GER 621 - German Narrative and the Epic Tradition (Spring 2008)

The course will focus on modernist and post-modernist German narratives within a framework of ideas about the epic, gender, narrative desire, and history as narrative. We will read excerpts from Homer's Iliad and Ovid's Metamorphoses, the Old Testament, Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus, and 20th-century responses to these by Franz Kafka, Stephan Heym, Christa Wolf, Christoph Ransmayr, and Yoko Tawada. The grade will be based on active participation, presentations of assigned readings, a take-home mid-term, and a final paper. This course is linked to Latin 411/511 Ovid in Winter 2008, and the professor of that course will speak in our class on The Metamorphoses when we discuss Ransmayr's text.

GER 221 - A Nation Divided: What's Love Got to Do with It? (Fall 2007)

We will explore notions about East/West and united German culture and society as reflected in a series of "love stories." How do the different representations of love and longing reveal changing ideas in Germany about the connection between the past and present, about guilt, identity, and the desire for fulfillment? The narratives and films address issues that have helped shape the ways Germans think today. They also highlight ongoing debates over concepts of national "unity." You are expected to keep up with the readings and films, participate actively in classroom discussions, and write group responses to assigned questions (20%), participate actively in your discussion session (10%), write 4 individual essays in response to study questions (20%), and write a mid-term (20%) and a final exam (30%).