GNS+ Graduate Level Courses Spring 2022

(4 credits)

MTWR 9:55 am – 10:45 am

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

Prerequisites: GERMAN 311 or appropriate score on the placement exam.

(4 credits)

MTWR 12:05 pm – 12:55 PM

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

Prerequisites: GERMAN 313 or appropriate score on the placement exam.

(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: 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 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 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 will be 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.

(3 credits) 

MWF 12:05 pm – 12:55 pm        Instructors: Ida Moen Johnson/Claus Elholm Andersen/Scott Mellor

Course Description: Intensive work in spoken and written Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, based on contemporary readings, for undergraduate and graduate students with a basic command of a Scandinavian language. Required of graduate students.

Prerequisites: 3 years of Norwegian, Danish or Swedish or consent of instructor.

(4 credits)

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

Course Description: German 402 is a continuation of German 401. 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 will be 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 401 or appropriate score on the placement exam.

(4 credits)

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

Course Description: German 403 is designed to give you the opportunity to explore language as it is embedded in the culture. You will explore mostly contemporary but also historical aspects of the cultures of the German-speaking world through a journey through major cities and regions of Austria, Germany, or Switzerland. This course will review main grammar concepts from first-year German, but prior knowledge of these concepts is assumed. You need to have completed German 402 or achieve an appropriate score on the placement exam to enroll. Testing consists of chapter quizzes – there is no midterm or traditional final exam. You will complete writing and reading assessments, as well as oral projects. During the second half of the semester, you will sign up for a “mini- seminar” of your choice. These weeklong seminars substitute for regular class meetings and permit students to explore specific interests in German language, linguistics, literature, and culture/history. Class participation is expected, and attendance is required. This course cannot be audited. See the UW Book Store for required materials. The same textbook is used in third- and fourth-semester German. Contact the course supervisor, Dr. Jeanne Schueller (jmschuel@wisc.edu), with any questions about the course or appropriate placement.  

Prerequisites: GERMAN 402 or appropriate score on the placement exam.

(4 credits)

• SEC 001: MTWR 9:55 am – 10:45 am
• SEC 002: MTWR 11:00 am – 11:50 am
• SEC 003: MW 3:00 pm – 5:10 pm

Course Description: German 404 is a continuation of German 403. You need to have completed German 203 or achieve an appropriate score on the placement exam to enroll. This course reviews German grammar but prior knowledge of these concepts is assumed. The course is designed to give you the opportunity to explore language as it is embedded in the culture. You will explore mostly contemporary but also historical aspects of the cultures of the German-speaking world through a journey through major cities and regions of Austria, Germany, or Switzerland. Testing consists of chapter quizzes – there is no midterm or traditional final exam. You will complete writing and reading assessments, as well as oral projects. During the second half of the semester, you will sign up for a “mini- seminar” of your choice. These weeklong seminars substitute for regular class meetings and permit students to explore specific interests in German language, linguistics, literature, and culture/history. Class participation is expected, and attendance is required. This course cannot be audited. See the UW Book Store for required materials. The same textbook is used in third- and fourth-semester German. Contact the course supervisor, Dr. Jeanne Schueller (jmschuel@wisc.edu), with any questions about the course or appropriate placement. 

 Prerequisites: GERMAN 403 or appropriate score on placement exam.

(4 credits) 

• SEC 001: MTWRF 9:55 am – 10:45 am
• SEC 002: MTWRF 1:20 pm – 2:10 pm          Instructor: Ida Moen Johnson

Course Description: This course continues to build basic skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing Norwegian. We offer a thematic, communicative approach to language teaching that strives to put language in the context of culture. Classroom time focuses on communication and listening, as well as introducing basic grammatical concepts. Homework centers on reinforcing vocabulary, reading, grammar exercises and writing. Thematic units covered in Norwegian 102 include climate and weather, family and celebrations, and hometowns and housing. We end the semester with a project on travel in Norway. 

