German Courses Spring 2023

(4 credits)

• SEC 001: MTWRF 8:50 am – 9:40 am
• SEC 002: MTWRF 11:00 am – 11:50 am
• SEC 003: MWR 3:30 pm – 4:50 pm

Course Description: German 101/401 is an introductory course designed for beginners in German who have no previous knowledge of the German language. By the end of the first semester, you should be able to communicate effective with others in German on a variety of topics, such as personal and public identity, family, education, career goals, and sport culture. This class will expose you to authentic texts from a variety of sources in different genres and modes, for you to develop your speaking, reading, viewing, and listening skills and engage in critical thinking. Grammar and vocabulary will be introduced in context. Assessments focus on all skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening). Throughout the semester, you will learn more about yourself and deepen your linguistic and culture knowledge of the German-speaking world. You will also improve your language-learning strategies. To be successful and achieve course learning outcomes, you will be expected to complete homework on time and participate in class. Attendance is required. This course cannot be audited. The textbook, Augenblicke: German through Film, Media, and Texts, is available at the UW Book Store for $40 and is used in first-, second-, and third-semester German. Contact the course supervisor, Dr. Jeanne Schueller (jmschuel@wisc.edu), with any questions about the course or appropriate placement.

Prerequisites: None.

(This course is also offered to graduate students for 3 credits as GERMAN 401.)

(4 credits)

• SEC 001: MTWRF 9:55 – 10:45 am
  
• SEC 002: MTWRF 12:05 – 12:55 pm
  
• SEC 003: MTWRF 2:25 – 3:15 pm
  
• SEC 004: MWR 3:30  -4:50 pm

Course Description: German 102/402 is a continuation of German 101. Students need to have completed German 101 or achieve an appropriate score on the placement exam to enroll. By the end of the second semester, you should be able to communicate effective with others in German on a variety of topics, such as sport and fitness culture, travel, technological innovations, and migration. This class will expose you to authentic texts from a variety of sources in different genres and modes, for you to develop your reading, viewing, and listening skills and engage in critical thinking. Grammar and vocabulary will be introduced in context. Assessments focus on all skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening). Throughout the semester, you will learn more about yourself and deepen your linguistic and culture knowledge of the German-speaking world. You will also improve your language-learning strategies. To be successful and achieve course learning outcomes, you will be expected to complete homework on time and participate in class. Attendance is required. This course cannot be audited. The textbook, Augenblicke: German through Film, Media, and Texts, is available at the UW Book Store for $40 and is used in first-, second-, and third-semester German. Contact the course supervisor, Dr. Jeanne Schueller (jmschuel@wisc.edu), with any questions about the course or appropriate placement.

Prerequisites: GERMAN 101 or appropriate score on the placement exam.

(This course is also offered to graduate students for 3 credits as GERMAN 402.)

(4 credits)

MTWR 9:55 – 10:45 am

Course Description: Continuation of GERMAN 111/GERMAN 311. All required course materials will be provided.

Prerequisites: GERMAN 111 or appropriate score on the placement exam. Open to First-Year Students.

(This course is also offered to graduate students for 3 credits as GERMAN 312.)

(4 credits)

• SEC 001: MTWR 11:00 – 11:50 am
  
• SEC 002: MW 3:30 – 5:10 pm

Course Description: German 203/403 is a continuation of German 102. Students need to have completed German 102 or achieve an appropriate score on the placement exam to enroll. By the end of the third semester, you should be able to communicate effective with others in German on a variety of topics, such as traditions and celebrations, city and rural life, the concept of home, and migration, immigration, and integration. This class will expose you to authentic texts from a variety of sources in different genres and modes, for you to develop your reading, viewing, and listening skills and engage in critical thinking. Grammar and vocabulary will be introduced in context. Assessments focus on all skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening). Throughout the semester, you will learn more about yourself and deepen your linguistic and culture knowledge of the German-speaking world. You will also improve your language-learning strategies. To be successful and achieve course learning outcomes, you will be expected to complete homework on time and participate in class. Attendance is required. This course cannot be audited. The textbook, Augenblicke: German through Film, Media, and Texts, is available at the UW Book Store for $40 and is used in first-, second-, and third-semester German. Contact the course supervisor, Dr. Jeanne Schueller (jmschuel@wisc.edu), with any questions about the course or appropriate placement.

Prerequisites: GERMAN 102 or appropriate score on the placement exam.

(This course is also offered to graduate students for 3 credits as GERMAN 403.)

