, and the manifold activities during the time of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s. The architecture of the Nazi period is examined, followed by the developments in East and West Berlin after World War II. The course concludes with a detailed review of the city's contemporary and future architectural profiles, including an analysis of the conflicts conerning the redesign of ''Berlin Mitte,'' Potsdamer Platz, and the new government quarter. Students examine architectural examples within Berlin designed by such famous international architects as Lord Norman Foster, Frank O. Gehry, Renzo Piano, and Richard Rogers. Field trips complement the lectures.

This course is designed for the beginner student with no previous knowledge of German. This course is intensive and is intended for dedicated, highly self-motivated students who will take responsibility for their learning. Through this course students develop basic competences in listening, speaking, reading, and writing as well as a basic knowledge of the German culture. It enables students to deal with everyday situations in a German-speaking environment and to conduct simple conversations. Students develop reading strategies that help to understand simple newspaper and magazine articles as well as short literary texts. Students write, revise, and proofread short texts in German, and understand the main features of conversations and lectures dealing with familiar topics.

This course features an expansion of fundamental communicative competences in the areas of listening, speaking, reading, and writing into more complex conversational settings and types of texts. The student learns to express intentions, to present arguments, to generalize, and to make comparisons in order to master linguistically more formal settings such as the pursuit of studies, discussions, and presentations. Students are encouraged to compose more complex texts. This course is at the B1.1/B1.2 level according to CFER.

This course introduces the basic structures of the German language. The student develops communicative competences in the areas of reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The course enables the participant to engage in simple conversations in settings such as shopping or restaurants and to speak in simple past tense. The student becomes familiar with listening comprehension strategies and develops the ability to extract socio-cultural information from simple texts, accompanied by exercises concerning phonetic particularities in communicative contexts. This course is at the A1.1/A1.2 level according to CFER.

Since the mid twentieth century the German welfare state has seen public health outcomes improve with sustained economic growth. But when the pandemic forced governments round the world to consider imposing lockdowns, journalists portrayed the choice in stark terms: either protect the population or the “health” of the economy. Lock­downs were feasible, however, only where governments increased welfare spending substantially, and as the pandemic unfolded other significant links between health and the economy—in Germany, the importance of the biomedical industry, for instance—became patent. Each week, the course focuses on an aspect of the complex interplay between health and “economy” in the history of the German welfare state, arguably the oldest in the world. Topics include the establishment of social insurance; the German coal and chemical industries; the therapeutic revolution during the so-called golden age of the welfare state; population politics, including abortion law, in East and West Germany; surprising trends in public health outcomes in east and west Germany since reunification; and the challenges posed by population ageing and immigration. Along the way, the class discusses questions which the study of the welfare state raises and to which the pandemic has given renewed significance: How should governments act to improve public health outcomes? To what extent should they intervene in people's lives in pursuing such objectives?

This course explores European art from the fifteenth to the twentieth century with a particular focus on the travels of artists between urban centers like Florence, Rome, Venice, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Paris, London, and Berlin. The aim is to analyze how mobility contributed through the centuries to shape local identities as well as European cultural traditions common to different countries. The course presents iconic moments of the history of the arts in Europe by drawing a special attention to episodes of cultural exchanges and hybridization that arose from travelling artworks as well as from artists' travels. From the impact of Flemish art in fifteenth century Italy, to the stays of artists like Raphael and Michelangelo in early sixteenth-century papal Rome; from the rise of genre painting in the Flanders and the Dutch Republic of the Age of Explorations, to the “painters of modern life” in nineteenth-century Paris, and the European network of the Avant-gardes of the 1910s-1920s, students analyze the artworks and their authors in relation to the different historical contexts and the places of their creation. Recurrent is the focus on the complex interplay between artists and patrons, between local traditions, individual creativity and the broader social, political, and cultural contexts in which artworks were produced. Students gain understanding of the main art movements and relevant artists from the Renaissance to the postwar period and the special role played by travels in giving shape to a European cultural space. For the onsite program only: Visits to the outstanding collections of Berlin museums allow the participants to study original artifacts and to learn how to look closely at works of art.

This pre-semester course prepares foreign students for academic study at a German university. The focus is on the improvement of oral and written expression as well as grammar and lexical proficiency. The course covers selected topics on German politics and society within a historical context. In addition, excursions are planned to introduce students to German culture. Students work with cultural topics in everyday situations and broaden their intercultural knowledge. They are introduced to independent learning methods and familiarize themselves with typical learning situations at German universities. In this class at the A2.2/B1.1 level according to CEFR, students review, consolidate, and are further introduced to basic grammar points and vocabulary. All four skills are further developed and expanded upon.