(3 credits) 

TR 9:30 am – 10:45 am        Instructor: Kirsten Wolf

Course Description: The course is intended to give students, who are already familiar with at least one of the Scandinavian languages, the opportunity to critically assess scholarly articles on aspects of the Scandinavian languages, such as dialectology, language policy and planning, trends in linguistic analysis. 

(4 credits) 

TR 1:00 pm – 2:15 pm      Instructor: Dean Krouk

Course Description: Often considered “the father of modern drama,” the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) is a major figure of world literature whose dramatic works remain fascinating and globally influential, both as texts and through performance and adaptation. Students read and discuss Ibsen in English translation, with a focus on Ibsen’s historical contexts, dramatic techniques, social and political thought, and the reception and adaptation of his work in modern culture. 

(3 credits) 

TR 11:00 am – 12:15 pm        Instructor: Dean Krouk

Course Description: This course offers a survey of the modern history of Scandinavia and the Nordic region, from 1815 to the present. Our focus will be on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Important issues and concepts will include political and cultural nationalism; modernization and modernity; war experiences and neutrality; social democracy and the Nordic model; gender equality; the European Union; multiculturalism, immigration, and globalization. 

(3 Credits)

MW 4:00 pm – 5:15 pm

Course Description: This course focuses on the folklore of Nordic America including Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Sámi materials to help us understand what we mean when we talk about Nordic America. We’ll be asking questions about the cultures and identities of the millions of immigrants who came to the United States from the Nordic countries and how they change or stay the same. And we’ll be examining what that means for the millions of Americans today who identify themselves as Nordic Americans. 

This is a practical as well as theoretical course, so we will be conducting fieldwork with Nordic Americans in the region. While this is not an ethnic studies course, we’ll be working to better understand issues of ethnicity through the lens of folklore studies by exploring the culture of Nordic America so that you can gain a better understanding of the people and area in which you will be conducting your fieldwork. Along with your fieldwork, class projects will incorporate ways in which you can make your field research available to the public. 

(4 credits) 

TR 2:30 pm – 3:45 pm        Instructor: Thomas DuBois

Course Description: This course introduces Finland’s national epic, the Kalevala. Based on traditional heroic and romance songs collected by Elias Lonnrot from Finnish and Karelian peasants in the nineteenth century, the Kalevala provides a glimpse of ancient Finnish mythology as well as traditional Finnish agrarian life. We will examine the folklore on which it was based and the literature, film, music, and popular culture it has inspired over the past two centuries with an eye to understanding the ways in which Finns have used the Kalevala to imagine their nation, their ideals, and their aspirations.

(4 credits) 

MWF 8:50 am – 9:40 am        Instructor: Claus Elholm Andersen

Course Description: Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales are known all over the world. He wrote The Little Mermaid, The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling and many, many more. This course to going to familiarize you with the works of Hans Christian Andersen, with an emphasis on his fairy tales. During the course, we will read and analyze some of his best-known fairytales, but also look at a few texts from some of the other genres he mastered. Our readings will include the biographical traits of his stories, but will primarily focus on his mastery of the genre and his complex narrative method. We will also talk about the time and place in which Hans Christian Andersen wrote his fairytales – Denmark in the 19th century ­– and discuss how this influenced his stories. Though his stories/tales might seem simply, they are complex literary artifacts. This course will argue that Andersen should be considered one of the great authors of the 19th century, not just an author of simple fairy tales for children. 

(4 credits)

TR 4:00 pm – 5:15 pm (+ discussion section)         Instructor: Jolanda Vanderwal Taylor

Course Description: What makes a family? How can the family support its members, and how do they construct a collective identity? What factors make or a break a family? (Genetics? Shared history? Love? Commitment? Compassion? Shared values? ….) We will analyze well-known, (mostly) recent Dutch novels and films, to discuss their portrayals of different kinds of wonderful and horrible families, and the many kinds of love, joy, intrigue, mystery, and disaster that can occur.  

