GERM 1110 - Beginning German I
Goals: To master elements of German grammar and vocabulary, especially in practical situations.
Content: Readings in German; exercises in grammar and vocabulary building; equal emphasis on speaking, understanding the spoken language, writing, and reading.
Taught: Annually.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 1120 - Beginning German II
Goals: To master elements of German grammar and vocabulary, especially in practical situations.
Content: Readings in German; exercises in grammar and vocabulary building; equal emphasis on speaking, understanding the spoken language, writing, and reading.
Taught: Annually.
Recommended prerequisite: GERM 1110 or equivalent.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 3210 - Intermediate German I
Goals: To review all topics of German grammar and to enhance all the skills required for proficiency.
Content: Readings in German, exercises in grammar and vocabulary building; equal emphasis on speaking, understanding the spoken language, writing, and reading.
Taught: Annually.
Recommended prerequisite: GERM 1120 or equivalent.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 3220 - Intermediate German II
Goals: To review all topics of German grammar and to enhance all the skills required for proficiency.
Content: Readings in German, exercises in grammar and vocabulary building; equal emphasis on speaking, understanding the spoken language, writing, and reading.
Taught: Annually.
Recommended prerequisite: GERM 3210 or equivalent.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 3230 - Intermediate German Conversation
Goal: Designed for the intermediate level, this course helps consolidate a knowledge of German and develops conversational fluency. Excellent preparation for an extended stay in German-speaking countries.
Content: Emphasis is placed on building vocabulary, strengthening pronunciation, and enhancing fluency by means of role-playing, debates, and conversations. Cultural differences, including speech patterns, personal space, and body language, are identified. German satellite TV programs keep issues current and authentic.
Taught: Annually.
Recommended prerequisite: GERM 3220 or equivalent.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 5500 - Issues in Translation
Goals: To gain greater understanding of cultural differences and a better command of and sensibility for the German language through the process of cooperative translation.
Content: Speeches, conversations, and texts from a variety of areas will be translated from German into English, leading to discussion of translation theory. Close attention will be paid to the context within which texts are situated in order to identify cultural barriers and biases. The course will enhance interpretive skills.
Taught: Alternate years.
Recommended prerequisite: GERM 3220 or equivalent.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 5560 - Highlights of German Literature
Goals: To familiarize students with German cultural and literary development through the ages. Literary touch-stones from important periods are read and discussed.
Content: Genres and literary movements are presented and discussed and exemplary works from the Middle Ages, the Goethe Era, Modernism, and Post-War Germany are interpreted within their sociohistorical context.
Taught: Alternate years.
Recommended prerequisite: GERM 3220 or equivalent.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 5600 - Student/Faculty Collaborative Research
Goals: To develop skills for independent research by encountering indepth texts on mutually selected topics, potentially leading to presentations of papers at national conferences and publication of articles.
Content: Primary research in tandem with faculty on a wide variety of topics including politics, film, children’s literature, and science.
Recommended prerequisite: GERM 3220 or equivalent.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 5680 - German Culture and Civilization
Goals: To acquaint students with German civilization and culture through accounts in English, and in German for majors and minors, of its history, science, art, music, dance, theatre, sculpture, architecture, and customs; to increase awareness of cultural differences and the role of the German-speaking lands in world affairs.
Content: Accounts of the German-speaking lands from Roman times to the present, including discussion of the main artistic, literary, and historical issues of the Chivalric Period, the Reformation, the Thirty Years War, Enlightened Despotism, the Classic-Romantic Period, German Idealism, the Wilhelminian Age of Industrialization, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the Post-War Era and Re-unification.
Taught: Annually.
Prerequisite for non-Germanists: None. Recommended prerequisite for Germanists: GERM 3220 or equivalent.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 5700 - Topics in German Literature
Goals: To study selected topics in German intellectual and literary history toward a deeper understanding of a particular period or theme.
Content: Study of specific writers, movements, and problems in German literature. Content will vary depending upon the interest of the instructor and the demand of the students. Sample topics: Children’s Literature, the Fairy Tale, Fascist Film, Rilke, Literature and Politics, the Romantic Age.
Taught: Alternate years.
Recommended prerequisite: GERM 3220 or equivalent.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 5800 - Gender Studies: German
Goals: Critically to encounter, in English translation, various visual and literary representations of gender, both dichotomous and non-dichotomous, in German-speaking lands since the twelfth century.
Content: Selected readings in English translation (and in German for majors and minors) of German literary and visual texts such as the mystics, Frau von Stein, the fairy tales, the Romantics, the psychoanalysts, the urnings, the communists, the National-Socialists, Bettina, Rahel Levin, and Magnus Hirschfeld; current research and theories about race, disease, sexuality, and otherness.
Taught: Alternate years.
Prerequisites for non-Germanists: None. Recommended prerequisite for Germanists: GERM 3220 or equivalent.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 5900 - Advanced German Conversation and Composition
Goals: To enable students to speak and write more proficiently and more idiomatically leading toward mastery of fine points of German structure and style. Students learn to express convincingly their own ideas in German.
Content: Equal weight is given to conversation and com- position. Written and oral exercises focus on discursive patterns and the most frequent sources of lexical and syntac- tical errors. Conversations and essays are based on all genres and films as well as on current German cultural issues.
Taught: Annually.
Recommended prerequisites: GERM 3220 and 3230, or equivalents.
Credits: 4 credits
GERM 5910 - Professional German
Goals: To familiarize students with the specific vocabularies and concepts of German business, economics, politics, management, social, and legal issues. Cultural competence and cross-cultural skills are a concomitant objective.
Content: Focus on Germany as a leading country regarding industry, trade, and markets. Analyses of the German economic, social, and political systems will provide students with a broad knowledge of German business practice and environment. The course will expand all four language modalities (listening, reading, writing, speaking) and cross-cultural awareness as it impacts the areas of business and economics.
Taught: Annually.
Recommended prerequisite: GERM 3220 or equivalent.
Credits: 4 credits
This information was taken from the 2008-2009 Undergraduate Bulletin. Requirements from other versions of the Bulletin can be found under archives on the Course Catalogs web site.
