2024-2025 Catalog

GRMN 10100-10200-10300. Elementary German for Beginners I-II-III.

This sequence develops proficiency in reading, writing, listening, and speaking for use in everyday communication. Knowledge and awareness of the different cultures of the German speaking countries is also a goal.

GRMN 10123. Summer Intensive Introductory German. 300 Units.

Summer Introductory German is a 7-week course designed for students wishing to develop intermediate proficiency in reading, writing, listening and speaking for use in everyday communication. Students will work with authentic materials as well as gain familiarity with the different cultures of the German-speaking countries. The course meets Monday through Thursday for three hours per day, with additional 90-minute meeting times in the afternoon. Summer Introductory German is the equivalent of the 10100-10200-10300 sequence offered during the regular academic year at the University of Chicago and satisfies the university competency requirement. During Summer 2020, this course will be offered online and it will be adjusted accordingly.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Summer

GRMN 10201. Elementary German 2. 100 Units.

This is an accelerated version of the GRMN 10100-10200 sequence intended for students with previous knowledge of the language. Prerequisite(s): Placement or consent of language coordinator.No auditors permitted. Must be taken for a quality grade.

Terms Offered: Autumn,Winter
Prerequisite(s): Placement or consent of language coordinator
Note(s): No auditors permitted. Must be taken for a quality grade.

GRMN 12001-12002-12003. Intensive German I-II-III.

This intensive, three-quarter sequence brings students to high-intermediate levels in all four skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening so that students can enter third-year level courses in German. Learners who are starting German late in their College careers or who wish to move forward swiftly will gain skills corresponding to two full years of study. NOTE: Each course is 200 units and corresponds in workload to taking two courses.

GRMN 13100. Reading German. 100 Units.

This course prepares students to read a variety of German texts. By the end of the quarter, students should have a fundamental knowledge of German grammar and a basic vocabulary. While the course does not teach conversational German, the basic elements of pronunciation are introduced.

Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Prior knowledge of German not required. No auditors permitted. This course does not prepare students for the competency exam. Must be taken for a quality grade.

GRMN 20100-20201-20301. Deutsche Maerchen; Grünes Deutschland; Kunst und Kultur.

Second-Year Sequence

GRMN 21103-21303-21403. Erzählen; Gedichte; Philosophie.

It is not necessary to take these courses in sequence. These courses serve as preparation for seminar-style classes. Students work with a variety of texts and learn to present and participate in instructor- and student-led discussions of relevant issues and topics. Student also write short essays and longer research papers. Work in grammar, structure, and vocabulary moves students toward more idiomatic use of German.

GRMN 21503. Film. 100 Units.

In Winter 2023, two sections will be taught by Prof. Burgoyne. Film: Alltag und Verbrechen in Ostdeutschland Nine films, the first of which from 1932 and the last of which from 2012 will serve as the material with which we examine changing methods of documentary and dramatic film. We will spend two sessions on each film, the first of which focused on the historical background of the decade in question and the second of which on discussing filmic technique. The requisite vocabulary for film analysis in German will be introduced in order to discuss various types of shots and sequences. We will analyze the methods by which filmic technique may be used to convey social criticism and the ideals of Socialism. Our focus on East German cinema and the DEFA company will theoretically ground our discussion of realism and Socialist Realism in film. The themes of "daily life" in the GDR will be juxtaposed with "crimes" such as those of the Second World War, alternative lifestyles, Republikflucht, and sedition, to name a few. All discussion, reading, and assignments in German.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: TBD Winter

GRMN 21603. Drama. 100 Units.

This course develops advanced German skill through the study of dramas and/or films of various authors/directors from different eras.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: TBD

GRMN 21703. Medien und Gesellschaft. 100 Units.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: TBD

GRMN 21803. Arbeitskulturen: Trends in the German-Speaking Working World. 100 Units.

In this course we explore contemporary issues in German culture and society through the lens of working life. We examine the issues surrounding the notoriously high taxes that workers pay in German-speaking countries and the social services that these taxes fund, including socialized health care, unemployment insurance, and pensions. After a brief introduction to the post-war history of the democratic socialism as a governmental type in German-speaking countries, students will explore the issues surrounding working life by reading texts from online newspapers, journals, social media and other sources. Students will also practice listening skills using a variety of streaming media: newscasts, talk shows, comedy shows, and narrative television series. In our examinations and discussions of these materials, we will focus not only on the issues surrounding working life itself, but especially the balance that arises in regards to such personal choices as holidays, hobbies, and family choices. The American corporate world will be our primary basis of comparison. We will also review the current political landscape in German-speaking Europe to contextualize the existing cultural norms. Students will choose the topic and reading for the final week of class. Assignments for this course are designed to practice skills such as effective digital communication, presenting one's professional biography and opinion, as well as interviewing strategies. All readings & assignments in German.