As we read and discuss these novels and films, we will consider the role in general of the family in human culture, and we will consider the status of the family in Dutch cultures. Doing so will enable you to learn about diverse citizens of the Netherlands. We will also consider not just which issues the authors of these texts raise and what they say about them, but also how: what literary techniques do authors use to craft these texts, and what do the effects they fashion allow them—and the reader—to accomplish? And because looking at foreign/other families can help put one’s own experience into perspective, our discussions will allow each of us to reflect on and refine or further integrate our own views and values as they pertain to relationships, personhood, and our ideals and responsibilities as members of families and as citizens.

(3 credits) 

TR 2:30 pm – 3:45 pm       Instructor: Susan Brantly

Course Description: This course presents a survey of major texts of Nordic Romanticism and the dominant themes that emerge from the era. We will look at the rise of the poetic epic and its eventual eclipse by the novel. We will examine poets from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, and consider how they contribute to the national narratives of their respective countries. Nightside and Dayside Romanticism compete with each other, and the cult of the individual and originality is born. We will examine the question of what constitutes a hero and what is expected of a Romantic heroine. 

(3 credits)

TR 1:00 pm – 2:15 pm        Instructor: Salvatore Calomino

Course Description: This course will introduce students to Middle High German grammar and vocabulary with the goals of fluency and accuracy in reading medieval texts. Lectures and discussions will cover topics in phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon. During the course of the semester students will read Das Nibelungenliedand a representative selection from various genres of Middle High German literature. Class time will be devoted to translation and to discussion of grammatical/lexical topics. Participants will write mid-semester and final examinations. Prerequisite: Reading knowledge of German.Open to graduate and advanced undergraduate students.

(2 credits)

M 2:30 pm – 5:00 pm          Instructor: Kirill Ospovat

Course Description: A graduate introductory course to 18th century Russian literature.

(3 credits)

TR 4:00 pm – 5:15 pm        Instructor: Monika Chavez

Course Description: I was among the first in my field (‘German’) in the United States who was able to complete an ‘applied linguistics’ degree within a language (rather than an education or linguistics) department. Already then, the various entanglements of Second Language Acquisition as a field within the academic landscape became apparent to me. Even the name of the field was (Applied Linguistics, Language Pedagogy, Second Language Acquisition?) – and continues to be (are ‘second’, ‘language’, and ‘acquisition’ even meaningful or acceptable concepts?) – contested. Looking back, I realize that much has changed – and much has stayed the same: In terms of how the field of Second Language Acquisition has – depending on context – emerged as independent, interdisciplinary, or very much dependent on the goodwill of others; what areas of academic territory are gladly shared, which contested, and which prohibited within certain academic contexts; how academics – who are not engaged in the field – interpret what Second Language Acquisition is, does, and ought (not) to do; how those who are in the field, have demanded, celebrated, and rejected various ‘turns’; how major research conferences have emerged and SLA-focused research journals have multiplied, all accompanied by growing methodological, theoretical, and philosophical divisions; how SLA has developed out of related yet by now very distinct fields such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and education – to which SLA now entertains somewhat complex relationships; how the academic landscape remains indebted to traditions that are reluctant to make room for  ‘newcomers,’ even if they are close to half a century old; how the relationship between the teaching of culture & language on the one hand and SLA research on the other, has become characterized by contradictory and ambiguous attitudes that include affinity, inter-dependence, shared (real or perceived) suffering at the hands of other academic specializations, mild mutual disdain, and real or feigned ignorance of what each does, knows, and wants; and with what consequences matters of teaching as well as SLA theory, orthodoxy, and research agenda have become wedded to the dominant focus on the global language English. 

Now that my faculty career is heading into its final stages, I would like to take stock together with those who are about to enter the profession. In this course, we will chart (not follow) the development/s of the field, its tenuous and firm footholds, its self- and other-perceptions, and the tangible and intangible dis/regard with which is held within academic structures. More than just an exercise motivated by curiosity, this course aims to enable participants to structure informed debates about the work that they do and would like to do; to envision and then articulate the full potential of the field; and to engage with colleagues inside and outside the field about areas of expertise and collaboration. 

