Courses

Fall 2024

For all meeting days and times please see the Online Schedule of Classes.

Reading and Composition Courses
Readings and discussions in English. Fulfills the second half of the university’s Reading & Composition Requirement (equivalent to English 1B, Comp. Lit. 1B, etc.).

German R5A. Reading and Composition (4)
 
Section 2: Greene
“Transcultural Exchanges Between Germany and Latin America”

From the sixteenth-century captivity narrative of Hans Staden to contemporary (re)figurations of Alexander von Humboldt, this course will explore transcultural exchanges between Germany and Latin America. What does it mean to be cosmopolitan, to be a “country of immigrants” or a “country of the future,” and how have Germany and numerous Latin American countries variously understood both themselves and each other as such? How have ideas of German and Latin American identity circulated and transformed through literature, ethnography, and music, among other forms of exchange? In addition to studying forms of cultural production, we will look at specific waves of German immigration to Latin America, such as the influx of predominantly German-Jewish refugees in Mexico and the Southern Cone, as well as shifting political and affective dynamics during periods of democracy and dictatorship. Course material will be multimodal and multidisciplinary, and students will hone their ability to write critically about works in various forms and genres.

 All readings will be in English, and no prior knowledge of the materials is required. 

This course offers a survey of modern German literary, cultural, and intellectual currents, as well as an introduction to argumentation and analysis. Students will examine numerous issues and questions central to defining the complexity of modern German culture. R5A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R5B satisfies the second half.

Section 3: Sun
“MIGRATION, LABOR, GENDER”

Migrant labor has supported economic growth and political transformations for hundreds of years. But why and when does migrant labor become a “crisis”? Why do working migrants continue to dominate political party agendas and play an outsized role in discussions of nation, economy, and security? Despite arguments that the US was “built by immigrants,” migrant work continues to be questioned, opposed, and defended. This course will investigate the debates at the intersection of migration and labor, with special attention paid to gender, sexuality, and race. Discussions will be grounded in the discussion of literary and moving image works and cover a wide range of subfields including domestic and care work; skilled labor; unpaid labor; undocumented work; artificial labor; and sex work. At the same time, students will develop study habits and analytical skills that will enable them to more effectively navigate the demands of a university environment.

This is a writing intensive class that will emphasize revisions, originality, and critical thinking. Students will engage in close readings and interpretations of texts in thoughtful written work that builds over the course of the semester. We will develop and practice the appropriate analytical and compositional strategies for engaging with a variety of genres and types of media, including critical essays, novels, short stories, blog posts, op-eds, poetry, film, television, video games, virtual reality, and digital-born archives. In order to situate our discussions within a specific historical and geographic context, we will focus on works by authors and filmmakers from Germany, the Netherlands, and the US. At the same time, students will be encouraged to read and think outside of this context. Readings will be drawn from Fatma Aydemir, Fatih Akin, Ursula Biemann, R.W. Fassbinder, Hella Haasse, Franz Kafka, Marx, and Hito Steyerl.

All readings will be in English, and no prior knowledge of the materials is required. 

This course offers a survey of modern German literary, cultural, and intellectual currents, as well as an introduction to argumentation and analysis. Students will examine numerous issues and questions central to defining the complexity of modern German culture. R5A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R5B satisfies the second half.

Section 4: Sacia- Bonicatto
“The Sociolinguistics of Power: Language in Action”. 

This course examines how language shapes societal structures and influences ideologies. Students will explore how language intersects with key social factors such as gender, ethnicity, age, and social class. The course also investigates the powerful role of language in advertising and politics, focusing on its capacity to persuade, inspire, and shape public opinion. Additionally, the course will address the consequences of linguistic imperialism and its impact on cultural and social dynamics.

Through a combination of discussions, readings, and assignments drawn from diverse sources, students will engage in a comprehensive analysis of how language functions as a tool for shaping social, cultural, and political systems. Opportunities for students to share their perspectives and experiences will further enrich the learning experience, fostering a deeper understanding of the material.

All readings will be in English, and no prior knowledge of the materials is required. 

This course offers a survey of modern German literary, cultural, and intellectual currents, as well as an introduction to argumentation and analysis. Students will examine numerous issues and questions central to defining the complexity of modern German culture. R5A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R5B satisfies the second half.

German 24 (4) Freshman Seminar. Feldman

“Bureaucracy at Berkeley”.  This course will look at theories and studies of bureaucracy, and apply them to student experiences at UC Berkeley. We will attempt to understand how bureaucracy has been theorized, how it proliferates, and how it functions at our university. Students will do short readings and also journal about their experiences with university bureaucracy. They may also write short reports, including studies of university emails, websites, and offices; and may also conduct interviews with administrators to find out how bureaucracy is perceived by different stakeholders in the university.

