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
pdf Syllabus

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.

Introduction to Literary Theory (in English) (3 credits)      
16:470:510:01
Cross-listed with Comparative Literature, 16:195:501:01
M 4:30-7:10pm, CML-101
Professor Martha Helfer
pdf Syllabus

This course will trace the genealogy of contemporary literary criticism from Kant through the German romantics to early twentieth-century critical theory and deconstruction. In particular, we will explore the role of aesthetics and art in major philosophical theories of subjectivity, and the structure of critical discourse in these theories. Emphasis will be placed on developing critical
reading and writing skills.

The language of instruction is English. All readings are available in English and, where applicable, in German. No knowledge of German is required for the course!

Topics: Forbidding Images 670 (in English) (3 credits)      
16:470:670:01
Cross-listed with Comparative Literature (16:195:617:01)
W 4:30 - 7:10pm, 172 College Ave, Seminar Room
Professor Nicholas Rennie
pdf Syllabus

The seminar examines the rivalry between text and image in German writing from the 18th to the 20th century, and consequences of this antagonism in current theory. We will read a series of writings which each register the fascination of the visual, yet attempt to defend against its influence in the name of a non-visual principle. A guiding concern will be the degree to which the intellectual tradition under study relates to an iconoclastic tendency (or a modern “prohibition” of images) in contemporary theory.

Topics: German Film from 1945-Present 671 (in English) (3 credits)      
16:470:671:01
T 4:30 - 7:10pm, 172 College Ave, Seminar Room
Professor Fatima Naqvi

We will look at a variety of feature films in German after 1945 to focus on issues of guilt, remembrance (and its counterpart: amnesia), gender, Heimat or “homeland,” national self-fashioning, and trauma. How does the Second World War inflect these films? What other socio-political and economic factors influence the private and collective identities that these films articulate? How do the predominant

concerns shift with the passage of time? How is the category of “nation” constructed and how is it contested within the narratives themselves? Close attention will be paid to aesthetic issues and the concept of “authorship.”

We will also look beyond German-language borders and focus in particular on the role of Austrian directors in the US. A grant from the Botstiber Foundation for Austrian-American Studies makes possible a series of guest lectures on émigrés such as Fritz Lang, Edgar Ulmer, Peter Lorre, and Billy Wilder.

Readings and discussions will be in English. Readers of German and French are encouraged to read the texts in the original where possible.