German and German Studies
Website: German and German Studies
Beginning with the first semester, the German and German Studies curriculum at The University of the South integrates German language learning with developing a deeper understanding of cultures and cultural production in German-speaking countries. Through exploring the spatial and human diversity of these countries, students develop increasingly complex skills for analyzing and communicating in German and gain awareness of their own cultural norms and assumptions. Students achieve cross-cultural competency and practice communicative strategies in a variety of settings, including coursework, the weekly German Table, German House events, and formal presentations and workshops. Over the course of the curriculum, students acquire advanced writing skills in German in multiple genres, culminating in a capstone project where students design and write their own thematic magazine which they critically analyze during the oral comprehensive exams.
Many courses in our German program contribute to other interdisciplinary programs such as International and Global Studies (INGS), Women’s and Gender Studies (WMST), Film Studies (FILM), and Environmental Humanities and relevant courses in departments such as Art and Art History, History, and Philosophy can count towards a minor or major in German and German Studies.
Placement
Students who have completed two or more years of German in secondary school must take the departmental placement examination. Students who elect to enroll at a course beneath that indicated by the placement examination receive credit only if departmental permission is obtained prior to registration in the course.
German House
Residents of the German House engage with German cultures and language by building a space and community that facilitates awareness and understanding of everything German, both for themselves and the larger community. Residents also work with the German Co-Curricular Activities Director to host long-standing events like Oktoberfest and Maifest, and shape the House’s purpose and offerings by organizing other cultural, academic, and/or social activities related to German culture and language, whether independently or in collaboration with other campus groups and resources.
Study Abroad
Students can apply for Deutsch in Deutschland (DiD) language courses in Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt that are supported by a generous grant through the Jackson-Cross scholarship program. The Summer in Berlin program has been introduced in conjunction with DiD. Semester- and year-long study abroad opportunities exist through the Federation of German-American Clubs and with Sewanee's partner university in Germany, the Otto-Friedrich-Universität in Bamberg. At the end of each semester and with the comprehensive examination, students' language proficiency is assessed regularly according to national standards.
GRMN 103 German in Everyday Life I (4)
This course is an introduction to life and culture in German-speaking societies. It enables students to express ideas in German about everyday topics, including friends, relationships, weather, clothing, food, and daily routines. Through communicative activities, students learn to ask and answer questions, seek information and share opinions, navigate a variety of conversational settings, and develop sensitivity for cultural difference.
GRMN 104 German in Everyday Life II (4)
This course continues the introduction to life and culture in German-speaking societies. It enables students to more fully express their ideas in German about everyday topics, including friends, relationships, weather, clothing, food, and daily routines. Through communicative activities, students learn to ask and answer questions, seek information and share opinions, navigate a variety of conversational settings, and develop sensitivity for cultural difference. Prerequisite: GRMN 103 or placement.
GRMN 203 Contemporary German Cultures (4)
This intermediate-level course integrates German language learning with developing a deeper understanding of cultural production in German-speaking societies. Exploring the spatial and human diversity of German-speaking Europe, students study familiar and essential topics from German perspectives and make cross-cultural comparisons about topics such as cities, travel and the self, consumption and consumerism, historical transformations, the environment, and visions of the future. Prerequisite: GRMN 104 or placement.
GRMN 204 Contemporary German Cultures II (4)
This intermediate-level course continues to develop a deeper understanding of cultural production in German-speaking societies. Students interpret films, stories, and graphic novels that present life before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a bridge to 300-level courses taught in German, students broaden their understanding of literary forms, build their range of expression in spoken German, and expand their writing skills. Prerequisite: GRMN 203 or placement..
GRMN 255 Once Upon a Time: Fairy Tales and Folklore (4)
This course examines fairy tales, their roots in folkloric traditions, and the enduring transnational popularity of folk tales. Students read these tales in their historical and cultural contexts, analyze how they have been adapted for new audiences and media forms, and consider how they can be mobilized to challenge or promote new social roles and identities. This course is taught in English.
GRMN 280 Summer in Berlin (4)
This course offers a three-week program of language study at the DiD German language institute in Berlin where students take classes along with other international students. After appropriate placement according to their language skills, enrolled students receive language instruction through DiD while the accompanying Sewanee faculty member provides culture instruction and area excursions. Prerequisite: GRMN 103 and GRMN 104.