(4 credits)

• SEC 001: MTWR 9:55 – 10:45 am
  
• SEC 001: MTWR 11:00 – 11:50 am
  
• SEC 001: MW 3:30 – 5:10 pm

Course Description: German 204/404 builds on third-semester German and prepares students for our fifth-semester German skills courses. You need to have completed German 203 or achieve an appropriate score on the placement exam to enroll. The course is designed to help you develop your speaking, reading, viewing, and listening skills and engage in critical thinking by exploring language as it is embedded in the cultures of the German-speaking world. Four thematic units cover questions related to belonging, migration, study abroad, sports and sports culture in the US and Europe, gender and gender identity, environmentalism and sustainability, art and architecture, rural and urban life and communities, museums and memorials, and the media. You will engage with these topics through multiple genres and multimodal texts, including short literary stories, non-fiction texts, a novel, and feature-length films and videos. Assessments focus on all skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening). This course reviews grammar in context but prior knowledge of most grammar concepts is assumed. Class participation is expected, and attendance is required. Required materials will be available at the UW Book Store and on Canvas. This course cannot be audited. Contact the course supervisor, Dr. Jeanne Schueller (jmschuel@wisc.edu), with any questions about the course or appropriate placement.

Prerequisites: GERMAN 203 or appropriate score on the placement exam.

(This course is also offered to graduate students for 3 credits as GERMAN 404.)

(4 credits)

MTWR 12:05 – 12:55 pm

Course Description: Continuation of GERMAN 213/313. All required course materials will be provided.

Prerequisites: GERMAN 203 or appropriate score on the placement exam.

(This course is also offered to graduate students for 3 credits as GERMAN 314.)

(3 credits)

TR 4:00 – 5:15 pm          Instructor: Jolanda Vanderwal Taylor

Course Description: The Low Countries are famous for their close relationship with the water: windmills, dikes, and Hans Brinker’s silver skates are among the most persistent popular symbols of this “edge” of Europe–at least since “Hollandmania.” This course will provide a thorough introduction to the Low Countries, their history and their contemporary culture, by focusing on their love/hate relationship to the water. The water means danger, and thus dikes (and—famously—the need to cooperate), but also trade, opportunity, beauty, and a resolute openness to the world. We will discuss what terps and polders are –but also the recent idea of the “polder model,” and which aspects of Dutch culture it has come to honor and criticize. We will look at the meaning of water in Dutch history and geography; at its effects on economic, military, and political life; at its treatment in art and literature; its times of greatest damage (floods, including 1953) and Dutch responses (polders, windmills, the Delta plan, environmentalism). We will discuss the Hanseatic cities of the Netherlands, 17th Century art, water as defense strategy, the V.O.C. (Dutch East-India Company), land reclamation, the Eleven-Cities skating race, (photos of) contemporary landscapes, and Dutch views of what all these mean.

Most importantly, this is a course in the tradition of liberal education. This course particularly encourages students to expand their knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world. In acquiring this knowledge, we will practice a range of 21st-century skills, including: inquiry and analysis; critical and creative thinking; written and oral communication; intercultural knowledge and competence; and ethical reasoning and action.

Prerequisites: None

(3 credits)

• SEC 001: MWF 12:05 – 12:55 pm
  
• SEC 002: MWF 1:20 – 2:10 pm          Instructor: Julie Larson-Guenette

Course Description: Drawing mainly on contemporary audio and video materials from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, students will explore linguistic and cultural variation of German by learning how native speakers vary their use of sound structures, vocabulary, and grammar according to speech situation.

Learning Outcomes: By the end of the course, the aim is for students to:

• improve their comprehension and production of spoken German via exposure to the language in use in audio and video formats and through use of the International Phonetic Alphabet;
• develop communication strategies to increase oral fluency;
• promote their awareness of how spoken German varies according to speech situation and region mainly in terms of sound structures, vocabulary, and pragmatics of speech;
• enhance their understanding of contemporary German-speaking cultures in Europe and the central role that language plays in shaping these cultures.

Prerequisites: GERMAN 204 or appropriate score on placement exam or consent of the course supervisor. This course can be taken subsequent to, prior to, or concurrent with GERMAN 262, GERMAN 258, and GERMAN 285. Open to first-year students.

(3 credits)

• SEC 001: MWF 9:55 – 10:45 am
  
• SEC 002: MWF 1:20 – 2:10 pm          Instructor: Jeanne Schueller
  

Course Description: This course is designed to acquaint you with German literary, cultural, and historical texts and provide an overview of cultural developments in German-speaking countries. An important goal of this course is to offer explicit instruction on reading strategies to help students improve their comprehension of a range of texts. In German 258, you will recognize different genres (text types) and identify applicable reading strategies; implement critical reading skills for reading and comprehending different genres and written registers; identify, define, and implement vocabulary related to the topics covered in class; situate a text within its cultural and historical contexts in the German-speaking world; demonstrate the ability to read autonomously; and select and interpret a text based on individual academic interests. Two books and a course pack are required and can be purchased at the UW Book Store. All other materials will be available on Canvas.

Prerequisites: GERMAN 204 or placement into GERMAN 249, 258, or 262. Open to first-year students.

