DOCUMENT R: SYLLABUS

  1. Date Prepared: September 2012
  1. Prepared by: Luke Springman
  1. Department: Languages and Cultures
  1. Course Numbers:GERMAN 212
  1. Course Title:German Culture and Civilization II
  1. Credit Hours: 3

Goal 4 - Cultures and Diversity / 2 GEPs
Goal 7 – Arts and Humanities / 1 GEP
  1. Prerequisites:No prerequisites.
  1. Catalog Description:

Presents the history of German culture and civilization from 1800 to the present, with emphasis on art, literature, ideas, historical events, and cultural exchanges. Intended for students seeking an introductory course on German culture. Students gain insights in the cultural history of German culture, including geography, society, politics, philosophy, art, literature, and the sciences. Course is taught in English through lectures, projects, discussions, readings, and audio-visual media. GERMAN 212 partially fulfills the requirements for the German Minor. Course is offered in alternating semesters.

  1. Content Outline:

Selections of readings and media illustrate the history of German-speaking peoples and cultures, with emphasis on minority and gender issues. Required course content addresses cultural topics as they develop over time, especially the German language, the arts, humanities, science and technology, geography, major historical events, and social and political structures and traditions. A course plan could include, but is not limited to the following:

Period / Readings / Topics
Napolean and Liberation,
German Romanticism /
  • Karoline von Günderrode (female poet)
  • E. T. A. Hoffmann, “The Sandman”
  • Art: Caspar David Friedrich
  • Music: Beethoven and Schubert
/
  • Emergence of German National Identity;
  • Women in Early 19th-Century Germany
  • Madness and Society

Disunity, Poverty, Early Industrialization and Revolution /
  • Nestroy: “Freedom in Krähwinkel” (play, excerpt);
  • Börne: letters (excerpts);
  • Marx: “1844 Manuscripts,” and“Communist Manifesto” (excerpts)
/
  • Emergence of Class Society
  • Jews in Germany up to 1850
  • Emigration

Prussian Unification;
The Foundation Period /
  • Storm: “The Dykemaster”;
  • Heine: “Rabbi of Bacharach” (excerpts)
  • Nietzsche: “The Antichrist” (excerpts)
  • Ernst Haeckel: “Riddles of the World” (excerpts)
  • Music: Wagner
  • Selected Art
/
  • Industrialization and International Presence
  • Jews and Political anti-Semitism
  • Science and Society
  • Africa: German Imperialism
  • Immigration to the USA

Fin de siècle Vienna /
  • Schnitzler: “Roundelay,”
  • Kafka: “Metamorphosis”
  • Art: Secession, Blue Rider, Dada
  • Music: Brahms, J. Strauss, Mahler
/
  • Middle-Class Alienation
  • Austrian Empire: Multi-Ethnic (Dis-)Unity
  • Social Experimentation

WWI and Weimar Republic 1918-1933 /
  • Remarque: “All Quiet on the Western Front” (excerpt);
  • Freud: “Civilization and its Discontents”
  • Film: Metropolis
  • Brecht: excerpts from plays
  • Art: Grozs, Beckmann and others
/
  • Mass Destruction
  • The “New Woman”
  • Berlin: Flourishing Culture
  • New Politics
  • Futurism and Youth Culture

Nazi Germany /
  • Poetry by Celan, Sachs, and others; Holocaust diaries (excerpts)
  • Children’s Art from the Holocaust
  • film documentaries
  • Brecht: “Galileo” (excerpt)
/
  • Holocaust
  • Culture in Total War
  • Exiled Germany

Reconstruction, Cold War /
  • Borchert: "Of course rats sleep at night…”
  • Böll: "And said not a word…" (excerpt)
  • Escapist film: “Heimat”
/
  • Zero hour, Reconstruction
  • Economic Miracle

East and West
1945-1989 /
  • Wolf, “Divided Heaven” (excerpt)
  • Schneider, “The Wall Jumper” (excerpt)
  • Müller, “The Scab” (play, excerpt)
  • Film: “One, Two, Three” or “Marriage of Maria Braun” or “Wings over Berlin”
  • Music: Wolf Biermann, Udo Lindenberg and others
  • Art: Joseph Beuys and others
/
  • Dealing with Nazi Past
  • Building Socialism
  • The Wall
  • New Immigrants: Turks and Vietnamese

1990-present /
  • Selected readings by Schami, Özdamar, and others.
  • Brussig, “Heroes like Us” (excerpt)
  • Grass, “Too Far Afield” (excerpt)
  • Music: German Pop Music in the USA
  • Film: “Goodbye Lenin”
/
  • Unification
  • Multiculturalism

  1. Methods:

Course is taught in English and includes a combination of lecture and discussion. Class size is limited to 40 students in order to facilitate discussion and manage complex material. Students work on projects, take tests and quizzes, and participate in class discussions. Written assignments and oral presentations investigate specific topics. Activities outside class, such as participation in informal conversation groups or film viewings, may be assigned. Alternate assignments may be provided in lieu of out-of-class or co-curricular activities. Access to electronic resources such as the Internet is required. GERMAN 212 is offered in alternating semesters.