GRMN 309 Erich Kästner: A Weimar Author (4)
Readings and screenings of one of the best known authors of the Weimar Republic, Erich Kästner whose novels Emil und die Detektive and Das fliegende Klassenzimmer have been recognized as important works of children's literature. Prerequisite: GRMN 203 or higher or placement.
GRMN 310 Cultural Inquiry: The Magic and Meanings of Fairy Tales (4)
This course investigates fairy tales and their meanings in German culture. Students examine, research and evaluate these tales to understand how they are influenced by and in turn shape negotiations of nationality, identity, gender, class, and sexual orientation. Through this kind of analysis, the course questions how oral tradition, literary form, and visual media construct the meanings of fairy tales. Prerequisite: GRMN 203 or higher or placement.
GRMN 311 Cultural Inquiry: Narratives and Belonging (4)
This course investigates identity and belonging in German-speaking countries. Students examine, research and evaluate narrative texts to understand how they are influenced by and in turn shape negotiations of nationality, identity, gender, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Through this analysis, the course questions how memory, migration, colonialism, and cultural diversity form and inform national identity. Prerequisite: GRMN 203 or higher or placement.
GRMN 312 Cultural Inquiry: Pop Culture and Society (4)
This course investigates artifacts and events of current popular culture (art, political protests, graphic novels, musical (sub)cultures, film, and soccer) for their representation of contemporary German speaking countries. Students examine, research, and evaluate the various "texts" to understand how they are influenced by and conversely shape negotiations of nationality, identity, gender, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and class. Through this analysis, the course determines how texts illuminate and question present-day aspects of social and political affairs. Prerequisite: GRMN 203 or higher or placement.
GRMN 313 Special Topics in the Environment and Sustainability (4)
This course investigates topics related to the environment and sustainability in German culture, such as climate change, green energy, environmental policy, grassroots activism, and sustainable cities. The course examines how such topics illuminate and inform aspects of contemporary German society. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs. Prerequisite: GRMN 203 or higher or placement.
GRMN 321 Textual Inquiry: Literature in Context, 1750-1900 (4)
This course orients students to trends from the Enlightenment to Realism (1750-1900) and enables them to analyze features of these movements within their historical and cultural context. Examining trends reveals the evolution of concepts underlying shifting literary themes such as identity, notions of the self, education, reason vs. emotion, nature and the environment. This inquiry demonstrates how texts and writers engage in dialog with their time period and their artistic forebears. Prerequisite: GRMN 204 or higher or placement.
GRMN 322 Textual Inquiry: Literature in Context, 1900 to the Present (4)
This course orients students in the concepts underlying literary trends from 1900 to the present and enables them to analyze these trends within their historical and cultural context. Examining trends reveals the evolution of concepts underlying shifting literary themes such as self and identities; gender, race, and sexuality; immigration and citizenship; memory and memorial culture; nature and the environment. This inquiry demonstrates how texts and writers engage in dialog with their time period and an increasingly global literary culture. Prerequisite: GRMN 203 or higher or placement.
GRMN 324 Reading Berlin (4)
This course investigates narratives and images of Berlin in literature, film, and popular media. As both a limitless, high-energy playground and a scarred urban landscape, portrayals of Germany’s first metropolis contrast possibilities of the future with the burdens of the city’s history. Students read and analyze how depictions of Berlin negotiate its past, conceptualize its future, and position the city within networks of commerce, migration and cultural exchange. Through their analysis, students critically engage with Berlin as a site for identity formation in a globalized Europe. Prerequisite: GRMN 300 or higher or placement.
GRMN 351 Masterpieces of German Literature in Translation (4)
Reading and study of texts from the whole range of German literature in English translation. No knowledge of German required. This course is taught in English.
GRMN 353 German Film (4)
A survey of German film from the 1920s through the present times from a historical perspective. The course focuses on German cultural history through film making with representative examples from the Weimar Republic silent film period (Nosfertu), the Nazi period (Jud Sub and Kolberg), the rebirth of the German cinema in the 1960s (Fassbinder's films), and adaptations of literature from the 1970s and 1980s in East and West Germany (The Tin Drum, Das Boot). The course is taught in English but is also open to German students who will write a term paper in German. This course is taught in English.
