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Upper Division Course Offerings Spring 2016

GRMN 3010. Language: Culture and Society I. 3 hours

MWF 06 (1:25p – 2:15p), Dr. Katie Chapman

Prerequisite: GRMN 2002 or GRMN 2110 or permission of department

This introductory cultural studies course acquaints you with central social, cultural and political issues of post-war Germany. Our textbook is designed as a course for foreigners wishing to become German citizens. We are therefore becoming familiar with pertinent aspects of German culture from this unique and authentic vantage point. Our course also includes systematic grammar review. This class hones all your language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) while simultaneously teaching cultural content. It is a gateway course structured to prepare you for higher-level German classes.

 

GRMN 3015. Language: Engineering and Science. 3 hours

MWF 06 (1:25p – 2:15p), Dr. Heide Crawford

Prerequisite: GRMN 2002 or GRMN 2110 or permission of department; Students who have already taken

3010 may not enroll

This course provides advanced and continued study of Germany and the German language from an engineering and science perspective, with a focus on the role and nature of both fields in Germany today. Topics include, for example, the German auto industry, modern German architecture, bio-ethics in Germany, sustainability and German environmental policy. Upon completion of this course, students will be conversant in these topics and in practical aspects of the German university system and workplace, as well as have acquired the cultural soft skills necessary for effective communication in their future abroad and work experiences. Through systematic grammar review and targeted communicative practice, students will also leave the course as more accurate, fluent, and confident speakers of German. Evaluation will be on the basis of in-class discussions of readings, written assignments (including daily grammar homework as well as several written projects), short exams and small-group presentations on topics of student interest. GRMN 3015 is designed to accompany the dual degree in Engineering in German, which the Department of Germanic & Slavic Studies offers in collaboration with the College of Engineering.

 

GRMN 3020. Language: Culture and Society II. 3 hours

TR 73 (11:00a – 12:15p), Dr. Marjanne Goozé

Prerequisite: GRMN 3010 or GRMN 3070

This content-based course aims to enhance students’ knowledge of contemporary German culture and to improve their German language skills though discussion and conversation, working with texts of various genres, essay writing, vocabulary expansion as well as grammar review and refinement. The course is organized around topics related to national identity, current issues and events, and popular culture. This semester the emphasis will be upon the topic of migration and refugees. Materials will include web-based readings, short fictional texts, films, as well as a longer work of German literature. The Handbuch zur deutschen Grammatik (also used in German 3010) will continue to be used. Assessments will include exams, essays, homework (reading/viewing, grammar, vocabulary, study questions), and a class presentation.

 

 GRMN(LING) 3280. Contrastive Grammar: German - English. 3 hours

TR 72 (9:30a – 10:45a), Dr. Joshua Bousquette

Prerequisite: GRMN 2002

This course focuses on the typological differences between Modern German and Modern English, covering core aspects of syntax, morphology and phonology in a way that is relevant to linguists, language learners and future teachers alike. Drawing on both empirical studies as well as hands-on study of our own speech, this course will provide an introduction to comparative linguistics and a window into the logic behind the so-called 'mistakes' language learners often make. This is a Writing Intensive Course.

 

GRMN 3830. Children’s and Youth Literature. 3 hours.

MWF 04 (11:15a – 12:05p), Dr. Inge DiBella

Prerequisite: GRMN 3010 or GRMN 3070

The course consists of three parts: an examination of traditional stories, including fairy tales, followed by an analysis of contemporary picture books, and finally a close reading of Michael Ende’s Unendliche Geschichte as a neo-romantic tale. The readings are in roughly chronological order, but we will make frequent cross-connections by looking at counter-movements and tracing influences. We will pay close attention how the notions of childhood, identity and self-realization are constructed and upheld within a specific cultural and historic context. We trace Postman’s argument that the impact of “full-disclosure” media (TV) has effectively caused the concept of childhood to disappear. We will also take a closer look at the market mechanisms that govern the production, distribution, and reception of children’s literature which “does not exist” (Zipes).

 

GRMN 3850. Introduction to Goethe’s Life and Works. 3 hours.

MWF 07 (2:30p – 3:20p), Dr. Martin Kagel

Prerequisite: GRMN 3010 or GRMN 3070

Taking Goethe's late autobiographical writing Dichtung und Wahrheit as point of departure, this course explores the life and work of Goethe, focusing on dramatic, novelistic, and poetic genres for which he is renowned and considering their aesthetic, historical, and cultural implications. Taught in German; English as necessary. Not open to students who were in Spring 2015 Senior Seminar. 

 

GRMN 4520. Senior Seminar: Martin Luther und die Deutschen. 3 hours.

MWF 05 (12:20p – 1:10p), Dr. Alexander Sager

Prerequisite: GRMN 3020 or GRMN 3080

2017, which will mark the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation, will be the “Luther Year” in Germany, as well as an important commemorative moment for Europe, the United States, and many other places and peoples in the world. This course will explore the figure of Martin Luther in the many dimensions his life and work has had an impact- historically, in religion and spiritual life, on German language, literature and national identity, and on the family in the west. Taught in German with several guest speakers and class sessions in English. 

