Humboldt University Berlin

This class is designed to provide an opportunity for students to explore short fiction and poetry writing. Students develop a writing portfolio which includes a variety of genres and participate in in-class readings and critiques.

In the B2 level, students systematize, consolidate, and expand basic knowledge of lexis and grammar acquired in the basic and lower intermediate level. The development of academic work forms and techniques is becoming increasingly important. Course objectives include the improvement of the active and passive language use through the systematic expansion of the vocabulary as well as a focus on the training of oral and written skills. Further emphasis is given to the development of the language skills in everyday life as well as study-related situations in Germany. The B2 level is split into two courses, the B2.1 course covers the first half of the level and the B2.2 course covers the second half of the level.

Using examples taken from literature, art, television, stand-up comedy, and everyday discourse, this course explores the use of humor in British culture. A defining characteristic of Britishness, the use of humor is examined in a range of contexts, with a focus on literary and comic deployments of irony, satire, farce, surrealism, and incongruity. The course develops students’ ability to understand, describe, and analyze particular examples of humor, along with opportunities to practice their analytic writing skills.

This seminar explores issues of medieval embodiment. On the one hand, students are looking at the role of the lived body as it is depicted in literature – the body that eats and sleeps, loves and desires, suffers and dies; on the other hand, they are examining the significance of divine physicality that becomes manifest in Christ’s incarnated and resurrected body. Students pay close attention to the imbrications between sacred and secular notions of the body, and they also challenge the idea of the Middle Ages as "dualistic," by questioning predominant dichotomies between body and soul, immanence and transcendence, masculinity and femininity. By drawing on written representations of the body by authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Margery Kempe, John Gower, and William Langland, as well as on some of the seminal studies on medieval embodiment, students explore the medieval body as a site of multiple and competing discourses.

This class is tailored to student life in Germany. The course introduces students to German language and culture and encourages and prepares them to speak German in everyday situations. Step by step, students increase their command of spoken and written German by practicing their speaking (including pronunciation), listening, reading, and writing skills. Particular attention is paid to vocabulary and grammar. 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.