Courses

Prerequisites: no previous knowledge of German required, but some background is strongly recommended. This accelerated survey of German grammar, reading techniques, and dictionary skills is designed primarily for graduate students preparing for reading proficiency exams or wishing to do research in German-language literature. In addition to translation, the course focuses on strategies for extracting general and specific information from German texts (skimming and scanning) and judging their relevance for a specific research purpose. Reading texts take students' fields of study into consideration. Although this course does not satisfy any part of the foreign language requirement for degree candidates, successful completion of the translation on the final exam fulfills the German reading proficiency requirement in most graduate programs. Students are advised that this course is a full-time commitment. Students should expect to study 2 hours every day for every hour spent in the classroom and additional time on weekends. Students who would like to gain speaking and listening skills are advised to enroll in the Intensive Elementary German I and II, or another appropriate German course. The Department of Germanic Languages will assist in selecting the appropriate course. 

Prerequisites: no previous knowledge of German required, but some background is strongly recommended. This accelerated survey of German grammar, reading techniques, and dictionary skills is designed primarily for graduate students preparing for reading proficiency exams or wishing to do research in German-language literature. In addition to translation, the course focuses on strategies for extracting general and specific information from German texts (skimming and scanning) and judging their relevance for a specific research purpose. Reading texts take students' fields of study into consideration. Although this course does not satisfy any part of the foreign language requirement for degree candidates, successful completion of the translation on the final exam fulfills the German reading proficiency requirement in most graduate programs. Students are advised that this course is a full-time commitment. Students should expect to study 2 hours every day for every hour spent in the classroom and additional time on weekends. Students who would like to gain speaking and listening skills are advised to enroll in the Intensive Elementary German I and II, or another appropriate German course. The Department of Germanic Languages will assist in selecting the appropriate course. 

This intensive program provides one year of German in one six-week session. The course enables students to understand, speak, read, and write in German about a range of subjects (such as: family activities, studies, work and home life, as well as travel, economics, and current events) and helps them develop an understanding of German speaking cultures. Classes are conducted in German and supplemented with written homework and audiovisual materials. Assignments and activities are diversified to integrate undergraduate and graduate students’ academic and personal interests. The program draws on the German heritage of New York City (museums, Goethe Institut, restaurants, etc.). Students are encouraged to attend German-language films and musical performances. Students have many opportunities for informal conversation. Upon successful completion of the course (with a minimum grade of B), students should achieve novice high to intermediate low proficiency (ACTFL scale). Final grades are based on frequent oral and written tests, writing assignments, a project on German culture in New York, and a final examination (written and oral). Students are advised that this course constitutes a full-time commitment. The workload of this course is very intense and students will be expected to spend 4-6 hours studying every day outside of class and additional time on weekends. The Department of Germanic Languages will assist in selecting the appropriate course. Equivalent to the combination of GERM UN1101 and UN1102 taught during the regular semesters.

If prior knowledge of German, a placement exam is required. Students should contact Jutta Schmiers-Heller (js2331) to schedule a test or if they have other questions about the course.

Prerequisites: Equivalent to GERM UN2101 Topics include personal interests, biographies, German unification, stereotypes, and German-American relations. Assignments and activities are diversified to integrate undergraduate and graduate students’ academic and personal interests. Upon successful completion of the course (with a minimum grade of B), students should achieve intermediate-high proficiency (ACTFL scale) in speaking, listening, reading, and writing German. Students are advised that this course is a full-time commitment. Students should expect to study 2 hours every day for every hour spent in the classroom and additional time on weekends. Students planning to study in Berlin in spring are advised to complete GERM S2101 in the Summer Session. The Department of Germanic Languages will assist in selecting the appropriate course. Equivalent to GERM UN2101 taught during the regular semesters.

Prerequisites: Equivalent to GERM UN2102 Topics cover areas of German literature, history, art, and society. Students also read a German drama. Assignments and activities are diversified to integrate undergraduate and graduate students’ academic and personal interests. Intermediate-high to advanced-low proficiency (ACTFL scale) in speaking, listening, reading, and writing German is expected upon successful completion (with a minimum grade of B). Prepares students for advanced German, upper-level literature and culture courses and study in Berlin. Students are advised that this course is a full-time commitment. Students should expect to study 2 hours every day for every hour spent in the classroom and additional time on weekends. Students planning to study in Berlin in spring are advised to complete GERM S2102 in the Summer Session. The Department of Germanic Languages will assist in selecting the appropriate course. Equivalent to GERM UN2102 taught during the regular semesters.

This course is designed as travellers guide to medieval Europe. Its purpose is to provide a window to a long-lost world that provided the foundation of modern institutions and that continues to inspire the modern collective artistic and literary imagination with its own particularities. This course will not be a conventional history course concentrating on the grand narratives in the economic, social and political domains but rather intend to explore the day-to-day lives of the inhabitants, and attempts to have a glimpse of their mindset, their emotional spectrum, their convictions, prejudices, fears and hopes. It will be at once a historical, sociological and anthropological study of one of the most inspiring ages of European civilization. Subjects to be covered will include the birth and childhood, domestic life, sex and marriage, craftsmen and artisans, agricultural work, food and diet, the religious devotion, sickness and its cures, death, after death (purgatory and the apparitions), travelling, merchants and trades, inside the nobles castle, the Christian cosmos, and medieval technology. The lectures will be accompanied by maps, images of illuminated manuscripts and of medieval objects. Students will be required to attend a weekly discussion section to discuss the medieval texts bearing on that weeks subject. The written course assignment will be a midterm, final and two short papers, one an analysis of a medieval text and a second an analysis of a modern text on the Middle Ages.

Capitalism shapes every aspect of our daily lives. Thinkers on both the left and the right of the political spectrum agree that capitalism structures our economic, social, and political relationships. Yet, there is little agreement as to the definition of capitalism and its normative implications. The definition and interpretation of capitalism differs across time and space, always evolving in response to challenges, crises, and contradictions. The aim of this course is to provide students with analytical tools to think critically and historically about the concept of capitalism. By studying how philosophers, economists, and political theorists have defined and described the concept of capitalism throughout its history (from the early seventeenth century to the present), students will be provided with a set of terminologies and analytical frameworks that enable them to interrogate the various dimensions of capitalism. The readings in the course are selected to illustrate the fact that capitalism has always been controversial. We will read texts authored by both proponents and critics of capitalism. We will explore how various canonical figures have thought about private property, markets, money, economic growth, injustice, inequality, alienation, and socialism.