(Fulfills Literature Breadth)

(3 credits)

• SEC 001: TR 9:30 – 10:45 am
• SEC 002: TR 2:30 – 3:45 pm          Instructor: Sabine Mödersheim

Course Description: Fairytales, murder mysteries, film reviews, and … resumes? Welcome to Intermediate German Writing! In this class, students will expand and enhance their writing skills in German by exploring a variety of different text types and genres reflecting the diversity of the German-speaking world. Daily course participation will involve active in-class discussion as well as collaborative and individual writing activities. Learners will work with authentic texts, music, and film, and they will also engage with synonyms, regional variations, and register to develop the skills to express themselves effectively and creatively in German. Through the composition of a variety of text types, from the practical to the fanciful, course participants will expand their individual comfort zone and improve their own communication skills as well as comprehension of written texts. Materials and in-class discussions will be in German.

Prerequisites: GERMAN 204 or appropriate score on placement exam or consent of instructor. This course can be taken subsequent to, prior to, or concurrent with GERMAN 249 and GERMAN 258.

(3 credits)

• SEC 001: MW 12:05  -12:55 pm (+ discussion section)         Instructor: Adam Stern

Course Description: The German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin once wrote: “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” Benjamin’s statement certainly applies to the phrase, “Nazi culture,” which in a mere two words manages to link racial violence and genocide to the creation of art, music, film, literature, and more. But Benjamin—who subsequently died from Nazi barbarism—did not limit his observation to the Holocaust. He suggested rather that works of culture always bear some connection to the political violence and destruction that made their production possible.

In this course, we will use Benjamin’s insight to investigate “Nazi culture” as one episode in a much broader history of colonialism and racism: a history that both proceeded the emergence of Nazism in the 1930s and then followed its apparent downfall following the end of World War II in 1945. While we will encounter some major artistic works produced under the Third Reich, we will devote the majority of the course to understanding Nazi culture’s prehistory and posthistory. Students will consider the “documents of civilization” that supported the rise of political antisemitism, the invention of biological racism, and the advent of European colonial expansion as well as the close parallels between racial laws in Germany and the United States. During the second half of the semester, the course will consider the legacy of Nazism in the postwar period by looking at the representation of National Socialism in major works of film, literature, and mass media. By the end of the class, students will have acquired a much broader sense of the term “Nazi culture” and (unfortunately) its on-going relevance in the world today.

(3 credits)

TR 4:00 – 5:15 pm         Instructor: Hannah Eldrdige

Course Description: Singing mice, torture machines, academic monkeys, bureaucracies run amok, and of course giant insects: Franz Kafka (1883-1924) is an author whose impact on world literature cannot be overestimated. He is perhaps the only German-language author whose has become an adjective–and certainly the only German-language author with an imaginary airport named after him by The Onion!  In this course, we will engage with Kafka’s puzzling, challenging, and frequently very funny works as well as the international body of authors, visual artists, musicians, and film-makers he has inspired, from My First Kafka to Orson Welles, Yoko Tawada to graphic novelists Peter Kuper and David Zane Mairowitz. Following Kafka’s wide-ranging interests, we’ll divide his works and the works of other “Kafkaesque” authors into 5 themes: work, law, colonialism, animals, and the absurd.

Because Kafka inspires such strong responses from thinkers, artists, and activists, the main assignments in this course ask you to “write,” “make,” and “do”—that is, write a paper on how the works have changed your thinking, make an artistic response to one of the works (film, music, painting, graphic novel, digital art…), and take an action to change one of the systems in which you find yourself, whether politically, in the institution of the university, or in broader social/cultural life. You’ll share each assignment with your fellow students and discuss what you chose and how you did it, bringing Kafka out of the classroom and into the world.

Authors/directors include: Sharon Dodua Otoo, Boots Riley, Yoko Tawada, Virginia Woolf, Hiyao Miyazaki, Haruki Murakami, Annette von Droste Hülshoff, Michael Götting, Jordan Peele, and W.G. Sebald.

Prerequisites: Satisfied Communications A requirement.

(Fulfills Literature and Humanities breadth requirements)

(3 credits)

• SEC 001: TR 1:00 – 2:15 pm          Instructor: Sabine Moedersheim

Course Description: “Climate Fiction “ is an emerging genre of literature, graphic novels, and film exploring the consequences of climate change in the age of the “Anthropocene”, the epoch in which human impacts on the planet’s ecological systems reach a dangerous tipping point. The aim of this course is to discuss the human experience of climate change on a global scale through analyses of works by German authors such as Lutz Seiler, Yoko Tawada, Ilija Trojanow, Christa Wolf, Werner Herzog, as well as writers from around the world, including Margaret Atwood, Octavia E. Butler, Amitav Ghosh, and others. We will explore dystopian, and apocalyptic stories but also works that imagine a more just future of resilience and social equality.

All materials will be in English translations or with English subtitles. Lectures and discussions will be in English. Prior knowledge of German welcome but not required.