Instructor(s): Nicole Burgoyne     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Prerequisite(s): GRMN 20300 or 20301 or placement using the online language assessment Canvas site.
Note(s): Note(s): No auditors permitted. Must be taken for a quality grade. Please contact Prof. Burgoyne at burgoyne@uchicago.edu with questions.

GRMN 21204. German in Practice. 100 Units.

Internship in a German-speaking country. Students will write three substantive reports, in German, on their internship experience; and may be asked an oral presentation on the experience in GRMN 21803 Arbeitskulturen or GRMN21903 Business German."

Terms Offered: TBD

GRMN 21903. Business German. 100 Units.

Students in this course acquire the language knowledge, skills and abilities that they will need to succeed in a German-language business environment. Students practice all four skills - speaking, listening, reading and writing - as they gain mastery of the various types, genres and contexts of German business communications.

Terms Offered: TBD

GRMN 22124. The Cultural History and Politics of Postwar Germany. 100 Units.

The premier demand upon all education is that Auschwitz not happen again," announced the critic Theodor Adorno on German radio in 1966. By this he meant not only the education of children, but also the re-education of the German people. After World War II, with the Third Reich in ruins and confronted with the horrors of the Holocaust, Germans were forced to reckon with their past as they attempted to build the country anew, entering into a period of dramatic political and cultural reorientation. This course traces the history of "rebuilding" Germany after 1945, from the immediate postwar period through the East/West division to reunification to today. Drawing on a broad range of source material, including film, literature, government documents, art, and architecture, this interdisciplinary seminar studies the limits and possibilities of conceiving of Germany as a post-war Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle), and its implications for German cultural production. We will pay special attention to the way that debates from the postwar era still reverberate today, for instance in racial discrimination and the rise of the German far-right. This course is required for all Germanic Studies majors and minors. Readings and discussion in English.

Instructor(s): Sophie Salvo     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): DEMS 22124

GRMN 22311. Berlin: Conflict, Community, and Sustainability. 100 Units.

Berlin: What makes a city? Who decides how a city grows and changes, and what criteria do they use - should it be beautiful, efficient, sustainable, open, just? How do economic systems and political ideologies shape urban development? What is the "right to the city," and what does it mean for city-dwellers to exercise it? These are just some of the questions we will seek to answer in our course, Berlin: Conflict, Community, and Sustainability. This is a September Term study abroad course. The program includes a side trip over a long weekend to the cities of Hamburg and Lübeck.

Instructor(s): Evan Carver     Terms Offered: Summer
Prerequisite(s): Admission to Berlin: Conflict, Community, and Sustainability study abroad program.
Note(s): Study Abroad September Term AY 23-24
Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 22311, ENST 22311

GRMN 23325. Adaptation Laboratory: Berlin at Court Theatre. 100 Units.

This course, supported by the Franke Institute's Center for Disciplinary Innovation and team-taught by Mickle Maher, award winning playwright, and David Levin, offers students an intensive, behind the scenes introduction to the preparation of Berlin, a world-premiere production at Court Theatre, the University's Tony-Award winning professional theater. Students are invited to experience the production's preparation from start to finish, that is, from the very first rehearsal near the beginning of the quarter, through preview performances at mid-term, to its premiere near the course's conclusion. In addition to extensive conversations with the creative team, we will consider the production's source materials (especially Jason Lutes' graphic novel Berlin), its interpretive stakes, as well as the exigencies of preparing a world-premiere. Open to advanced UG's, MA students, as well as PhD students

Instructor(s): David Levin     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 33325

GRMN 23623. Evil: Myth, Symbol and Reality. 100 Units.

From the horrors of the Shoah to violence suffered by individuals, the question of the origin, meaning, and reality of evil done by humans has vexed thinkers throughout the ages. This seminar is an inquiry into the problem of evil on three registers of reflection: myth, symbol, and reality. We will be exploring important philosophical, Jewish, and Christian texts. These include Martin Buber, Good and Evil, Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, Edward Farley, Good and Evil, Hans Jonas, Mortality and Morality and Claudia Card, The Atrocity Paradigm. There will also be a viewing of the movie Seven (1995) directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. Accordingly, the seminar probes the reality of evil and the symbolic and mythic resources of religious traditions to articulate the meaning and origin of human evil. The question of "theodicy" is then not the primary focus given the seminar's inquiry into the fact and reality of human evil. Each student will submit a 5-7 page critical review of either Jonathan Glover's Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century or Susan Neiman's, Evil in Modern Thought. Each Student also will write a 15 page (double spaced;12pt font) paper on one or more of the texts read in the course with respect to her or his own research interests.

