2014-2015 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 10201. Elementary German II. 100 Units.

This is an accelerated version of the GRMN 10100-10200 sequence intended for students with previous knowledge of the language.

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 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 20100-20200-20300. Deutsche Märchen; Deutsch-Amerikanische Themen; Kurzprosa aus dem 20. Jahrhundert.

GRMN 21103-21203-21303-21403. Erzählen; Drama und Film; Gedichte; Philosophie.

It is not necessary to take these courses in sequence, but three of the four courses are required for the major. 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 23215. Twentieth-Century European History. 100 Units.

This lecture course will provide an advanced introduction to European history in the twentieth century. Topics covered will include: (1) the persistence of war from World War I and II to the Cold War, wars of decolonization, and the conflict in former Yugoslavia; (2) the transformations of the relations of state, society, and economy, including the Great Depression and its effects, the rise and fall of the welfare state changes, inflation and monetary crises, as well as the peculiar combination of nationalization and Europeanization; (3) the controversies and confrontations over the remaking of society, including the rearrangement of class and gender relations, the changing place of religious belief, the consequences of postcolonial immigration, and the forging of European-wide consumer identities. The overarching puzzle we face is how we get from an age of empire and a status-driven, but overall pacific, if highly militarized society, at the beginning of the century to the chasm of extreme violence that made Europe between the Urals and the Atlantic into a vast killing field  in mid-century to, at the end of the century, a Europe of interdependent and united, if squabbling nations, that seem to fall apart in discord any minute, but haven’t done so yet; of societies that are at one and the same time remarkably cosmopolitan and haughtily xenophobic; and of economies that have been the more successful the less they have followed a neo-liberal path to economic growth. What do we make of a Europe that has long rolled out of the center of the world and transformed itself into a peaceable kingdom that some compare to a nature park or vast open-air history museum and that for all of that has become rather more attractive than less?

Instructor(s): M. Geyer     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 23200,GRMN 33215,HIST 33200

GRMN 23510. Their Brothers' Rights: Western and Eastern Jews in the Long Nineteenth Century. 100 Units.

The course deals with interventions by “Western” Jewries on behalf of Jewish communities in the “East,” especially imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire, between the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) and the eve of the First World War. The course will follow two axes of interpretation: first, the global conditions established through international relations, focusing on the principle of the balance of power and accompanied by conferences and congresses; second, from the mid-nineteenth century onward, the transformation from intercession by notables to a kind of nongovernmental Jewish diplomacy undertaken by organizations promoting education, welfare, and civil equality.

Instructor(s): D. Diner     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 23515,JWSC 26310,SLAV 23510

GRMN 23914. Beauty and Mourning. 100 Units.

Throughout the cultural history of the West, there seems to be a structural connection between beauty and mourning that reaches from popular fiction to philosophical reflection on the subject: Beauty, it seems, has mourning and pain as its integral part; precisely that which pleases us most moves us to tears—a topical experience that requires no other losses and pains than those induced by beauty itself. What is it that gets mourned in beauty? Is mourning beautiful? Do we mourn the beauty we cannot have? Is beauty something like the mourning of itself? The class analyzes different aspects of the juncture beauty/mourning by drawing on exemplary texts mostly from poetry and philosophy, but also on writing on art, psychoanalysis, and music. (Plato, Ovid, Petrarch, Goethe, Hölderlin, Hegel, Nietzsche, Lorca, Warburg, Freud, Rilke, Brecht, Celan, Plath, etc.)

Instructor(s): Florian Klinger     Terms Offered: Autumn

GRMN 24815. Crisis Narratives in Recent German Literature and Media. 100 Units.

This course focuses on crisis narratives in recent German literature and media. By looking closely at texts and images, we will investigate different types of crises (language, identity, finance, climate, etc.). What is the language of crises? What is their verbal and visual rhetoric? We will: analyze textual and visual strategies for evoking crises; trace how crises reveal the persistence of irrational elements in highly technologized forms of contemporary life; and examine how they determine the way we experience and remember events. Furthermore, we will study the relationship between crises and their various media: poem, play, novel, survival guide, painting, photograph, film, etc. Readings include Walter Benjamin, Paul Celan, Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, Alexander Kluge, Kathrin Röggla, Don DeLillo, H. M. Enzensberger, W. G. Sebald, Dietmar Dath.

Instructor(s): I. Christian     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Readings and discussions in German

GRMN 26014. Seriously Funny: Comedy, Critique, and Transformation. 100 Units.

“True earnestness itself invents the comic,” according to Søren Kierkegaard. Exploring philosophies of the comic, as well as filmic and literary material, this seminar seeks to investigate what may be called the serious core of comedy. First, some fundamental theories of comedy, humor, and laughter will be introduced. These range from perspectives of supremacy, relief, shallowness, or negligibility (especially when compared to the tragic), the mechanic, the lowly/corporeal, to theories of incongruity. We will then focus on the critical, transformative, and political potentials of the comic/comedy: ways in which comedy copes with chance and contingencies; with strategies of resistance and inversion in face of disproportionately more powerful opponents; the comic as a mode of inclusion and exclusion; comedy and its relation to freedom and to the sublime; comedy as a means to exceed, undermine, and open up boundaries; the comic as an attempt to get to grips with situations and events we cannot (fully) master. We will also discuss limits and complications of any such critical potential. Readings may include texts by S. Freud, I. Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, F. Th. Vischer, Jean Paul, Søren Kierkegaard, Mikhail Bakhtin, Henri Bergson, Judith Butler, Alenka Zupančič, and others; films include works by Ernst Lubitsch and Woody Allen.