Prerequisites: None.

(3 credits)

SEC 002: MWF 1:20 – 2:10 pm          Instructor: Melissa Sheedy

Course Description: From wolves to witches, Rumpelstiltskin to Rapunzel, the German fairy-tale tradition is filled with rich imagery, familiar themes, and political and social subversion. Of enduring popularity and as constant subjects of reimagination and revitalization, German tales and their retellings serve as a unique lens through which to view the social, political, and cultural contexts in which they were produced. Through these texts, we will glimpse the underlying perceptions and values regarding family, gender, nation, nature, religion, and society, both in the first half of the 19th century and in the Germany of the last 25 years. With an eye to depictions of gender and gender roles as well as to conceptions of the environment and civilization, we will critically engage with these works and contextualize them within the social and political landscapes that shaped them. Our investigations will center on tales and their retellings in a variety of forms, with a special focus on fairytales by women writers. In recognizing and analyzing the Märchen’s influences in literature, art, music, poetry, and pop culture, we will begin to appreciate the fairy-tale’s enduring legacy and its place within German literary and cultural history. This course counts as a cognate course for the German major.

(3 credits)

SEC 003: TR 4:00 – 5:15 pm          Instructor: Katie Somers

Course Description: This course is about Germanic barbarians as they have been imagined and reimagined in Europe and North America. Our origins story for the barbarian is Tacitus’s Germania, in which the Roman senator created the fierce and wild-eyed savages who destroyed three Roman legions at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE. In the medieval Lay of the Nibelungs, these same barbarians acquire the civilized veneer of courtly manners and opulent wardrobes, but retain their propensity for brutal acts of violence. They are more thoroughly rehabilitated in the centuries to follow, when German-speaking intellectuals cultivate and promote a sense of nationalism in the absence of a German nation. During this time, the barbarian attains a new status, embodied in characters like Siegfried and Brünhilde in Wagner’s four-opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelung^[1] and Hermann the German in Heinrich von Kleist’s play, The Battle of Hermann. Yet the myth of the German barbarians, their imagined indigeneity and racial purity, their supposedly ancient and uniquely German culture that reflects the true nature of the Volk, is treated as fact. Even worse, it becomes the template for what all Germans should strive to be. Finally, we investigate the migration of the Tacitean ideal to North America, where it appears in the form of the liberty-loving Anglo-Saxon. We end the course by tracing its influence in the formation of an American national identity.

[1] It takes 17 hours to perform the whole cycle. We’re going to watch all of it; j/k, actually about five minutes of it.

(3 credits)

TR 1:00 – 2:15 pm        Instructor: Sunny Yudkoff

Course Description: American literature has never been written in one language. While English has become dominant in the United States, there has been a long tradition of American literary and cultural production in other languages. This class focuses on the Jewish immigrant experience in Yiddish—a fusion language that brings together German, Hebrew, English, Russian, Latin, and more. We will follow Yiddish culture from the beginning of the twentieth century until today as it has been alternatingly supported, neglected, and imbued with nostalgia. The questions driving our inquiry will be: What does it mean to translate America into Yiddish and what does it mean to translate Yiddish for America? Major terms to be discussed include: cultural translation, ethnicity, migration, “Melting Pot,” multilingualism, and assimilation. Themes include: Jewish-Christian difference, ethnic American humor, race and Jewish culture.

Learning outcomes:

• Awareness of History’s Impact on the Present: To identify the major themes of American Yiddish literature and culture from the early-twentieth century until today.
• Effective Participation in a Multicultural Society: To prepare students for life and careers in an increasingly multicultural and multilingual US environment, and to engender in students the ability to ability to participate in a multicultural society more effectively, respectfully, and meaningfully.
• Ability to Recognize and Question Assumptions: To develop critical thinking skills through sustained discussion with one’s peers and foster a constructive climate in which to engage with questions concerning cultural, racial, religious, and linguistic difference, and to challenge students to question their own assumptions and preconceived notions about these topics.
• Oral and Written Expression: To acquire a critical vocabulary to speak about historical and present-day issues concerning migration, ethnic identity, and religious difference; to engage in reflective writing practices, respond critically to feedback, and assess one’s own communicative strengths.

This course counts as a cognate course for the German major.

Prerequisites: None.

(6 credits)

MWF 9:55 – 11:50 am        Instructor: Melissa Sheedy

Course Description: Fairytales, murder mysteries, graphic novels, and pop music … Welcome to Intermediate Intensive (Honors) German! In this class, students will expand and enhance their reading and writing skills in German by exploring a variety of different text types and genres. Daily course participation will involve active in-class discussion as well as collaborative and individual writing activities. Learners will work with authentic texts, music, advertisements, and film reflecting the diversity of the German-speaking world, and they will engage with topics such as identity and culture, science and technology, and crime and punishment to develop the skills to express themselves creatively and effectively in German. In tandem with a focus on proficiency in writing, students will also work with and develop strategies to make reading in German enjoyable and valuable. Through the reading and composition of a variety of text types, from the practical to the fanciful, course participants will expand their individual comfort zones and improve their own communication skills as well as comprehension of written texts. Materials and in-class discussions will be in German. Equivalent to GERMAN 258 and 262.

