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This archived information is dated to the 2008-09 academic year only and may no longer be current.
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Stanford Bulletin, Archive 2008-09
Stanford Bulletin, Archive 2008-09
Undergraduate courses in German Literature
GERLIT 16N. Music, Myth, and Modernity: Wagner's Ring Cycle and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings
(F,Sem) (Same as MUSIC 16N.) Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen. Roots of Wagner's operatic cycle and Tolkien's epic trilogy in a common core of Norse, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon mythology. The role of musical motive and characterization in Wagner's music dramas and the film version of Tolkien's trilogy. Music as a key element in the psychological, political, and cultural revision of ancient myth in modern opera and film. GER:DB-Hum, EC-GlobalCom
3 units, Spr (Grey, T)
GERLIT 121. Hannah Arendt
One of the most important political thinkers on the epochal events in the 20th century. Her central concepts and ideas such as her notion of totalitarianism and its origins, the banality of evil, the life of the mind, and the idea of revolution. Her reflections on art, literature, and history. GER:DB-Hum
3-5 units, Win (Engel, A)
GERLIT 127. Uncanny Literature in the Nineteenth Century
From ghost children and animated statues, the walking dead to machine women and doppelgangers, 19th-century German literature teems with things that go bump in the night. The history of this tradition of fantastic literature in Germany, its origins, main authors, and defining features. Authors include E.T.A. Hoffmann, Wilhelm Hauff, Friedrich Schiller, Joseph von Eichendorff and Jeremias Gotthelf. Readings and writing in German. GER:DB-Hum, WIM
4 units, Win (Daub, A)
GERLIT 127A. German Sports Movies
How sports movies represent changing body cultures and conceptions of sports and media, and allow a glimpse into the life of German societies and history since the 20s. Sports include alpinism, boxing, cycling, football (soccer), gymnastics, track and field, and volleyball. Movies in German.
3 units, Aut (Junghanns, W)
GERLIT 130A. Pop Literature in the Federal Republic of Germany
Peter Handke's protest against Gruppe 47's defining power; Rolf Dieter. Brinkmann's connection with Leslie Fiedler (acceptance of mass culture) and the aesthetic orientation of the beat generation. The establishment of a counter-counterculture in the 80s, pop music as a German version of new journalism, the narrative tradition in the wake of Raymond Chandler, the impact of disk jockey culture in the 90s, and the cataloging and archiving of media and youth culture. GER:DB-Hum
4 units, Spr (Staff)
GERLIT 131. Goethe: Poetic Vision and Vocation in the Age of Reason
Introduction to Goethe's major works, reading across genres of poetry, drama, the novel, and autobiography; critical writings on art, nature, and aesthetics. Central trends in Goethe's thought; the interrelatedness of poetic vision and philosophical thinking in his works. Goethe in relation to other intellectual and philosophical movements of the period, including romanticism. GER:DB-Hum
3-5 units, Win (Shamel, M)
GERLIT 131A. Immigrant/Minority Literature and the Emergence of Multiculturalism in Germany
Immigrant culture and literature in Germany across genres, including stories, drama, memoirs, and film. What do immigrants in Germany write about? What role does immigrant literary culture play in the formation of notions of cultural difference and dialogue? How do the dynamics of ethnic and cultural diversity influence concepts and notions of culture and nationhood in Germany? GER:DB-Hum
3 units, Aut (Shamel, M)
GERLIT 131B. German Lyric and the Oriental Tradition
How the translation of Oriental poetry and poetics into German in the late 18th and early 29th centuries inspired poetry incorporating Oriental models by writers such as Goethe, Rückert, Platen, and Heine. German translations of Oriental poets and writers. Poetry as a transcultural and crosstemporal phenomenon.The lyric's relationship to music in the context of Germany and the Orient. GER:DB-Hum
3-5 units, Spr (Shamel, M)
GERLIT 132. German Sports Culture
Peculiarities of sports in Germany as a point of access to past and present German culture. Concepts of competition and performance; relations between sports and politics in different periods of modern German history. Sources include theoretical and literary texts in English and German, and media representations of athletic contests. GER:DB-Hum
5 units, Aut (Junghanns, W)
GERLIT 133C. German Romanticism
(Same as GERLIT 233.) The literary and theoretical innovations of early Romanticism, and works from the later phase. In German. GER:DB-Hum
3-5 units, not given this year
GERLIT 133F. German Self-Understandings: Between Culture and Civilization
(Same as GERLIT 233F.) German-language writers' attempts to come to terms with German culture from 1800. Visions of a national Kultur in opposition to the universalistic civilization of modernity; the role of language and the arts in this ideal; the emergence of militant nationalism and attempts to counter this tendency with enlightened patriotism; and the quandaries of postwar and post-1989 German self-understanding. GER:DB-Hum
3-5 units, not given this year
GERLIT 135. Literature and the Limits of Self-Determination: Introduction to 19th-Century German Prose
Works registering a heightened sense of the precarious position of the modern individual including Goethe, Kleist, Buechner, Nietzsche, Freud, Mann, and Kafka. In German; attention to improvement of linguistic skills. WIM GER:DB-Hum
4 units, not given this year
GERLIT 136. Berlin Topographies in the 20th Century
Development of Berlin's spatial imaginaries from the boulevards of the late 19th century to the Weimar Republic's urban agendas, and to the repeated reconstructions by the Nazis, the GDR and Berlin Republic. Sources: Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, Berthold Brecht, Peter Weiss, Mascha Kaleko, Peter Schneider, Blixa Bargeld, Wolf Biermann, Christoph Hein, Monika Maron, Thomas Hettche, and Wim Wenders. In German. GER:DB-Hum
4 units, Aut (Daub, A)