Instructor(s): William Schweiker     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the HS or CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 33623, FNDL 23600, JWSC 23600, THEO 33600, RLST 23600, RETH 33600

GRMN 23683. What is Nature? - 20th-Century Continental Philosophy. 100 Units.

In this course, we follow the topic of the meaning of nature in philosophy, beginning our exploration right around the point when explicit discussion of nature becomes less prominent. We intend to develop a coherent narrative about major philosophical developments from Nietzsche through Derrida through the lens offered by this question, examining existentialism, phenomenology, and deconstruction along the way. Students should come away from this course with a grounded sense of what each term means, resulting in foundational knowledge of Continental philosophy after Nietzsche. We will take an interdisciplinary approach, as the question of nature often emerges for our authors in engagement with art, whether drama, poetry, or painting, all of which will be addressed. This course's starting point for our reflections on nature is Nietzsche's notion of the death of God, a theme to which we will return with all three of our main authors, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida. Recurrent themes will be: nature and eros, nature and human finitude, the human being as (un)natural, and the very viability of the concept of nature. Additional authors include Aristotle, Plato, Sappho, Sophocles, Friedrich Hölderlin, Leo Strauss, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Judith Butler, and discuss paintings by Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh. An interesting question to pose along the way will be the relationship (or lack thereof) between the views of nature on offer to our ecological concerns today.

Instructor(s): Mat Messerschmidt      Terms Offered: Winter. Winter 2024
Equivalent Course(s): SCTH 30683, SCTH 20683, RLST 23503

GRMN 24425. Metropolis Berlin. 100 Units.

Berlin, with its fractured histories, has been a crucible for artists, poets, filmmakers, and cultural critics to engage with thinking about the city. The period of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) has often been described with the metaphor of "dancing on the volcano." What does this term, suggestive of freedom, experimentation, but also impending doom, mean? With Berlin's unprecedented expansion in the nineteenth- century and early twentieth centuries, distinctive new modes of perception and experience connected to the metropolis gave shape to experimental literary works. Cultural critics such as Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin examined the impact of cities on the psyches and bodies of their inhabitants. And new media such as film captured the realities of urban life in stunning detail (as in Ruttmann's Symphony of a City), while painting attempted to depict the convulsive movements of the city.

Instructor(s): Catriona MacLeod     Terms Offered: Winter

GRMN 24524. The Illustrated Book. 100 Units.

Kafka prohibited images of Gregor Samsa. In a 1915 letter to his publisher, he stipulated that the insect should not be drawn, not even to be seen from a distance. Why? Along with Henry James, Mallarmé, and others, Kafka seemed to fear that illustration would diminish the power of the text to "illustrate" or illuminate in its own way, as Hillis Miller has put it. The study of illustration has, however, emerged as a new interdisciplinary field in recent years, though illustration has often been neglected as an ornamental "handmaiden" to the printed word or as a commercial appendage to the book. This seminar will approach the topic with a focus on the heyday of the illustrated book, the nineteenth century, from the perspectives of book history, literary criticism, art history, word and image studies, and translation and adaptation studies. Topics to be considered to include: paratextuality; illustration as translation and/or adaptation; extra-illustration; illustration and authorship; text-image interactions or non-interactions; illustration and mass production; photography and illustration.

Instructor(s): Catriona Macleod     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 34524, GRMN 34524, ARTH 24524

GRMN 24635. Means, Motive, Murder: German Crime Fiction. 100 Units.

Edgar Allan Poe, when accused of being too much under the influence of German literary sources, claimed that: "if in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul." In this course, we will read a selection of German crime fiction not only to be in a better position to judge Poe's protestations, but more importantly, to familiarize ourselves with a selection of canonical German writers as well as with the history and the characteristics of the genre. Why is crime fiction one of the most popular literary genres today? How does the German tradition differ from well-known whodunnits such as those by Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie? What is the relationship between the genre and society? We will consider - among other questions - the figure of the detective, the history of policing, different concepts of justice and guilt, the status of clues, indices, evidence. Readings will include Poe, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Kleist, Schiller, Droste-Hülshoff, and others. Readings and discussions in English.

Instructor(s): Margareta Ingrid Christian     Terms Offered: Autumn

GRMN 25120. Nietzsche: Culture, Critique, Self-Transcendence. 100 Units.

This course is conceived as a pathway to the Humanities and an introduction to the work of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). A range of Nietzsche's work will be considered, but the focus will be on three themes to which Nietzsche recurred throughout his writing career: Culture: Nietzsche's thought on the anthropological roots and the expressive forms of human meaning-making: Apollo/Dionysus; Gesture; Music; Metaphor Critique: the vacuous character of modern culture; romanticism, decadence, nihilism. Self-Transcendence: individual self-realization and freedom. The selection of these themes is motivated by the fact that they may be considered as fundamental dimensions of humanistic inquiry. Students will develop a sound understanding of a writer whose intellectual influence continues to grow, but at the same time they will become acquainted with such core concepts of humanistic/interpretive inquiry as form, expression, ideology, genealogy, discourse, self-fashioning, individuality, and value.