Note: This class will be taught in “English”.

German 39B (4) Freshman Seminar. Bajohr

Literary AI: Algorithmic Literature from the 1950s to ChatGPT
What is literature in the age of ChatGPT? How does poetry change when writing has been automated? And when any text you read could be produced by an artificial intelligence, does the difference between human and machine writing still make sense? In this course, we explore the impact of the most recent large language models on how literature is made and read today, and discover the history of computerized writing from the early experiments of the 1950s to today’s AI systems. We will ask questions such as: What kind of language does a language model produce? What is meaning for a machine that cannot mean anything? Can computers be authors? And is there anything left for us to write? The course combines the close reading of computer-generated texts and learning to reflect about their theoretical background with creative computational student projects. No prior programming skills are necessary. 

Note: This class will be taught in “English”.

German 39H (4) Freshman Seminar. Balint

Robots, Monsters, Operating Systems: Technology and the Cultural Imagination
Both literature and film are rife with fantastic creatures. But what gives rise to figures such as the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), the vampire in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), and the artificial intelligence program in Spike Jonze’s science fiction-cum-romantic-drama Her (2013)? And what ensures our enduring fascination with them? New technology not only sparks excitement about future possibilities, everyday conveniences, and large-scale social, political, and cultural change, but also spurs fears about its purported capacity to fundamentally reshape many, if not all, aspects of our lives. This course examines seminal works of literary fiction and film, along with some musical examples, to explore the ways technology animates both age-old hopes and anxieties related to humanity, gender, sexuality, race, and the future. How is technology negotiated in the cultural imagination, and how, in turn, does new technology enable and affect new modes of cultural expression (in literature and other media)? Course materials include works by Mary Shelley, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois; Octavia Butler, among others; films such as Metropolis by Fritz Lang, Blade Runner by Ridley Scott, A.I. by Steven Spielberg; Her by Spike Jonze; and music and performance by Sun Ra and Beyoncé.

Note: This class will be taught in “English”.

German 39P (4) Freshman Seminar (Pathway course). Tang

“Law and Literature”.  For many people, law is the subject of law school, while literature belongs to the humanities. In this seminar, we will see that law and literature, professional school and the humanities are in fact closely related. We will read some great authors in world literature (including Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Melville, Kleist, Kafka), watch a number of classic films, and discuss how they engage with the key issues of law – legitimacy and legality, justice and equity, rights and obligation, crime and punishment. At the same time, we will read legal texts and see how law operates by telling stories. This seminar may be used to satisfy the Arts and Literature or Philosophy and Values breadth requirement in Letters and Science.

Note: This class will be taught in “English”.

German 158 (4) “In Treatment: Freud and His Cultural Legacies”.  Baer

The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, is back with a vengeance. This seminar examines issues raised by Freud and their implications for understanding human culture. Topics include: dreams and the unconscious, narcissism and sexuality, death and loss, religion and Jewish identity, race and group psychology, and war and peaceful community. Class discussions will be devoted to Freud’s major writings along with texts by his interlocutors, successors, and critics such as Carl Jung, Jacques Lacan, Frantz Fanon, Luce Irigaray, Yosef Yerushalmi, David Marriott, Judith Butler, Edward Said, and Jacqueline Rose.

Note: This class will be taught in “English”.

German 160B (4) “Fascism and Propaganda: Politics and Culture in 20th Century Germany”. Friedman

This course will focus on the theory and practice of propaganda during the 12 years of the Third Reich. It takes a close look at the ideology the Nazis tried to transmit, the techniques, organization, and effectiveness of their propaganda. Challenging the idea of the total power of propaganda, it looks for the limits of persuasion and possible other reasons for which Germans might have decided to follow Hitler. Sources will include the press, radio, film, photography, political posters, and a few literary works of the time. Finally, it will also be discussed to what extent techniques of propaganda continued to be used globally after 1945. In particular, the fascism studies of the Frankfurt School, which dealt with antisemitic demagogy in 1940s U.S. society, will be examined more closely.

Important note about extremely disturbing course content: The course will include images, text, and film footage that are profoundly racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, anti-gay, and violence-glorifying. These images may be experienced by students as horrifying, frightening, thoroughly offensive, intimidating, and hurtful. It will nonetheless be our task in this course to understand and analyze the origins, strategies, and effects of these materials. Please consider whether you will be comfortable taking this course insofar as it requires viewing, reading, discussing, and writing about such shocking and execrable materials.

Note: This class will be taught in “English”.