Free University of Berlin

This seminar first develops a brief overview of the form and theory of the essay as a literary genre. Primarily, however, the course reads and analyzes essays North American women writers who, in particular from the 1960s onwards, appropriated and henceforth shaped the form and tradition of the essay. To understand the profound aesthetic and social influence and the cultural work of women authors after World War II, the course devotes some time to canonical authors such as Susan Sontag and Joan Didion. Not least because of the very cultural authority of these writers and their early and pivotal periods of production in the era of counterculture and the women's movement in the United States, the Cold War and accelerating globalization, the course explores how these - and other - women essayists wrote about the Other, about the world. Frequently, in the essay itself and in research on it, the "I," the introspection of the writer, takes center stage. While this is highly relevant to an understanding of the genre, the course wants to venture a shift of perspective and ask: What forms of observation and description, what ethics of regarding the Other (or lack thereof) can be found in these texts? What imagery, cultural valences, and political implications can be distilled from the essays? In addition, the course pays special attention to works by African American women writers such as Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and June Jordan. African American writers in particular used the essay as a medium of political self-authorization, social critique, and literary renegotiation of cultural knowledge and female and minority subjectivity. Which distinct aesthetics of factual writing did they develop, how did they inscribe themselves in canonical essay traditions, yet how did they also perform productive fractures and critiques of these and develop alternative forms of essayistic thinking and writing?

This course examines a variety of aspects concerning international politics in Europe, with particular focus on the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. The course surveys the postwar history of international politics in Europe; European integration in general and the European Union in particular; the role played by security organizations (especially NATO and OSCE); US and Soviet/Russian policy towards Europe; the eruption of ethno-political conflict (in particular, the Balkans); the international impact of Germany's recent reunification; and the quest for order, stability, and security in a region that is no longer divided by the Iron Curtain but in which international politics continue to be shaped and affected by East-West as well as North-South contrasts. The course mixes an examination of contemporary aspects with historical contextualization, in presentations, readings, and video material.

This course examines the possibility and sources of our knowledge of other people’s and our own mental lives. The course begins with the classic mid-20th century debate on the "problem of other minds," and its development in more recent debates in cognitive science over mindreading. The course then turns to look at self-knowledge. The course considers introspection models, transparency approaches, and inferentialism. Finally the course discusses the phenomena of sexual objectification, hermeneutical injustice, and the social construction and regulation of emotion, and consider their relation to the themes of the course.

This course consists of an overview of the third wave of cognitive therapy, particularly Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT focuses on strategies of mindfulness and acceptance as well as interventions to clarify values and modify behavior. This seminar focuses on the following questions: (1) What is mindfulness and what forms of mindfulness-based therapy are there? (2) What are the basic assumptions and goals of ACT? (3) What is psychological flexibility and through which processes can it be promoted? (4) How and when can ACT be used in adults and children and adolescents to treat mental disorders? Students develop workshops on an ACT process in groups and carry them out as part of the seminar. The seminar is experience-oriented and interactive and includes practical exercises. The bulk of the course content is distributed in the form of research papers and interactive classroom presentations and discussions.

This pre-semester course prepares foreign students for academic study at a German university. The focus is on the introduction and consolidation of basic grammatical structures, as well as on the continuous development of a basic vocabulary. Student develop listening, reading, speaking and writing skills for specific everyday situations, work on oral and written exercises, and are introduced to independent learning methods. They work with and reflect on cultural topics in everyday situations in Germany, in Berlin, and at the university. In this class at the A1 level according to CEFR, students review and learn basic grammar points and are systematically introduced to basic vocabulary. All four skills are developed and applied to everyday situations and some study-related situations. The A1 level is split into two courses, the A1.1 course covers the first half of the level and the A1.2 course covers the second half of the level.