Instructor(s): B. Loschenkohl     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Some reading knowledge of German is desirable, but not a course requirement.
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 26014

GRMN 27114. Faust, Myth of the Modern World. 100 Units.

In this course, we will consider three renderings of the Faust myth: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, Part One, Heinrich Heine’s “dance poem” Faust, and Friedrich Murnau’s expressionist film Faust. In addition to these core readings/viewings, we will study the origins of the Faust myth in sixteenth-century Germany and survey its many transformations across art, literature, and music. This course is an excellent introduction to the history of German literature and culture.

Instructor(s): David Wellbery     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): All readings and class discussions will be in German.
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 27114

GRMN 28914. Munich-Chicago Performance Laboratory: Jephta's Daughter. 100 Units.

In July 2015, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich will present the world premiere of a piece tentatively titled Jephta's Daughter, to be directed by Saar Magal (choreographer and director, Tel Aviv) and conceived by Magal in collaboration with University of Chicago professor David Levin. Magal and Levin will offer a laboratory course in which to prepare the piece. As presently conceived, the piece will combine theater, dance, oratorio, film, contemporary composition, and a variety of contemporary performance idioms to adapt and interrogate the story of Jephta's daughter (in the Book of Judges, from which the story is adapted, she remains nameless). We are hoping to attract students keen to explore a broad cross-section of materials through seminar-style discussion and experimentation on stage. (We will work through biblical criticism, films like Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers (2013) or Ulrich Seidl's Paradise: Love-Faith-Hope, operas like Mozart's Idomeneo, oratorios like Handel's Jephta and Carissimi's Jephta, and a range of critical theory, including Rene Girard's Violence and the Sacred and Derek Hughes's Culture and Sacrifice). Stage work will encompass improvisational, physical, and text-based work. Students with an interest in any of the following are especially welcome: adaptation, theater practice, performance theory, dramaturgy, design, and/or editing.

Instructor(s): David Levin, Saar Magal     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduate students require consent of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 38914,JWSC 28914,MUSI 28914,MUSI 38914,RLIT 38914,RLST 28914,TAPS 28417

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

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. BA Paper. 100 Units.

Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
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.

NORW 10100-10200-10300. First-Year Norwegian I-II-III.

The aim of this sequence is to provide students with minimal proficiency in the four language skills of speaking, reading, writing and listening—with a special emphasis on speaking. To achieve these goals, we undertake an overview of all major grammar topics and work to acquire a substantial vocabulary.

NORW 10400. Intermediate Norwegian I: Introduction to Literature. 100 Units.

This course combines intensive review of all basic grammar with the acquisition of more advanced grammar concepts. While our main priority remains oral proficiency, we work to develop our reading and writing skills. We challenge our reading ability with more sophisticated examples of Norwegian prose and strengthen our writing through essay writing. The centerpiece of the course is the contemporary Norwegian novel Naiv. Super.

Instructor(s): Kimberly Kenny     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): NORW 10300 or consent of instructor

NORW 27000. Contemporary Norwegian Novel. 100 Units.

In this course, we will undertake the reading of nine contemporary Norwegian novels, dating from 1972 to the present. Obviously, this was a period of enormous social change, not only in Norway, but around the world, and these works take us from the beginning of the Women’s Movement to the turn of the century. Particularly important for Norway were the lingering effects of the war and occupation, as well as the enormous changes wrought by the discovery of oil and the resulting prosperity.

Instructor(s): Kimberly Kenny     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 27000

NORW 29700. Reading and Research Course in Norwegian. 100 Units.

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.

Instructor(s): Kimberly Kenny     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.

YDDH 10100-10200-10300. Elementary Yiddish I-II-III.

The goal of this sequence is to develop proficiency in Yiddish reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. Touchstones of global Yiddish culture are also introduced through song, film, and contemporary Yiddish websites.

YDDH 20100-20200. Intermediate Yiddish I-II.

This sequence combines an intensive review of grammar with the acquisition of more advanced grammatical concepts. Specific attention is paid to regional variants in grammar and orthography. Students develop their reading and writing skills by focusing their attention on the literature of the Yiddish press and the work of Abe Cahan.

YDDH 29700. Reading and Research Course in Yiddish. 100 Units.

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.

Instructor(s): Sunny Yudkoff     Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and Director of Undergraduate Studies.

YDDH 29800. Reading Yiddish for Research. 100 Units.

This course prepares students to read a variety of Yiddish language texts from across the globe. Students acquire a fundamental knowledge of Yiddish grammar and a basic vocabulary, as well as a bibliography of key sources in Yiddish studies. Regional variants in pronunciation and orthography are introduced to students as well as basic manuscript decipherment skills.�

Instructor(s): Sunny Yudkoff     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): YDDH 39800