As part of course activities, we will read and discuss first-hand historic as well as contemporary accounts of researchers in SLA who share or insist on their perspectives of what the field is and is not and what activities, thoughts, or affiliations its adherents should or should not engage in. We will also analyze – through hands-on work – how and why specific research journals have emerged; how & why preferred research topics and methods have evolved within the same journal; how, why, and with effects ‘trends’ develop among research journals, conferences, dissertation topics; and how increasing demands on readers’ research literacy – largely not supported by a parallel change in graduate training –  has separated non-specialists (even those who teach language) from the work of SLA researchers.  We will also examine academic structures and their practical & ideological consequences for the field of SLA as well as those who work in it. Course participants will also engage in interviews and surveys to gauge diverse perspectives on and from within the field. Guest speakers will enhance the spectrum of opinions and experiences that we will be able to engage with.

(3 credits)

M 3:30 pm – 5:25 pm        Instructor: Katerina Somers

Course Description: This course introduces students to the German language’s first historical attestations from the eighth and ninth centuries. Collectively these varieties are referred to as Old High German (OHG). We will examine OHG’s sounds, morphology and syntax. We will also consider the unique cultural context in which these texts were produced. The Early Middle Ages is an important period of transition for the German language in that until that point, literate German speakers wrote exclusively in Latin, while their vernacular had no written form and existed only as sound. Thus, the texts of the OHG corpus are the first evidence of the literalization of the German language. We will consider how the oral tradition and the Latinate tradition of literacy influenced their production. 

(3 credits)

T 2:30 pm – 5:00 pm          Instructor: Maksim Hanukai

Course Description: This course introduces students to the original works of major trends representing literary theory in the Slavic world and wider: formalism, materialism, structuralism, semiotics, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, gender-based theory and other relevant theories that have influenced the way we treat literature as a cultural and aesthetic practice. 

(3 credits)

W 3:30 pm – 5:25 pm        Instructor: B. Venkat Mani

Course Description: We are living, once again, in times of forced migrations and refuge. For the year 2020, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimated that there were 82.4 million forcibly displaced people around the world—the highest number on record since the two World Wars. The proliferation of refugees and stateless people in the world has coincided with the resurgence of ethno-religious nationalism and divisive rhetoric centered on securing and insulating borders. The closing of international borders and the massive restrictions on visa processes amid the global coronavirus pandemic, all under the guise of protecting national public health and safety, is just the latest indication of the uncertain journey ahead for migrants and refugees around the world.  

At this conflict-ridden and volatile moment at the beginning of the third decade of the twenty-first century, in this seminar we will engage with a variety of texts and historical contexts in the twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries that led to the creation of exiles, migrants, and refugees.  

How do historical moments of forced migration and refuge impact our understanding of national and world literatures? How does an engagement with exilic and refugee figures broaden and deepen our comprehension of world literature? How does reading history and literature together enrich our understanding of aesthetic and political representations?  These questions will serve as catalysts for our seminar, as we explore the position and ambition of the novel as part of refugee narratives.  

The aim of the seminar is threefold. First, by engaging with conceptual histories of the terms “exiles,” “migrants,” and “refugees,” we will develop a differentiated understanding of “willful” and “forced” migrations. Second, by juxtaposing German/European case studies with those from Asia and Africa, we will try to cultivate a global framework of literary and historical comparison. And third, by locating narratives of exiles, migrants, and refugees at the intersection of “world literature” and “global history”—two terms that have gained traction in the twenty-first century scholarship—we will locate fault lines of race, ethnicity, sexuality, language, and religion in histories of colonialism and globalization.  

The course is offered in ENGLISH. All texts and discussions will be in ENGLISH. Knowledge of other world languages is most welcome.  

Readings for the seminar include texts by thinkers and political theorists such as Hannah Arendt, Urvashi Butalia, Edward Said; historians such as Mark Mazower, Sebastian Conrad, Patrick Manning; theorists such Debjani Ganguly, Lital Levy, Aamir Mufti; and literary authors such as Anita Desai, Jenny Erpenbeck, Viet Thanh Ngyuen, and Abdulrazak Gurnah (2021 Nobel Prize in Literature). By considering historiographical and literary texts together, we will explore how authors and artists engage with historical events, and subvert, resist, or challenge dominant official narratives by providing alternative, “unauthorized” accounts.  