Instructor(s): David Wellbery     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 25121, SIGN 26013

GRMN 26225. Get Cultured in Nine Weeks: Historical Perspectives on Art and Education. 100 Units.

Get Cultured in Nine Weeks: Historical Perspectives on Art and Education: What does it mean to 'get cultured'? Why-and how-do we do it? Does an education in the arts and letters make us more moral, more intelligent, more resistant to authority-or perhaps more submissive? These questions are at the center of debates about the place of cultural learning in the contemporary world, but our century was not the first to think critically about the social and political functions of this form of education. This course investigates how students, educators, writers, and artists conceptualized the aims and means of becoming cultured from the 1700s forward, focusing on European history and connecting it to the concerns of the present. We will pay particularly close attention to both formal and informal means of cultural education, and to the ways in which these practices have been understood to produce social structures of class, gender, and race. Readings will draw from the fields of history, literature, philosophy, sociology, and art history. At the end of the quarter, students will be asked to design their own fantasy syllabus for "getting cultured in nine weeks."

Instructor(s): Sophie Salvo and Alice Goff     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 32510, GRMN 36225, HIST 22510

GRMN 26525. German Social and Cultural Theory. 100 Units.

In this course, we will read the major German social and cultural theorists of the twentieth century, among them Georg Simmel, Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, Niklas Luhmann. Readings will be available in both English and German, discussions will be in English.

Instructor(s): Eric Santner     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 36525

GRMN 26725. Staging Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung in the 21st Century. 100 Units.

This team-taught course explores the challenges of staging Richard Wagner's sprawling 19th-century tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung in the 21st century. The course will offer an introduction to The Ring, including its complicated place in history (including its reception and production history), and how it has been thought about in recent musicology and critical theory. But first and foremost, we will be exploring how the piece is being staged today. To that end, we will explore four productions of the tetralogy that are currently being prepared at leading opera houses around the world - in Munich, London, Berlin, and Oslo - speaking, via Zoom, with artistic directors and the production teams about their ideas and ambitions. What are the interpretive challenges and opportunities in staging this mammoth work? How do these productions seek to engage the tetralogy's exceedingly complicated aesthetic ambitions, political baggage, and production history? And how do specific geographical, cultural, and historical conditions affect the artistic project of each production? Our discussions will encompass a range of fields, approaches, and topics. Among the themes we plan to examine are the aspiration to aesthetic totalization, the politics of community, the relationship between canonicity and critique, the notion of distress or emergency (the German term is Not), and some astonishingly lurid fantasies of family life-mostly of family dissolution. Moreover, we will approach the questi

Instructor(s): David Levin, Hedda Høgåsen-Hallesby     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 36518, MUSI 36725, TAPS 26518, MUSI 26725, GRMN 36725

GRMN 28872. Jews in Nazi Germany: Lion Feuchtwanger's novel The Oppermanns in historical context. 100 Units.

Recently republished in 2022, Lion Feuchtwanger's 1933 best-seller The Oppermanns depicts a Jewish family who grapple with the Nazi seizure of power in Germany. Like many at the time, the Oppemanns think that the regime will be short-lived, but Feuchtwanger's prescient novel anticipates the entrenchment of Nazi power and the creeping curtailment of Jewish life in Germany with uncanny accuracy-from the thugs attacking individuals to the Ministry of Propaganda's demonization of Jewish Germans in mass media, via the enforced "Aryanization" of businesses required to employ non-Jewish managers. Discussion will focus on Feuchtwanger's nuanced portrayal of the distinct ways in which family members react to these assaults, supplemented by historical texts, including the analysis of Nazi language (1946) by Victor Klemperer, a Jewish-German survivor, and documents in the Weimar Republic Sourcebook.

Instructor(s): Loren Kruger     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Required: Complete HUM core
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 28872, ENGL 28872, JWSC 28872, FNDL 28872

GRMN 29700. Reading and Research Course in German. 100 Units.

No description available. Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and director of undergraduate studies Note(s): Students must consult with the instructor by the eighth week of the preceding quarter to determine the subject of the course and the work to be done. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form.

Terms Offered: Autumn,Winter,Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and director of undergraduate studies
Note(s): Students must consult with the instructor by the eighth week of the preceding quarter to determine the subject of the course and the work to be done. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form.

GRMN 29900. Capstone Project. 100 Units.

A culminating senior project. This can be either a traditional BA Paper, or a project of creative inquiry.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): Fourth-year standing. Consent of instructor and director of undergraduate studies.
Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form.