GRMN 354 From the Beetle to Berlin (4)
This course examines German society and culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. Focusing on the Volkswagen Beetle and the city of Berlin as key sites for exploring political, social, and economic transformations, this course studies German society from 1945 to the present through its mass media, literature, cityscapes, and industrial products. This course is taught in English.
GRMN 356 Nazis and Nazisploitation (4)
From soup chefs and grammarians to zombies and supervillains, Nazis are ubiquitous in pop culture, most frequently serving as representations of pure evil. This course introduces students to key ideas/concepts of National Socialist ideology and examines the use and misuse of National Socialism across the 20th and 21st centuries. Through an analysis of depictions of Nazis within cultural and historical contexts, the course considers the reasons for, and the impact of compartmentalizing and oversimplifying Nazis and National Socialism, and investigates what these pop culture representations obscure. This course is taught in English.
GRMN 357 German Queer Cinema (4)
This course traces German queer cinema from the earliest representations of gay and lesbian sexual orientations in 1920s Weimar to topics such as sexual indeterminacy and the queering of nationality and migrant culture in contemporary films. The course examines how films both represent and produce non-normative sexual desires and identities. It also considers sexual and gender identity in relation to particular historical and cultural moments as well as to other constituting experiences (race, class, gender, nationality). These topics are studied in the context of particular movements, directors, and genres in German cinema. This course is taught in English.
GRMN 358 Borders, Margins, and Identities in German Culture (4)
From the recruitment of Turkish "guest workers" to the ongoing refugee crisis, Germany has emerged a "multicultural" nation of shifting and contested borders and identities. This course investigates how national, ethnic, racial, and religious identities are perceived and constructed in film, literature, and news media and how those identities intersect with, and are complicated by, class, gender, and sexual identities. Students engage critically with concepts such as migration, assimilation, hybridity, citizenship, diaspora, "majority" culture, and authenticity. This course is taught in English.
GRMN 360 Sewanee in Berlin: Advanced German (4)
This summer course combines an advanced-level German class with a culture class. The language class is taught at the Berlin Deutsch in Deutschland language institute, and the culture class is taught as a combination of class work and student-led excursions. The course is offered in Berlin every other year. Prerequisite: GRMN 203 or GRMN 280.
GRMN 380 Sommer in Sewanee (4)
Intensive language and culture seminar for teachers and students of German. The two-week course which emphasizes the reading, writing, listening and speaking of German is offered every June through the Consortium for German in the Southeast. Credit is available for the Intermediate I, Intermediate II, and Advanced level.
GRMN 401 Seminar in German and German Studies (4)
This course centers on key topics and concepts in the field of German Studies. Through readings of primary and secondary materials, the course develops students' critical and research skills. Each student completes a senior research project, which results in a substantial essay written in German. Topics may include an exploration of literary concepts, periods, and authors, or focus on cultural issues. Prerequisite: (GRMN 301 and GRMN 302) or (GRMN 321 and GRMN 322).
GRMN 404 The Age of Goethe (4)
This course offers an in-depth introduction to the literary and cultural landscape of the Age of Goethe (1770-1830), a period of enormous literary, political, and sociocultural change. Taught in English. Students majoring in German and German Studies may utilize the course as one of the required electives taught in German by completing all reading and writing assignments in German.
GRMN 407 Nineteenth-Century Literature (4)
Readings from the age of Poetic Realism. Prerequisite: One course numbered GRMN 301-349 or placement.
GRMN 408 Twentieth Century German Literature I (4)
The first semester covers the period from 1900 to 1945; the second semester, from 1945 to the present. Prerequisite: One course numbered GRMN 301-349 or placement.
GRMN 409 Twentieth Century German Literature II (4)
The first semester covers the period from 1900 to 1945; the second semester, from 1945 to the present. Prerequisite: One course numbered GRMN 301-349 or placement.
GRMN 422 German Drama (4)
A survey of major German playwrights, including Schiller, Kleist, Goethe, Buchner, Hauptmann, Brecht, Frisch, and Weiss. The students will have the opportunity to perform selected scenes of the plays discussed in class. Prerequisite: One course numbered GRMN 301-349 or placement.