 

 FCID 4000. Capstone in Transnational European Studies: Displaced Persons. 3 hours.

TR 76 (3:30p – 4:45p), Dr. Martin Kagel

Prerequisite: FCID 2000 or permission of department - Contact german@uga.edu

Broadly designed around the notion of “Displaced Persons,” the course will focus on the representation of the European transnational experience and questions of cultural difference in 20th-century German literature and film. We will read and discuss poems, plays, novels, and essays by authors such as Joseph Berger, Bertolt Brecht, George Tabori, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Yoko Tawada, Herta Müller, and Ghita Schwarz and watch and examine films by directors John Walter, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Fatih Akin and Margarethe von Trotta. A requirement for this class is the completion of a capstone project for the Transnational European Studies minor, the nature of which will be discussed during the first week of class. Taught in English.

 

RUSS 3002. Russian Conversation and Composition II. 3 hours.

MWF 04 (11:15a – 12:05p), Dr. Olga Thomason

Prerequisite: RUSS 3001

This course is designed to enhance and consolidate students' competence in the four language skill areas (speaking, reading, writing, and listening). The focus is on the comprehension of written texts and oral conversations, writing essays and learning more about contemporary Russian culture. On a regular basis, students make presentations and take part in class and online discussions. A guided review of such challenging grammar areas as motion verbs, impersonal constructions, direct and indirect speech, verbal adjectives and adverbs is incorporated into the course.

 

RUSS 3300. Introduction to Russian Cinema. 3 hours.

T 75 (2:00p – 3:15p), R 75 – 76 (2:00p – 4:45p), Dr. Charles Byrd

No prerequisites

A discussion-oriented survey of Russian films from the earliest pre-revolutionary moving-picture experiments to the social commentary and gangster fantasies of the current scene. Animated insect puppets; “I am the mechanical eye”; revolutionary montage and epic spectacle; the life, works and influence of Sergei Eisenstein; The Factory of the Eccentric Actor; agit-prop; the new Soviet man; censorship and state sponsorship; images of America and reactions to Hollywood; socialist realism; Stalinist musical comedy; women in Soviet film; Andrei Tarkovsky’s “lyrical cinema”; the glasnost’ era; and today’s film- makers. Taught in English. All films and film clips will be shown with English subtitles.

 

RUSS 4260. Masterpieces of Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature. 3 hours.

TR 72 (9:30a – 10:45a), Dr. Sasha Spektor

Prerequisite: RUSS 3001

In the nineteenth century, Russia witnessed an unprecedented explosion of literary and intellectual activity, a renaissance which yielded some of the greatest masterpieces world literature has seen. In our course we will read short stories and poems that became part of the Russian literary canon.  Our primary objective is to acquire experience in being able to read, talk and write about literature.  Since different texts will present us with their own specific challenges, we will follow a flexible, rather than a fixed timeline.  Our authors will include Nikolai Karamzin, Alexander Pushkin, Fedor Tiutchev, Evgenii Baratynsky, Mikhail Lermontov, Ivan Turgenev, Afanasy Fet, Nikolai Nekrasov, Fedor Dostoevsky, Lev Tolstoy, and Anton Chekhov.  All readings to be done in Russian.

 

SLAV 4510/ARHI 4950. The City of Prague: At the Center between East and West. 3 hours.

MWF 07 (2:30p – 3:20p), Dr. Alice Klima

From medieval to contemporary 1mes, many individuals have influenced, shaped, and transformed the city of Prague. We will journey chronologically through the city’s changing urban geography and history, from Prague as the medieval capital of the Holy Roman Empire to current tourist des1na1on. Along the way we will visit Medieval and Baroque emperors, such as Charles IV and Rudolf II, the religious reformer Jan Hus, writers such as Franz KaMa and Milan Kundera, and the dissident-turned-president Václav Havel. We will ask if a city has a personality and how such a personality is constructed? Do the Gothic and Baroque spires of Prague create a mysterious-magical space inhabited by the mythical Golem, alchemists, astrologist, and bohemians? Did the city inspire modern buildings, surrealists, cubists, and forward-thinking poli1cians such Thomáš Garrigue Masaryk in the early-twen1eth century? How did the oppressive totalitarian communist regime (1948-1989) affect the city, and what ignited the Velvet Revolu1on in 1989? What draws us to this city and more importantly what is the history, art, architecture, and literature of this place in Central Europe, between East and West?

 

LING(SLAV) 4905. Old Church Slavic. 3 hours.

TR 73 (11:00a – 12:15p), Dr. Keith Langston

Prerequisite: Permission of department. Contact Dr. Langston (langston@uga.edu) if you are interested in taking this course.

An introduction to Old Church Slavic, the earliest written Slavic language. The grammar of Old Church Slavic, reading and translation of texts, and the prehistory of the Slavic language family.

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