Prerequisites: GERMAN 204 or appropriate score on placement exam. Not open to students with credit for GERMAN 258 or 262. Open to first-year students.

(3 credits)

TR 2:30-3:45 pm     Instructor: Katie Somers

Course Description: The barbarians of Late Antiquity often exist in the popular imagination as braying, dirty hordes of warriors bent on the destruction of the civilized Roman Empire. In this narrative, the Germanic tribes are seen as a monolithic and abstract horror, representing Rome’s day of reckoning, rather than as a diverse set of peoples each with their own language and culture. This course concentrates on four of these barbarian groups: the East Germanic Goths, the West Germanic Franks, the Ingvaeonic early English and the North Germanic Vikings. We will analyze their shared prehistoric origins and diverging languages and histories as they move through the period of Late Antiquity and into the Early Middle Ages. We will glean what we can about barbarian language and culture by considering the stories barbarians told—many of which were passed down orally from one generation to the next for centuries, and only much later committed to parchment—and eventually what they wrote after they converted to Christianity and began to develop literate cultures. The language of instruction is German. This course presupposes no particular disciplinary background.

Prerequisites: (GERMAN 249, 258, and 262) or (GERMAN 249 and 285)

(3 credits)

TR 4:00 – 5:15 pm        Instructor: Sabine Moedersheim

Course Description: In diesem Kurs beschäftigen wir uns mit Texten und Themen der heutigen deutschsprachigen Literatur im Kontext der gegenwärtigen Gesellschaft. Wir werden Themen erforschen wie Literatur der Migration und Schwarze deutsche Literatur, Erinnerungsliteratur und Dekolonisierung, Klimawandel und Ökologie, sowie Genres wie Popliteratur, Comics, und spekulative Literatur.

Honors students in this course should enroll under GER 385.

Prerequisites: (GERMAN 249, 258, and 262) or (GERMAN 249 and 285)

(Honors students should enroll under German 385)

(3 credits)

SEC 001: MWF 11:00 – 11:50 am       Instructor: Jeanne Schueller

Course Description: This course is designed to broaden your knowledge of German language and culture through the analysis and interpretation of film. We will consider the historical and cultural contexts of each film and read thematically related fiction and non-fiction texts. The course will introduce you to several critically acclaimed German-language films that explore a range of topics and genres. I will provide you with materials to help you better understand the films, but I am also interested in your reactions to them – what you enjoy, how they make you feel, what you discover about the German-speaking world, and what you learn about yourself through the process and the semester. Film-specific terminology and aspects of film analysis will be introduced at the beginning of the semester to facilitate our discussion of the films. Films and readings will be in German. Some films have German or English subtitles, and others are in German with no subtitles. Assessments include assignments and quizzes on Canvas, two reflective essays, a film review, an in-class presentation of your film review, and active class participation. Partner, small-group, and whole-class discussions will be in German. Class materials will be available for download from Canvas. Feature-length films will be viewed outside of class; some short films will be viewed together in class.

Prerequisites: German 249, 258, and 262; or 249 and 285; or consent of instructor.

(3 credits)

SEC 002: MWF 12:15 – 12:55 pm        Instructor: Julia Goetze

Course Description: Just within the last five years, Germany has faced fundamental societal shifts and experienced trends that have garnered international attention, such as the recent change of government from a conservative center-right to a more liberal, progressive center-left in 2021, the official recognition of a third gender by the German Constitutional Court in 2017, and the resurgence of extremist terror organizations within and outside of the German military, most recently through the Day X plot orchestrated by Franco Albrecht in 2017. This seminar adopts these issues and trends as instructional units and explores each of them through a critical lens.

The course begins with a discussion of the most recent election in Germany, introducing students to the current German government, its underlying institutional structure, the political parties, the parties’ platforms, and notable political personnel. As a part of this unit, students will also compare and contrast election campaigns of the different political parties, learn to express their opinion on the efficacy of each campaign, as well as how to root their opinions in facts. The second course unit focuses on gendering (i.e., a German term used to refer to the practice of using gender-sensitive language). Here, students will be asked to reflect on the differences between grammatical gender and biological sex in the German language and how the official recognition of a third sex by the German government complexifies everyday language use, especially in light of socially constructed gender categories. More specifically, students will grapple with questions like: If a third sex is recognized by law, then why don’t official pronouns for such a sex exist? Why are current options of gendering in German not considered inclusive? Should new pronouns be artificially invented or develop naturally through language use over time? Who has the power to invent, implement, and/or select pronouns? The last theme of the course connects both previous units by highlighting the absence of the topic of right-wing terror from all but one election campaign in 2021. Here, students will learn to define and differentiate between terms such as extremism, radicalism, Neonazism, and terror, to critically engage with recent incidents of politically motivated terror in Germany.

