GERMAN

Language and Reading Courses -- Graduate Courses -- Undergraduate Courses

GRADUATE COURSES: Fall 2009

Jacques Derrida: Early Writing.
GRMN 35809. 
Jacques Derrida, Early Writings Deconstruction can be conceived as both a philosophical project and a practice of reading. As a philosophical project, deconstruction inscribes itself in the tradition of the critique of metaphysics, from Nietzsche via Heidegger and Adorno to poststructuralism. As a practice of reading (and, consequently, of writing), deconstruction performs the movement of a decentering and a displacement of traditional concepts which is to challenge classical figures of identity, being, sense and others. Both the philosophical project and the practice of reading belong together: According to Derrida, ‘to be an heir’ means to assume responsibility for one’s own reading of the texts of the metaphysical tradition; ‘Reading’ means to follow a significant trace which has to be produced by the act of reading itself. In this course, we will examine the exposition of the project and the practice of econstruction in Derrida’s early books: “Of Grammatology”, “Writing and Difference”, and “Margins of Philosophy”. We will not only deal with important concepts such as ‘writing’, ‘trace’ and ‘différance’, but also with the political and ethical commitment underlying Derrida’s attack on logocentrism. All reading and discussion will be in English. Recommended editions: “Of Grammatology”, translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Johns Hopkins University Press, corrected paperback edition 1998. “Margins of Philosophy”, translated by Alan Bass, The University of Chicago Press, paperback edition 1985. “Writing and Difference”, translated by Alan Bass, The University of Chicago Press, paperback edition 1978.
Susanne Luedemann, W 1:30PM-4:20PM.

Interpreting Goethe's Faust.
GRMN 36409, CMLT 36400, SCTH 47011. 
Intensive study of Goethe’s Faust, Parts I and II. The major task of the seminar is to develop a synthetic reading of the entire Faust drama, as Goethe conceived it. What are the leading concepts of a contemporary interpretation of Faust? Discussion will address the major lines of interpretation as developed especially in the philosophical literature and in the major recent studies commentaries. Selective consideration of the tradition of Faust-representations (from the so-called Volksbuch to Valery will enable us to circumscribe the historical and aesthetic specificity of Goethe’s work. Sound reading knowledge of German required.
David Wellbery, T 3:00PM-5:50PM.

Colloquium: Marx
GRMN 45300, HIST 64600, PLSC 46400. 
Course description to be added shortly.
Moishe Postone, W 1:30PM-4:20PM.

Acquisition/Teaching of German.
GRMN 49100.
An introduction to foreign language acquisition and to the theoretical models underlying current methods, approaches and classroom practices, as well as their practical applications. Required of all graduate students who wish to teach in the College German Program.
Catherine C. Baumann, W 1:30PM-4:20PM.

Shakespeare, Marlowe, Benjamin, and Brecht
GRMN 36709, ENGL 16709
In this course, we will read several plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe in relationship to the theoretical writings of two twentieth-century critics, Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht. Why did Benjamin and Brecht think Shakespeare and Marlowe were radical, avant-garde playwrights? What conclusions did they draw from Shakespeare and Marlowe for their own political moment? How were Brecht's own plays and dramatic theory influenced by these earlier writers? Texts will include Shakespeare, Hamlet; Marlowe, Edward II and Tamburlaine; Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama and Understanding Brecht; Brecht, Selected Plays and his Short Organon for the Theater. For students with an interest in both Renaissance literature and European modernism, as well as a strong interest in literary theory.
Victoria Kahn, TTh 3:00-4:20

 

GRADUATE COURSES: Winter 2010

Arabesque Narrative: A Hybrid Form of the Imaginary
GRMN 51400, CDIN 51400, ARTH 46210, SCTH 5140.
This seminar takes as its object of study the arabesque narrative, a form located between verbal and pictorial modes of representation. Our task will be twofold: 1) to analyze a specific tract in the history of pictorial-literary relations that extends, roughly, from the seventeenth to the twentieth century; 2) to develop an analytical vocabulary for the analysis of verbal-pictorial relations that will support productive intellectual exchange between literary and art history. From Gotthold Lessing to Clement Greenberg, a predominant tendency in the theory of the relationship between the arts has been to emphasize their mutually exclusive character. One correlate of this oppositional mode of thought is an emphasis on “purity” in representation: that is, the proscription of modes of interference and interlacing between the artistic media. The tradition of “arabesque narrative” is an intriguing theme just because it represents a counter-trend to the purist tendency in, broadly speaking, ‘modern’ aesthetics. For this very reason, of course, arabesque narrative constitutes a privileged zone in which to explore the relations between art-historical and literary-historical inquiry. We will discuss texts by Sterne, Lichtenberg, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Baudelaire among others and the work of artists such as Hogarth, Runge, Menzel, and Klinger.
Sponsored by the Center for Disciplinary Innovation at the University of Chicago
David Wellbery and Ralph Ubl, T 1:30-4:20

