Teaching Apprenticeship in German (1.5 credits)
16:470:502:01
Alexander Pichugin
W2, 10:20am - 11:40am, Murray Hall 113
This course prepares graduate students for a successful teaching and learning experience in the foreign language classroom. The course addresses two major goals: introduce aspiring and beginning instructors to the most current methodologies of foreign language teaching and provide them with guidance and practical advice in the classroom. Special focus this semester will be on classroom interaction with its various aspects. The course includes designing lesson plans for a learner-centered classroom, stating objectives based on standards of foreign language learning and nationally accepted proficiency guidelines, finding authentic materials for teaching, developing and reviewing graded assignments, analyzing and comparing different assessment tools, observing and reflecting upon one's own teaching and the teaching by others, and discussing personal experiences and the challenges of the language classroom. This course is taught in German with some assignments and readings in English.
Hannah Arendt: For the Life of Politics
16:470:670:01
crosslisted with Comparative Literature, 16:195:605:01
Distinguished Visiting Craig Professor, Elisabeth Weber
co-taught by Michael Levine
W56, 3:50pm - 6:50pm, Craig Seminar Room, AB 4050
Taught in English.
The writings of German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt, who in 1933 had to flee German national-socialism, have in recent years been rediscovered for their strong resonance with questions that preoccupy Western societies of the 21 century: Among others, the obliteration of the differences between truth and falsehood in politics, the crisis of the republic, the appeal of totalitarianism and racism, the resurgence of antisemitism, the "decline of the nation state and the end of the rights of man," the exacerbation of the condition of stateless refugees, but also the enduring necessity of the revolutionary spirit. Most famous for coining the phrase of the "banality of evil," Arendt's concepts of "nativity" and of the "dignity of politics" stand for her staunch conviction that however dark political times are, human action can achieve radical –revolutionary– beginnings. Her fierce commitment to friendship as an always lively and ultimately political praxis continues to inspire readers today. The seminar will focus on Arendt's oeuvre, and will include excursions to thinkers who were decisive for her intellectual journey.
20th Century Avant-Garde
16:470:671:01
crosslisted with Comparative Literature, 16:195:608:02
Nicola Behrmann
T 56, 3:50pm - 6:50pm, Craig Seminar Room, AB 4050
Taught in English
Description coming soon!
Lessing and the Reinvention of German Literature
16:470:672:01
Nicholas Rennie
Th56, 3:50pm - 6:50pm, Craig Seminar Room, AB 4050
Taught in German
This course aims to introduce and examine a selection of Lessing’s most important writings in the context of the developments that transform German literature and philosophy in the 18th century prior to Sturm und Drang. Topics to include: Classical and neo-Classical theories of literature and theater, and the invention of a new “German” culture; “Enlightenment” as a set of ideals and as work-in-progress; Empfindsamkeit; class society and literature’s role in both representing it and theorizing its end (Diderot and the new bürgerliches Trauerspiel); shifts in the portrayal and instrumentalization of gender roles; new theories of education and religion; and the creation and development of the modern field of aesthetics. We will be reading shorter selections by Gottsched, Bodmer and Breitinger, and other precursors and contemporaries of Lessing’s; and texts by Lessing to include Der junge Gelehrte, Der Freigeist, Die Juden, Miß Sara Sampson, Laokoon, Minna von Barnhelm, selections from the Literaturbriefe and Hamburgische Dramaturgie, Emilia Galotti, Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, and Nathan der Weise.
Class discussion, readings and all assignments in German.