The course will be taught in German.

Prerequisites: GERMAN 249, 258, and 262 OR GER 249 and GER 285.

(3 credits)

SEC 003: TR 1:00 – 2:15 pm        Instructor: Monika Chavez

Course Description: All too often, Austria has been characterized – and hence, perceived – as a quaint little country in the vicinity of the much larger Germany. In fact, modern-day Austria is the inheritor of a long history of migratory movements, occupations, and expansions & contractions. While often characterized as a ‘German-speaking country’, it is multilingual (and multi-cultural) in a number of regards. Vienna is closer to Venice than it is to Berlin; it practically is twinned with Bratislava; and shares its architecture with Prague and Budapest. Germany has obtained its national anthem from an Austrian (Joseph Haydn) who composed it for an Austrian emperor (Franz II.) with lyrics available in eleven different languages. Whether you see contradictions or diversity, Austria is cutting-edge technology, arts, science, and quaint (if you will) tradition; and it houses historic and contemporary conflicts that nevertheless have yielded a unique self-understanding.  What has shaped this self-understanding are Austria’s peoples across time and they, in turn, took their cues from natural features, such as rivers, forests, high plateaus, mountains, valleys, caves, lakes, and the plains of the East. This course will take us on journey through all nine Austrian states. We will connect natural features and cultural practices & perspectives across regions and across time. Students will complete regular exploratory homework assignments, take short quizzes that indicate the progress of their knowledge, and complete several group projects, including an end-of-semester presentation.

Prerequisites: (GERMAN 249, 258, and 262) or (GERMAN 249 and 285)

(3 credits)

TR 4:00 – 5:15 pm       Instructor: Sabine Moedersheim

Course Description: In diesem Kurs beschäftigen wir uns mit Texten und Themen der heutigen deutschsprachigen Literatur im Kontext der gegenwärtigen Gesellschaft. Wir werden Themen erforschen wie Literatur der Migration und Schwarze deutsche Literatur, Erinnerungsliteratur und Dekolonisierung, Klimawandel und Ökologie, sowie Genres wie Popliteratur, Comics, und spekulative Literatur.

Prerequisites: (GERMAN 249, 258, and 262) or (GERMAN 249 and 285) and Declared in an Honors program

(3 credits)

TR 11:00 am – 12:15 pm          Instructor: Salvatore Calomino

Course Description: This course providesfurther practice in reading and translating German expository prose in a variety of fields. At the start of the semester a review of both grammatical and syntactical topics vital to progress in reading will be combined with a discussion of selected chapters in R.A. Korb, Jannach’s German for Reading Knowledge. During the balance of the semester specific reading will be made available through both photocopy and internet sources. The goal for all participants will be enhanced practice and confidence in reading German at various levels of both scholarly and journalistic prose, in addition to developing a focus in reading for their specific research areas.

(4 credits)

• SEC 001: TR 4:00 – 5:15 pm        Instructor: Jolanda Vanderwal Taylor
  
• SEC 301: W 12:05-12:55 pm

Course Description: The Low Countries are famous for their close relationship with the water: windmills, dikes, and Hans Brinker’s silver skates are among the most persistent popular symbols of this “edge” of Europe–at least since “Hollandmania.” This course will provide a thorough introduction to the Low Countries, their history and their contemporary culture, by focusing on their love/hate relationship to the water. The water means danger, and thus dikes (and—famously—the need to cooperate), but also trade, opportunity, beauty, and a resolute openness to the world. We will discuss what terps and polders are –but also the recent idea of the “polder model,” and which aspects of Dutch culture it has come to honor and criticize. We will look at the meaning of water in Dutch history and geography; at its effects on economic, military, and political life; at its treatment in art and literature; its times of greatest damage (floods, including 1953) and Dutch responses (polders, windmills, the Delta plan, environmentalism). We will discuss the Hanseatic cities of the Netherlands, 17th Century art, water as defense strategy, the V.O.C. (Dutch East-India Company), land reclamation, the Eleven-Cities skating race, (photos of) contemporary landscapes, and Dutch views of what all these mean.

Most importantly, this is a course in the tradition of liberal education. This course particularly encourages students to expand their knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world. In acquiring this knowledge, we will practice a range of 21st-century skills, including: inquiry and analysis; critical and creative thinking; written and oral communication; intercultural knowledge and competence; and ethical reasoning and action.