(1 credits)

R 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm          Instructor: Anna Tumarkin

Course Description: This course is designed and required for current Slavic Department Russian-language Teaching Assistants and provides important professional development in course design, lesson planning, and assessment. Course participants work cooperatively to develop course activities and assessment instruments, and will learn how to identify and solve problems in the classroom.

Prerequisites: Teaching assistant in Russian. Graduate or professional standing.

(3 credits)

F 2:30 pm – 5:00 pm          Instructor: Kirill Ospovat

Course Description: A seminar linking Russian literary and aesthetic theory from the 18th century, Realism, and avantgarde to western political theory from Hobbes to Karl Marx and Walter Benjamin.

(3 credits) 

M 1:20 pm – 3:15 pm        Instructor: Claus Elholm Andersen

Course Description: The debate between formalism and historicism has preoccupied literary scholars in the past few decades. In this graduate seminar, we explore historical and formalistic approaches to the novel and novelistic theory. We will discuss classical theories of the novel (Kierkegaard, Lukács, and Bakhtin) and examine the promise of new formalism (Kornbluh, Levine, etc.) to combine formalism and politics. As an integral part of the course, we will read a number of novels from the 19th, 20th, and the 21st century and study how these novels are positioned in the intersection between formalism and historicism. While maintaining a focus on the novel in its different iteration from romanticism to the present, the course also introduces newer theories and discussion of fictional and fictionality (Gallagher, Cohn, Phelan, Walsh, and others). 

(3 credits)

M 3:30 pm – 5:25 pm        Instructor: Sabine Mödersheim

Course Description: Natur und Umwelt spielen in der Literatur sowie in der Philosophie und den kulturellen Traditionen des deutschsprachigen Raums eine herausragende Rolle – vom Naturbegriff im Mittelalter und der Frühen Neuzeit, in Aufklärung und Romantik bis zum wachsenden Bewußtsein des menschlichen Eingriffs in das Gleichgewicht der Natur, Umweltverschmutzung und -zerstörung sowie dystopischen und utopischen Entwürfen der Zukunft des Planeten im Anthropozän.  

In diesem Kurs untersuchen wir ökokritische Modelle der Germanistik und Kulturwissenschaft und kontextualisieren Umweltthemen und das steigende gesellschaftliche Interesse an Fragen zur Ökologie und Nachhaltigkeit in deutschsprachiger Literatur, Film und Kunst. Dabei spielen z. B. auch Themenbereiche wie Migration und Dekolonisierung eine wichtige Rolle. 

(3 credits)

MW 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm        Instructor: Mark Louden

Course Description: Obwohl deutschsprachige Länder in der Vergangenheit kaum Kolonien besaßen, wurde die deutsche Sprache trotzdem von Auswanderern in diverse Teile der Welt gebracht. In diesem Seminar untersuchen wir die Stellung des Deutschen in Ländern, in denen die Sprache heute noch aktiv als Minderheitensprache gesprochen wird: in Nord- und Südamerika, Osteuropa und den Ländern der ehemaligen Sowjetunion und in Afrika. Soziolinguistische sowie auch strukturell-linguistische Aspekte der deutsch(stämmig)en Varietäten werden analysiert, um Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede aufzuzeigen. Kontaktlinguistische Phänomene werden von besonderem Belang sein. Spezifische Varietäten, die unter die Lupe genommen werden, sind Mennonitisch–Plautdietsch, Brasilien-Pommersch, Pennsylvaniadeutsch, Hutterisch, Shwitzer (Amisches Schweizerdeutsch) und Namibia-Deutsch. Zum Schluss werden die behandelten Fälle mit den Situationen der deutschsprachigen Minderheiten in Italien, Belgien und Dänemark verglichen. Luxemburg wird auch in diesem Abschnitt behandelt.