  1. Student Learning Objectives:

Student Learning Objective / Gen. Ed. Goal associated with GEPS / Related VALUE Rubric Elements
11a.Compare and contrasthistorical, social, political, geographical, intellectual and aesthetic features that shape the traditional German societies with one’s own society. / Cultures and Diversity / RUBRIC: Intercultural knowledge and Competence
ELEMENT:
Knowledge—Cultural self- awareness
11b.Communicate basic information pertaining to the cultures of traditional German societies and compare those cultures with one’s own during the historical times. / Cultures and Diversity / RUBRIC: Intercultural knowledge and Competence
ELEMENT: Knowledge—Knowledge of cultural worldview frameworks
11c.Identify biases held personally and by one’s own culture and apply critical reflection on those biases. / Cultures and Diversity / RUBRIC: Intercultural knowledge and Competence
ELEMENT: Attitudes—openness
Attitudes—Curiosity
11d.Apply approaches and methods of cultural inquiry, particularly, from historical and philosophical perspectives toward a grasp of another world view. / Arts and Humanities / RUBRIC: Critical Thinking
ELEMENT: Explanation of Issues
11e. Analyze critically the historical, ethical, political, cultural, environmental, circumstantial settings and conditions that influence ideas in German literature and culture. / Arts and Humanities / RUBRIC: Critical Thinking
ELEMENT: Evidence—Selecting and using information to investigate a point of view or conclusion

GERMAN 212is designed both to support the department’s established program goals, and to enhance the university’s General Education program. Cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience play a central role in general education. Cultural history examines the records and narrative descriptions of past knowledge, customs, and arts of a group of people, constituting a continuum of events leading from the past to the present and into the future. Because studies in culture and civilization records and interprets past events involving human beings through the social, cultural, and political settings, GERMAN 212 fulfills 2 GEPs for Goal 4 - Cultures and Diversity. Culture and civilization is inextricably integrated with Arts and Humanities and therefore a significant portion of historical study includes creative, philosophical, literary, and performative works. Hence GERMAN 212 fulfills 1 GEP for Goal 7 – Arts and Humanities.

  1. Student Assessment:

Assessment instruments may include the following:

  1. 11a: Tests and the final exam include sections that specifically address German cultural history. Possible individualized and collaborative projects may focus on one or more specific selected cultural topics. On-line and in-class discussions also indicate the specific knowledge acquired regarding German society.
  2. 11b: Tests and the final exam include sections that specifically address the relevance of socio-cultural issues pertaining to race, gender and class, including those problems that arise in the students’ own world. Possible individualized and collaborative projects may focus on one or more specific selected issue of general relevance, as will on-line and in-class discussions.
  3. 11c: Guided written and oral presentations are structured to reflect the level of critical understanding of intercultural awareness.
  4. 11d: Guided written and oral presentations are structured according to approaches and methods of cultural inquiry.
  5. 11e: Independent projects and prepared discussions based on readings from German literature and culture are devoted to the critical confrontation with the products of German culture in their historical and social contexts.
  1. Evaluation of Individual Student Performance:

Evaluation of student performance may include but is not limited to projects, tests and quizzes, discussions during class, written assignments and oral presentations which investigate specific topics, activities outside class, such as participation in informal conversation groups or film viewings, and alternate assignments completed through co-curricular activities. Other measures of evaluation may be integrated as appropriate or necessary.

  1. Course Assessment:

Specific course assessment will take place as imbedded test questions on final exams or embedded material on final exam projects. Additional assessment data may be gathered using independent projects and writing assignments. The assessment data gathered, as well as the tools used to gather the data, will be reviewed at appropriate intervals both by the department Assessment Committee and by the department General Education Committee to verify the extent to which student learning objectives are being achieved. Modifications to the course will be made accordingly. Course assessment data will be reported to the Office of Planning and Assessment.

The study of cultures and civilizations necessarily entail VALUE rubrics regarding cultural self- awareness and cultural worldview frameworks, and thus foster curiosity, empathy and openness to other peoples and nations. To this end, students need to explain issues, select and use information to investigate cultural points of view in comparison. Because cultural history necessarily involves the arts and humanistic achievements of a culture, student should select and use information to investigate critically points of view and conclusions.

  1. Supporting Materials and References:

(Items marked with an asterisk * are available in the Andruss Library.)

Bax, Ernest Belfort. German Culture: Past And Present. New York: McBride, Nast & Co., 1915.Print.

Brockmann, Stephen. A Critical History of German Film. Rochester: Camden, 2010. Print.

*Burns, Rob.German Cultural Studies. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995. Print.

Fulbrook, Mary.A Concise History of Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.

Hofmann, Gert, Marko Pajevic, Rachel MagShamhráin, Michael Shields. German and European Poetics after the Holocaust: Crisis and Creativity. Rochester: Camden, 2011. Print.

Horrocks, David and Eva Kolinsky. Turkish Culture in German Society Today.Providence: Berghahn, 1996. Print.

Joachimides, Christos M., Rosenthal, Norman, and Schmid, Wieland. Ed.German Art in the 20thCentury: Painting and Sculpture 1905-1985. New York: teNeues Publishing Group, 1985. Print.

Koepke, Wulf.Die Deutschen: Vergangenheit und Gegenwart.5thed.New York: Holt, 2000. Print.

Lepenies, Wolf. The Seduction of Culture in German History. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006. Print.

Reimer ,Robert C., ReinhardZachau and Margit M. Sinka.German Culture Through Film: An Introduction to German Cinema. Eds. Newburyport, MA : Focus Publishing, 2005. Print.

Reinhardt, Kurt.Germany 2000 Years. Vol. II. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1961. Print.

Sanford, John. Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture.New York :Routledge, 1999.Print.

Schulze, Hagen. Germany: A New History. Harvard UP: Cambridge, 2001.Print.

  1. Prototype Text:

Kolinsky, Eva andWilfried Will Van Der. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Modern German Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print.

Selected Primary readings.