Literary Landscapes
GRMN 35210.
Landscape is to literature what setting is to theatre. “Where should something take place, if not in the landscape?”as Matthias Goeritz put it. Thus, even the first book of Genesis opens with a pastoral scene, in fact with the opening up of landscape per se as a backdrop to humanity. The first book of Genesis also shows that the creation of landscape is the creation of a symbolic order where things and beings are placed in specific spatial and social relations to each other. However, landscape as a concept and aesthetic object (rather than just a ‘region’ or a ‘tract of land’) only arose in the 16th century, when the poetic act of ‘staging’ or opening up of fictional spaces through words or images became self-reflective, i. e. artists no longer saw themselves as replicating God’s creation, but rather as creators of their own artificial settings. In this course we will examine landscapes and their topologies from the late 18th to 20th centuries. Although the course will focus on (German) literature, it will also take the interrelationship of literature and painting into account. Readings will include Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Jean Paul, Eichendorff, Fontane, Stifter and others. Reading will be mainly in German and discussion in both German and English.
Susanne Luedemann

The Age of Extremes: Literature and Totalitarianism in the 20th Century
GRMN 36710.
This course examines literary responses and philosophical reflections on what the historian Eric Hobsbawm has called the “Age of Extremes”: the twentieth century, its radical aspirations and its terrors. Our starting point are two recent theoretical works that seek to reassess, from two diametrically opposed angles, the totalitarian experience which has marked the century, Alain Badiou’s Le siècle (2005) and Peter Sloterdijk’s Zorn und Zeit (2006). The main focus of the course is on a series of literary works that embody the century’s exalted aspirations and their price. Readings, in German and English, include Kafka, Brecht, Ernst Jünger, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Varlam Shalamov, Danilo Kiš, Peter Weiss, and Heiner Müller.
Robert Buch

Jewish American Literature, Post-1945
GRMN 27800/37800, CMLT 29800/39800, ENGL 25004/45002, YDDH 27800/37800
The goal of this course is to expand the conception of the field of Jewish American literature from English-only to English-plus. We examine how Yiddish literary models and styles influenced the resurgence of Jewish American literature since 1945, and we discuss how recent Jewish American novels have renewed the engagement with the Yiddish literary tradition. Readings are by I. B. Singer, Chaim Grade, Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick, Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, Jonathan Safran Foer, Art Spiegelman, and Michael Chabon.
Jan Schwarz

 

GRADUATE COURSES: Spring 2010

Theater and Tragedy in the (German) Baroque
GRMN 37610.
Most Benjamin scholars have only a limited knowledge of the dramas discussed in his seminal work, the "Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels;" and most scholars of the German Baroque theater don't take Benjamin's failed Habilitationsschrift seriously enough in order to engage its insights in a sustained manner. The major task of the seminar will be to reconcile both by first acquiring a first-hand knowledge of major works of seventeenth-century German drama. We will not restrict ourselves to the two best known dramatists, Andreas Gryphius and Daniel Casper von Lohenstein, but will, following Benjamin's lead, peak at the second and third tier and read Haugwitz, Hallmann and others. In order to contextualize the Protestant theater of the 17th Century, we will, as far as time permits, survey other theatrical cultures (Jesuit, English, Spanish et al.). In a second step we will use the historical and textual knowledge gained to seriously engage Benjamin's book in its own right. As one of the profoundest examinations of theater and theatricality in the German Baroque and beyond it has much to offer in way of understanding theater's formal semantics and structure. A sound reading knowledge of German is required. If you are preparing for the seminar by (re-)reading "Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels" you may skip the "Erkenntniskritische Vorrede."
Christopher Wild

For German for Research Purposes (GRMN 33300), please refer to German Language and Reading Courses

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