Free University of Berlin

This course is designed for students who have successfully completed the basic level and the first part of the intermediate level of German and who have a sound knowledge of German. This course helps students expand their competences in speaking and writing while emphasizing self-correction. Furthermore, it helps students to increase their vocabulary, to deepen grammar usage, and develop effective reading and listening strategies. In addition, students analyze and interpret cultural, political, and historical topics in German-speaking countries and compare them with their own cultural background. Through this course students develop and regularly use new strategies for language acquisition. Students are able to engage in detailed discussions on above mentioned topics. Furthermore, students develop reading strategies that allow for the understanding of different text types in detail. In addition, students improve their essay writing skills, and are able to write short texts on different topics, revise, and proofread them.

This course introduces its participants to mass media systems and structures in Germany and Europe and provides them with the analytical tools and background knowledge to assess the ways in which the mass media and politics interact and thus shape each other. The course begins with an overview of the different structures of mass media (public/private) in Germany and selected European countries, including how they have historically developed and particularly which political ideas have shaped the frameworks in which media institutions and individuals operate. At the same time, the course takes a critical look at how the media in turn have shaped and are still shaping the ways in which the political process works and presents itself to the public. Historical and current case-studies are utilized to analyze the manifold points of interaction between media and politics. At the end of the course, students also have the opportunity to compare European and American media politics and to ask whether there may be trends and influences across the Atlantic that are shaping today's politics and mass media on both sides.

This course is an introduction to the evolution of the German language focusing on older, more basic developments such as the first and second High German consonant shifts. The class utilizes raw data from dialects and Old/High German in order to gain an empirical understanding of the theoretical developments discussed in class. The mastery of said languages is not necessary to enroll in the course.

This lecture series seeks to analyze North America via the analytical lens of movement/movements. Whether one follows cable news coverage on Latin American refugees, learns about supply chain disruptions due to COVID-lockdowns in newspapers, or follow BLM protests on social media accounts: on a daily basis people are witnessing various forms of “movement.” These range from people on the move, items being shipped to humans joining forces in order to pursue common goals. Admittedly, these are not recent phenomena. Migration, international trade, and political advocacy by social movements have been with us – and shaped our societies – for centuries. Yet, looking at those seemingly distinct events and phenomena from a multidisciplinary angle provides fruitful new insights. The lectures hence address the issue of “movement” from various theoretical and disciplinary angles. Ranging from historical accounts of the labor movement to podcasts as an “audiomovement,” this series intends to make sense of the multi-faceted nature of movement/movements.