German Area Studies

Beginning German I
German instruction endeavors to foster inter-cultural competence by infusing historical knowledge, cultural artifacts, and social structures into the very first lesson. Kontakte, the instructional materials for both German 101 and 102, is a communicative-based text that offers many opportunities for intercultural investigation. Instruction is designed to improve all skill areas of language acquisition through level-appropriate reading, writing, listening, and oral assignments.

Introdution to German Area Studies I
This course represents students’ first exposure to the field of German Area Studies. In addition to improving the students’ ability to express their thoughts clearly, concisely, and correctly in spoken and written German, the class will introduce students to core issues of the field, i.e. the culture of German- speaking Europe in various forms and expressions. Besides learning about canonical texts and figures, students will also explore film, music, politics, and pop-culture as contributors to the culture of central Europe. In addition, the skills that constitute intercultural competence are also developed and honed via projects, for example the role of geography in the construction of German culture.

German Cinema
This course will introduce students to all the major periods of German cinema and the historical contexts that gave rise to them: from silent “Orientals” and expressionist film in the Weimar Era to the propaganda film of Hitler’s Third Reich, from postwar cinema that sought to reconstruct and rewrite national identity to transnational and queer cinema that sought to unhinge essentialism from German identity, and from the work of the great auteurs of New German Cinema and Turkish-German Cinema. By drawing out the complex relationship between politics and film, we will learn to appreciate and interrogate the role that film has played in shaping and being shaped by German history, society, and culture.