German

This course is designed for students who can understand the main ideas of complex texts on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in their fields of specialization. The goals of the course are to enable students to interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers possible without strain for either party; to produce clear, detailed texts on a range of subjects; and to explain a viewpoint on a specific issue, giving the advantages and disadvantages of various perspectives or options.

In this course, students encounter and work with a variety of German sources to refine their linguistic skills. It reviews and deepens students' knowledge of German grammar with an increasing focus on stylistics in both oral and written speech. Special emphasis is on practicing the subjunctive (“indirekte Rede”) while studying and producing journalistic texts about the city of Berlin. This course also includes practical tasks, such as conducting interviews, writing blog posts, and rehearsing a play.

The course is an exploration of the nature of the German fairy tale as a literary genre and institution. It examines its historical origins in the late 18th century, its cultural significance for Germany, the formalistic elements and thematic features developed in the German fairy tale over time and its dissemination in literary and pop culture in the contemporary world.

This is an introductory German course for students with no prior knowledge of the language. Based on a communicative and task-based approach, it develops proficiency in oral and written communication skills while providing students with knowledge and understanding of the societies and cultures of German-speaking countries. Students develop their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills through a variety of stimulating activities. Vocabulary is presented in the context of culturally significant issues.

This is an independent research course with research arranged between the student and faculty member. The specific research topics vary each term and are described on a special project form for each student. A substantial paper is required. The number of units varies with the student’s project, contact hours, and method of assessment, as defined on the student’s special study project form.

This course explores the literary tradition of German women writers, focusing on primary texts by contemporary women writers from the 20th and 21st centuries, with an additional focus on Berlin. The course examines modern German culture, society and the gender politics that create the frame of reference for understanding literary texts.

This course explores Germany’s rich diversity of culinary traditions from an anthropological context. Students gain insights into the cultural, historical, political, and ecological factors leading to the diverse landscape of regional dishes in contemporary German society. By analyzing the complex relationships between food, culture, and society, students analyze how food consumption and production changed historically, including in Germany's turbulent twentieth century, and evaluate Germany’s role in global efforts to develop sustainable and climate-friendly agricultural practices and food production. By exploring Berlin’s food scene and how it reflects the multiethnic traditions of its diverse population, students explore why food is such a powerful symbol of social and cultural identity in today’s contexts of migration and globalization.

This course is taught primarily in German, using communicative and task-based approaches, but grammar instruction may be in English. Students learn to read, write, listen, and speak basic German. Additionally, participants in this course gain familiarity with German-speaking cultures through exposure to various media and didactic projects. By the end of the course, students understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance.

The varieties of German differ in the lexis and pronunciation of words as well as in morphology, morphosyntax, syntax, and lexical semantics. In the course of this seminar, we will deal with various such variation phenomena from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective 

The seminar deals with the literary representations of insects. The introduction to the topic is the Czech play by the Capek brothers “From the Life of Insects” from the 1920s, in which the society of the interwar period is criticized in an allegorical manner. The traces of this short text can be found in the Russian novel “The Life of Insects” by Viktor Pelevin. The novel captures another transformative era - the geopolitical change of the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The characters show the characteristics of insects, but act like humans and experience both physical and social metamorphoses. In addition to considering the obvious intertextual references, the inclusion of Jan Švankmajer's animated film “Insects”, a free film adaptation of the play, also opens up a further intermedia perspective. The theoretical focus is on the concepts of allegory, metaphor and metamorphosis. Knowledge of the Slavic languages (Czech/Russian) is not a prerequisite for participation.