Fall 2023 Undergraduate Courses

MW 9:30 - 10:45 am

In German / 4 credits

Taught by Doreen Densky

This course surveys the comic and humorous side of the German-speaking world. Seriously! Contrary to widespread belief, jokes, slapstick, and especially satire enjoy great popularity and have deep roots in German culture. Comedy in its various forms, moreover, invites us to question the social and political conditions under which it proliferates. Among other things, we will discuss cartoons (Wilhelm Busch, E. O. Plauen, Loriot), satires and parodies (Kurt Tucholsky, Erich Kästner, Jan Böhmermann), the Charlie Chaplin of Germany (Karl Valentin), forbidden humor in the Third Reich and in East Germany, funny mass-entertainment in West Germany, a sophisticated literary comedy, multi-ethnic stand-up and skits from the last two decades, as well as film comedies. Conversation and Composition is designed for post-intermediate students of German with a solid grasp of German grammar and vocabulary who wish to expand on their knowledge of the German language, history, and culture through reading, discussion, and writing. Conversation and Composition is a reading, writing, and speaking intensive course. Emphasis will be placed on refining written and spoken expression, with particular focus on the ability to articulate opinions, exchange substantive information, and argue points of view; developing analytic and interpretive writing skills; and encouraging flexibility of expression. A thorough grammar review will be part of our work as well.

TR 11:00 – 12:15 pm

In German / 4 credits

Taught by Andrea Dortmann

This course introduces students to the history, theory, and practice of translation through German and English texts taken from a variety of cultural backgrounds. While engaging in the craft of translation first hand, students will encounter diverse contrastive grammatical, syntactical, and stylistic problems, thus gaining a deeper understanding of the German language. The course also stresses the acquisition of vocabulary and complex idiomatic structures necessary for effective reading comprehension as well as written expression. A background reader in English will familiarize students with historical and theoretical implications of translation.

Photocopies of primary texts in German (and English) to be translated will be distributed by the instructor. Materials may include newspaper and magazine articles; recipes; TV- and print advertisements; scientific and philosophical articles; pop material such as hip hop and rap songs, cartoons; Literary texts: prose, theater, poetry, libretti, among others. In addition to those weekly translation assignments, which will be critically assessed in class, we will translate one or more longer prose texts (TBD) from German to English as a class. This work will accompany our course throughout the semester. Taught in German.

TR 3:30 – 4:45 pm

In English / 4 credits 

Taught by Benjamin L. Robinson

Nothing is more common than getting worked up about politics. But what is it about politics that riles the passions – and what role do the passions play in shaping politics? Why are some expressions of emotion valorized in political culture, while others are dismissed as irrational, illegitimate, or pathological? Starting around the time of upheaval brought about by the French Revolution, this course will explore through the optic of literature and film the whole scale of political affect from the “righteous passion” of Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas to the peculiar impassivity of Melville’s Bartleby. For passion in politics can express itself in moments of revolution, rebellion, or outrage, but equally in apparently more “passive” attitudes of disaffection, apathy, or depression. Discussion will be supplemented by readings in political theory from Hobbes to Butler. Literary texts may include Hölderlin, Kleist, Kafka, Melville, Jelinek, Coetzee, Lorde, Dangarembga; films by Chantal Akerman, Michael Haneke, Béla Tarr, and Claire Denis.

F 2:00 - 4:30 pm

In English / 4 credits

Taught by Avital Ronell

This course offers a slow and steady probe into positions taken by rival camps—philosophy and psychoanalysis as they conduct raids into each other’s territories with various attitudes of defiance, resistance, and furtive takeaways. Each discursive empire reverts to literary example and relies on poetry to score points for its side. 

We shall look at case studies beginning with Lacan and Derrida’s dispute over Edgar Allen Poe’s crucial story of power, loss, the Power Queen and “Idiot” King, destination and phallus as they are positioned in The Purloined Letter. We shall also analyze selected works of Freud, Melanie Klein, Winnicott and others with a view to phenomenological protocols of reading. I am still improvising on the trajectory, which will be modified and customized according to students’ levels of reading knowledge and experience with texts that require guided tours rigorously plotted. We may take a serious look at Hamlet in psychoanalysis and philosophy, ending with Derrida’s Specters of Marx and Lacanian takes on Shakespeare.

W 2:00 – 4:30 pm

In English / 4 credits

Taught by Friedrich Ulfers

*(Note new topic)

The objective of this seminar is to show how Nietzsche revolutionized Western philosophy and how this influenced significantly what is known as “Continental Philosophy,” including such figures as Derrida and Deleuze. Particular attention will be paid to Nietzsche’s reinterpretation of the notion of the tragic, his questioning of the meaning of “truth,” the declaration of the world as an “aesthetic phenomenon,” as well as the often misunderstood ideas of the “Will to Power” and the “Eternal Recurrence of the Same.” Also discussed will be the role that language plays in Nietzsche’s thought, his revaluation of morality and his influence on the arts.

TR 9:30 - 10:45 am

In German / 4 credits

Taught by Elisabeth Strowick

In this course, we will explore one of the most fascinating German authors of the 20^th century. Exceptional in its stylistic elegance, its irony and coldness, Mann's prose addresses major topics of modernism such as the tension between rationality and passion, between artistic and bourgeois existence, between modernity and myth. In close readings of selected novellas and novels (excerpts), we will analyze Mann's rhetorical style, his narrative technique of leitmotif and the intertextuality of his prose; further, we will examine the substantial relationship of Mann's writing to philosophy, medicine, psychoanalysis, and music. Readings and discussion in German.

MW 9:30 - 10:45 am

In German / 4 credits

Taught by Andrea Krauss

The seminar examines the way cultural and historical topics are presented in contemporary German literature. The selected texts originate in different national contexts (Swiss, Austrian, German, German-Turkish, German-Japanese) and deal with questions concerning the representation of national, cultural, and individual identity. We will explore how the texts (de)construct those identities through narrative structures and will contextualize these structures with respect to recent theories of transcultural identities. Authors include José Oliver, May Ayim, Zafer Şenocak, Homi K. Bhaba, Georg Simmel, Leslie Adelson, Yōko Tawada, Natasha Wodin, Franco Biondi, Martin Suter, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Christoph Schlingensief, Thomas Bernhard, Fatih Akin.  Readings and discussion in German.