Teaching Apprenticeship in German 502 (1.5 credits)      
16:470:502:01
Th, 4:30-6:30, 172 College Ave, 2nd Fl. Library
Professor Silke Wehner-Franco          

The Teaching Apprenticeship will introduce graduate students who are teaching classes in the department to the professional expectations they will encounter as they seek careers in the foreign language teaching profession. Two major topics will be addressed: practical advice f or your own classes, and an introduction to the most current methodologies of foreign language teaching in New Jersey and in the United States. Both issues will help to prepare you for your future as a foreign language educator. The practical aspects of this class will include the writing of lesson plans and thematic units for a learner-centered classroom, based on the Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century and the ACTFL proficiency guidelines, as well as the use of authentic teaching materials for meaningful activities and assessments. Assignments for this class will also include a weekly journal and an end-of-semester report, two peer observations per semester, and weekly observations regarding the classes you teach. This class is taught in German.

Literature and the Visual Art 670 (in English) (3 credits)      
16:470:670:01
Cross-listed with Comparative Literature, 16:195:609:01
T 4:30-7:10pm, 172 College Ave, Seminar Room
Professor Nicola Behrmann
pdf Syllabus

This course explores the implementation of “iconic” or visual representations in literature and philosophy from the Enlightenment to today. In what way do visual and textual representations inform each other? In what way do images – often denounced as illusory and superficial – haunt and inform theoretical and literary texts? What is the relation between image and truth? What secrets do images conceal in literary texts? Topics include: the interplay between photography and realist depiction, gender images, the role of delusions and dreams, the relation of frame and image, of trace and imprint, of blindness and the expressionless, and the representation of trauma.

We will engage theoretical discussions from Winckelmann, Lessing, Goethe, Freud, Heidegger, Benjamin, Lacan, Derrida, Butler, and Nancy; visual examples by Grünewald, C.D. Friedrich, van Gogh, Klee, G. Richter, and others; and literary readings by Kleist, Stifter, Wedekind, Jensen, Rilke, Kafka, and Sebald.

Topics: Berlin, Vienna, Prague 671 (in English) (3 credits)      
16:470:671:01
M 4:30 - 7:10pm, 172 College Ave, Seminar Room
Professor Peter Demetz

The course will examine selected scenes from the cultural history of these three cities, beginning with ancient settlements and extending through the age of kings and emperors, with special emphasis on the vicissitudes of the Jewish communities, and the years from the revolution of 1848 to the aftermath of World War II. Texts by Lessing, Fontane, and Christa Wolf; Stifter, Schnitzler, and Ingeborg Bachmann; the Czech poets (Mácha and Nezval), Rilke, and Kafka. Lectures and discussion in English; texts in German and/or English.

This course is recommended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Requirements may differ for students taking the course at the graduate level.

Topics: Agamben: Texts and Context 672 (in English) (3 credits)      
16:470:672:01
Cross-listed with Comparative Literature, 16:195:605:01
W 4:30 - 7:10pm, 172 College Ave, Seminar Room     
Professor Eva Geulen, Visiting Professor

Giorgio Agamben’s explorations of biopolitics, sovereign power and the archaic legal figure of the ‘homo sacer’ have been discussed intensely since the initial volume appeared in English (2000) and German (2002) in a variety of fields and disciplines, from Political Science to the Arts, from Literary Criticism to Legal Studies. In this class (open to graduate students from all disciplines) we will try to assess the viability of Agamben’s general approach and theoretical edifice by juxtaposing some of his most significant primary sources to the way they have been appropriated by Agamben.