Free University of Berlin

This course is intended for students who have no prior knowledge of German. In this class on the A1 level according to CEFR, students learn and solidify basic grammatical structures and systematically build their vocabulary. They train the four skills of listening, reading, speaking, and writing in everyday situations and do simple exercises to practice and improve their verbal and written skills. Students are introduced to independent forms of learning and studying. The class covers and reflects on civilization and culture in Germany, Berlin, and at the university as related to everyday life. Topics include personal information, living situation, institutions, traffic, traveling, health, weather, and festivities.

In January 2021 a commission appointed by the federal government released an extensive report on the integration of people with a Migrationshintergrund, or migration background, in Germany. The report set out a concept of integration, discussed integration with regard to a wide range of policy areas, including health and housing, education, and employment, and raised issues like religion and language. Also included in the report were the dissenting positions of several commission members, which underline the extent to which integration remains a contested and controversial idea. The course uses this report as the starting point for an analysis of the concept of integration. The course considers the economic, social, political, and cultural aspects of the concept developed in the report, and compares it with terms like cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism. The course also discusses the implications of integration for employment and education policy.

The goal of this inter-disciplinary bioinformatics course, consisting of lectures, exercises, and a seminar, is to introduce students to (1) key theoretical concepts, computational strategies, and algorithms for predicting RNA secondary structures and related features, covering probabilistic and comparative machine learning methods; (2) key experimental concepts for transcriptome-wide RNA structure and RNA-RNA interaction probing; and (3) key research contributions published in recent years.

This course encompasses more complex structures and communicative competences in the German language. Students gain the ability to express desires and intentions as well as temporal sequences. They solidify their ability to communicate in every-day situations such as searching for housing, travel, general orientation, and relationships. The course also features more demanding texts for listening and reading comprehension. Students distill socio-cultural information from authentic texts such as newspaper articles and short literary extracts. In the realm of writing, the composition of basic types of texts is pursued. This course is at the A2.2/B1.1 level according to CFER.

On the basis of current debates in Germany, this course forms a picture of the state of German debate culture. The course addresses questions in this seminar including: How factual or polarizing are debates in different media? Where do the boundaries lie between free expression of opinion and punishable speech? How do parliamentary debates in Germany formally proceed and what influence does federalism have on political debates and decision-making processes? As a concrete example of debate, the course discusses, among other topics, the current debate on Corona measures such as compulsory vaccination.

This course is designed for students who have successfully completed the basic level of German and who have a sound knowledge of German. This course is intensive and is intended for dedicated, highly self-motivated students who take responsibility for their learning. This course helps students to expand their competences in listening, speaking, reading, and writing as well as strengthen their knowledge of grammar, while emphasizing self-correction. Students also expand their knowledge of the German culture and 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 and are able to engage in detailed discussions on above mentioned topics. Furthermore, students develop reading strategies that help to understand 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.

The German social system has long been considered the archetype of the conservative welfare state. Germany introduced a far-reaching social security system as early as the 1880s, which has shown amazing durability despite wars and across forms of government. But has the social security system remained true to its conservative reputation, or has it moved away from this ideal type in recent decades? And what are the effects of these changes on the social impact of social policy? In this seminar students consider these questions.

The course provides an introduction to art and politics in the context of dictatorship, focusing on the examples of Hitler's Germany, Stalin's USSR, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain. In the first part of the semester, the students gain an understanding of art in a democratic society by analyzing the art and architecture of the Weimar Republic in Germany. Special attention is paid to Jewish artists like Max Liebermann, Erich Mendelsohn, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and El Lissitzky. The course examines the official art and architecture in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union, focusing on the works of Albert Speer, Giuseppe Terragni, Arno Breker, and Leni Riefenstahl. Modernist and Jewish artists were persecuted, forced into emigration, or deported to concentration camps. Under the Nazi regime in Germany, the exhibition "Degenerate Art" served to propagate the fascist idea of what art should not be like. The course further examines the relation between art and the Holocaust. After 1945, artists like Wolf Vostell, Max Grundig, or George Segal focused in their paintings, sculptures, and installations on the totalitarian experience and the Shoah in particular. Additionally, art also served as a medium to commemorate the Holocaust: the memorials at Buchenwald concentration camp or the Holocaust memorial in Berlin are prominent examples. In the course of the semester, students gain an overview of important European art and architecture movements of the early twentieth century. In addition, the course provides a deeper understanding of art under totalitarian conditions. As a complement to the lectures, formal field-trips to historically significant sites and museums constitute an integral component of the course.