GERLIT 137. Introduction to German Poetry
Major poets writing in German including Gryphius, Goethe, Hölderlin, Novalis, Eichendorff, Heine, Rilke, Lasker-Schüler, Trakl, Benn, Celan, Brecht, Enzensberger, and Falkner. Close reading technique. Interpretive tools and theoretical concepts. Poetic form, voice, figural language, and the interaction of sensory registers. In German. GER:DB-Hum, WIM
4 units, Aut (Dornbach, M)
GERLIT 138. Introduction to Germanic Languages
(Same as GERGEN 38A.) The oldest attested stages of the Germanic language family, including Gothic, Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old English, Old Frisian, Old Low Franconian (Old Dutch), and Old High German. The linguistic interrelationships, prehistory, Germanic tribal groupings, and literature. GER:DB-Hum
4 units, Win (Robinson, O)
GERLIT 139. Love, Marriage and Passion in German Literature of the 19th and 20th Centuries
(Same as GERLIT 339.) The thesis that love relationships, in shifting social, cultural, and communication contexts, reflect and determine the dominant value system of a society. How the concepts of romantic, passionate, and pragmatic love evolved and competed with one another in texts by Goethe, Schlegel, Keller, Sacher-Masoch, Fontane, and Böll. In German. GER:DB-Hum
3-5 units, not given this year
GERLIT 140. Postcolonialism and German Literature
Goal is to re-read texts without the constraints of political correctness. Colonial and gender discourse, ambivalence towards foreigners from outside Europe: between desire and fear (Heinrich von Kleist, Theodore Storm, Theodore Fontane); colonialism as a system of repression (Franz Kafka); the third world and the literary left (Peter Weiss, Heiner Müller); drawing parallels between colonial history and National Socialism (Sebald); post-Communist migration discourse (Hans Magnus Enzensberger) and German-Turkish literature (Feridun Zaimoglu). GER:DB-Hum
4 units, Spr (Staff)
GERLIT 147. The Avant Garde
(Same as GERLIT 247.) What happens to art in an age of movies, machines, and two world wars? Who is still making it, and why? What does the avant garde actually mean, and to whom? What are the techniques that distinguish it, in the minds of its most revolutionary practitioners, from all that came before? And why should people care about these techniques today? German materials explored in a wider European context, with emphasis on the avant garde movements of France and Russia. GER:DB-Hum
3-5 units, Win (Pourciau, S)
GERLIT 148. Heart to Heart: Theories of Expression at the Turns of Two Centuries
(Same as GERLIT 248.) Paradigms of expression around 1800 and 1900, from Empfindsamkeit (sensibility) to German Expressionism. The heart that overflows into speech in the works of Klopstock, Goethe, Tieck, and Kleist, and the reformulation a century later of this idea as avant garde practice and modernist credo. Readings of poets, philosophers, and artists on relationships between inside and out, heart and voice, emotion and language, and self and art. Discussion in English. GER:DB-Hum
3-5 units, not given this year
GERLIT 151. German Underworlds
(Same as GERLIT 251.) German theories about what lies beneath: is it hell or the subterranean foundations that keep the world from collapsing? Cosmic architecture and the question of the inferno in Kant, Novalis, Wagner, Marx, Freud, Kafka, and the films of Fritz Lang.
3-5 units, not given this year
GERLIT 163. Readings in 19th-Century German Literature
(Same as GERLIT 263.) Works by Goethe, Tieck, Kleist, Hoffmann, Heine, Büchner, Grillparzer, Droste-Hülshoff, Stifter, and Keller. Their divergent responses to artistic, ethical, and political challenges of modernity. Prerequisite: GERLANG 3 or equivalent. In German. GER:DB-Hum
4 units, not given this year
GERLIT 189A. Honors Research
Senior honors students enroll for 5 units in Winter while writing the honors thesis, and may enroll in 189B for 2 units in Spring while revising the thesis. Prerequisite: DLCL 189.
5 units, Win (Staff)
GERLIT 189B. Honors Research
Open to juniors with consent of adviser while drafting honors proposal. Open to senior honors students while revising honors thesis. Prerequisites for seniors: 189A, DLCL 189.
2 units, Spr (Staff)
GERLIT 195. The Culture of Reason and its Discontents: Introduction to Modern German Intellectual History
(Same as GERLIT 295.) Characteristics of modernity such as rational self-legislation, growing separation of spheres of life, and liberating and disorienting loss of traditional frameworks of meaning. Texts include Kant, Schiller, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Adorno, and Horkheimer. Discussion and written work in English. Students may read texts in translation; assistance provided to those reading in German. GER:DB-Hum
4 units, not given this year
GERLIT 197. Theories of Art after Idealism
(Same as GERLIT 297.) Key responses to the failure of idealism to integrate artistic creation and aesthetic experience into a philosophical system. Works by Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dilthey, and Lukács.
3-5 units, not given this year
GERLIT 199. Independent Reading
36 hours of reading per unit, weekly conference with instructor. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
1-10 units, Aut (Staff), Win (Staff), Spr (Staff), Sum (Staff)
GERLIT 206. Narrative, Visuality, Memory
(Same as GERLIT 306.) Moments in the history of the relationship between verbal and visual: the classical ars memoriae; the ekphrasis debates of the 18th century; and the emergence of a new visuality and mnemonic art as structuring principles for modernist narrative. Authors include Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Winkelmann, Lessing, Diderot, Goethe, Moritz, Flaubert, Rilke, and Proust. GER:DB-Hum
3-5 units, not given this year
GERLIT 241. Deutsche Geistesgeschichte I: German Aesthetic Thought, 1790-1872
The seminal tradition of writing about art including the German idealists (Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Schiller), romantics (Schlegel, Novalis, and Hoffmann), and Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. In English. GER:DB-Hum
4 units, not given this year
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