Prerequisites: German 214 (fourth semester Dutch)

(For undergraduate students who are able to do the work in Dutch)

(3-4 credits)

• SEC 001: TR 4:00 – 5:15 pm        Instructor: Jolanda Vanderwal Taylor
  
• SEC 301: W 12:05-12:55 pm

Course Description: The Low Countries are famous for their close relationship with the water: windmills, dikes, and Hans Brinker’s silver skates are among the most persistent popular symbols of this “edge” of Europe–at least since “Hollandmania.” This course will provide a thorough introduction to the Low Countries, their history and their contemporary culture, by focusing on their love/hate relationship to the water. The water means danger, and thus dikes (and—famously—the need to cooperate), but also trade, opportunity, beauty, and a resolute openness to the world. We will discuss what terps and polders are –but also the recent idea of the “polder model,” and which aspects of Dutch culture it has come to honor and criticize. We will look at the meaning of water in Dutch history and geography; at its effects on economic, military, and political life; at its treatment in art and literature; its times of greatest damage (floods, including 1953) and Dutch responses (polders, windmills, the Delta plan, environmentalism). We will discuss the Hanseatic cities of the Netherlands, 17th Century art, water as defense strategy, the V.O.C. (Dutch East-India Company), land reclamation, the Eleven-Cities skating race, (photos of) contemporary landscapes, and Dutch views of what all these mean.

Most importantly, this is a course in the tradition of liberal education. This course particularly encourages students to expand their knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world. In acquiring this knowledge, we will practice a range of 21st-century skills, including: inquiry and analysis; critical and creative thinking; written and oral communication; intercultural knowledge and competence; and ethical reasoning and action.

Prerequisites: German 214 or 314 (fourth semester Dutch)

(For graduate students who are able to do the work in Dutch)

(3 credits)

R 4:00 – 6:30 pm        Instructor: Sabine Gross

Course Description: Detective fiction is the most popular kind of entertainment fiction worldwide. In this course, we will cover two centuries of the detective/mystery genre. We will read and analyze famous classical detective fiction (including Sherlock Holmes); German, Austrian, and Swiss detectives; female, Turkish-German and Afro-German detectives. We will define and discuss different types of detectives (reason or intuition, police or outlaw), perpetrators, and crimes. We will explore big questions – human emotions and motivations (love, greed, hate…..), social marginalization and privilege, violence and justice. Throughout, we will focus on the special ways in which detective stories/mysteries engage us a readers, in particular our curiosity and our faculties of problem-solving. We will read like detectives – closely and attentively – as we follow the traces that criminals leave and sleuths pursue. You will learn about the rules of the detective genre and why some authors break them. You will learn about different forms of detective stories and analyze their clever construction, and we will discuss important aspects of mysteries such as gender and place/space, the role of suspense vs. surprise, and the role of humor.

The course language is German. Active oral participation is essential for this seminar-style class: come prepared for discussion and lively exchange. You will write several Lesereaktionen and produce a final paper. In addition, you will give an in-class presentation and/or guide one of the seminar discussions. Expect to be entertained, and to improve your German reading, speaking, listening, and writing skills. Most texts will be supplied in a free course reader and through Canvas. In addition, you will need to purchase the following four German-language paperbacks:

• Friedrich Ani: Süden und das Lächeln des Windes. Knaur Verlag. (ISBN 978-3-426-62074-8)
• Jakob Arjouni: Mehr Bier. Diogenes Verlag. (ISBN 978-3-257-21545-8)
• Bernhard Schlink/Walter Popp: Selbs Justiz. Diogenes Verlag. (ISBN 978-3-257-21543-4)
• Noah Sow: Die schwarze Madonna. Afrodeutscher Heimatkrimi. (ISBN 978-3-7494-7819-4)

Contact the instructor Sabine Gross with any question about the course: sgross@wisc.edu

Prerequisites: Senior standing and German 337

(3 credits)

R 4:00 – 6:30 pm        Instructor: Sabine Gross

Course Description: This is the Honors version of German 676, the Senior Capstone Seminar. See German 676 description. Honors students will have at least one separate meeting and will prepare an individual or small-group project connected to the course topic that will be designed in individual consultation with Sabine Gross. 

Prerequisites: For students in the L&S Honors Program with senior standing + German 337

(Meets with German 676)

(3 credits)

MW 4:00 – 5:15        Instructor: Julia Goetze

Course Description: Researchers of world language classrooms and language educators alike constantly seek to understand and investigate variables that influence student development, performance, and achievement. One set of variables that have captured their attention for three decades is rooted in the domain of psychology; namely, emotions, affect, cognitions, beliefs, and motivation. Until recently, however, researchers have almost exclusively focused on students’ psychologies, investigating their anxiety, enjoyment, self-efficacy beliefs, grit, and their ideal self-image (among many others) and the role they play in students’ linguistic development within instructed language learning settings. This course introduces students to psychologically oriented research of the language teacher, a lacuna in SLA research that is only slowly beginning to be addressed. Drawing on Dörnyei’s (2018) claim that the language teacher might be the most important factor in influencing student learning, this course will introduce students to existing paradigms of psychologically oriented research in SLA, cover the current theoretical approaches and methodological tools in teacher-focused research of psychological variables, and engage students in hands-on empirical research of a variable of their choice.

(3 credits)

T 4:00 – 6:30        Instructor: Sonja Klocke

Course Description: Are you wondering how to make literature in English translation attractive for your students? Are you thinking about ways to teach Nelly Sachs, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Anna Akhmatova, Leo Tolstoy, Astrid Lindgren, August Strindberg … to students accustomed to miniscule screens with ephemeral flashes of communication that instantaneously vanish into thin air (both with regards to endurance and actually visible text)? Then this seminar is for you. Intended for current and/or future instructors of college-level literature courses, it offers an introduction to methods and didactics of teaching literature. The goal is to help you learn about and understand key concepts of approaching different genres in creative ways that make these texts appealing to undergraduate students. Course participants will design instructional materials, lessons, and assessment tools for teaching literature, and are encouraged to develop their identity as teachers of fictional texts. This seminar combines theory and practice-oriented work and is entirely assignment- and project-based (no exams).

Evaluation: Attendance; class participation; preparation for class and of readings as well as discussion of these readings before class on canvas; presentation on a theoretical text students choose in consultation with instructor; presentation of instructional materials and lesson plan; classroom observation; teaching portfolio.

Contact: Please contact sklocke@wisc.edu with any questions. 

Prerequisites: Graduate or professional student

(Language of instruction: English)

(3 credits)

TR 2:30 – 3:45 pm        Instructor: Salvatore Calomino

Course Description: The goal of this course is an enhanced understanding of critical problems and topics associated with the editing of early documents and literary/cultural records. Both unique and multiple transmission of individual texts will be discussed, along with varying traditional as well as recent critical proposals for editing such records.  Documents to be examined will include reproductions (print and digital) of Mären or short tales, narrative religious texts, charters (Urkunden) and estate books, drama texts, and historical records or narratives. Additional texts corresponding to students’ needs can be added. Based on models proposed by Kirchner, Bischoff, K. Schneider, Stackmann, et.al., students will develop skills in making editorial choices, the formal description of manuscripts and early printed books, and construction of an apparatus reflecting the original data and its editorial representation. Documents will be made available by the instructor. Participants will complete an editorial project on a document of their choice and based on a model presented in the course.

Upon completion of the course participants will

1. Have an overview of traditional and current editorial methods.
2. Have gained practice in making editorial choices or textual insertions.
3. Develop skills in linguistic identification in original records.
4. Have gained practice in using handbooks and current media to undertake further independent research.

Prerequisites: Reading Knowledge of modern German

(This course is also cross-listed as Medieval Studies 755; the course is conducted in English.)

(3 credits)

T 4:00 – 6:30       Instructor: Sonja Klocke

Course Description: Are you wondering how to make literature in English translation attractive for your students? Are you thinking about ways to teach Nelly Sachs, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Anna Akhmatova, Leo Tolstoy, Astrid Lindgren, August Strindberg … to students accustomed to miniscule screens with ephemeral flashes of communication that instantaneously vanish into thin air (both with regards to endurance and actually visible text)? Then this seminar is for you. Intended for current and/or future instructors of college-level literature courses, it offers an introduction to methods and didactics of teaching literature. The goal is to help you learn about and understand key concepts of approaching different genres in creative ways that make these texts appealing to undergraduate students. Course participants will design instructional materials, lessons, and assessment tools for teaching literature, and are encouraged to develop their identity as teachers of fictional texts. This seminar combines theory and practice-oriented work and is entirely assignment- and project-based (no exams).

Evaluation: Attendance; class participation; preparation for class and of readings as well as discussion of these readings before class on canvas; presentation on a theoretical text students choose in consultation with instructor; presentation of instructional materials and lesson plan; classroom observation; teaching portfolio.

Contact: Please contact sklocke@wisc.edu with any questions. 

(3 credits)

TR 1:00 – 2:15 pm       Instructor: Mark Louden

Course Description: Anyone who has spent time in a German-speaking country knows that the German language is not monolithic. How the language is structured and put to use are determined by many extra-linguistic – social – parameters, a number of which we will consider in this course. While the specific data we will learn about come from the German-speaking world, we will evaluate their significance for larger questions of sociolinguistic theory. We will begin by exploring fundamental concepts related to general sociolinguistic theory and how they apply to the study of German. We will then move on to specific questions related to how German varies among individual users of the language and the groups to which they belong. Two important dichotomies we will pay special attention to include oral versus written language, and what is known as “language of proximity” (Nähesprache) versus “language of distance” (Distanzsprache). These concepts will be applied to varieties of German defined by their functions (e.g., in media), the social status of their users (e.g., Kiezdeutsch), and geography (e.g., dialects and regiolects). Finally, we will consider how language questions are addressed in popular discourse in German-speaking Europe today, especially gender.

Prerequisites: Graduate standing or with consent of the instructor