German Graduate Seminars
Fall 2008
German 510: Introduction to Literary Criticism
Instructor: Daniel Purdy
Tuesday & Thursday 1:00- 2:15
Schedule #:119026
402 Burrowes
E-mail:dlp14@psu.edu
Office # 406 Burrowes
We will survey major theoretical methods of the late twentieth century in order to develop a repertoire necessary to engage in informed literary criticism.. Topics will include structuralist linguistics, semiotics, psychoanalysis, Lacan, deconstruction, feminism, discourse analysis. Students will receive the basics of literary theory in a friendly, non-intimidating seminar, so as to allow them to practice these techniques in their own research. Class presentations and a final paper will be required.
German 511:The Teaching of College German
Instructor: Hülya Yilmaz
Monday 3:00- 5:45
Schedule #:987250
402 Burrowes
E-mail:hnu1@psu.edu
Office # 418 Burrowes
This course is intended for students who are teaching a college level German language course for the first time. There are three main goals for this course. First, both during and outside of class, considerable time will be devoted to the practical side of foreign language teaching within a communicative-language-teaching approach. Assignments and readings with this goal in mind will focus on teaching constituents, including developing lesson plans, writing and grading quizzes (and exams), and evaluating oneself as a teacher. Second, certain readings and class discussions will provide a broader background about the field of second language acquisition in general. Although one semester-long course can by no means cover everything there is to know about second language acquisition, this course will provide at least an overview of this field of inquiry. This portion of the course will help students become more familiar with common concepts and terminology within the field of second language acquisition, and how this area of research informs foreign language pedagogy and vise versa. The final goal of this course is for students to become more aware of their own teaching style, and how they, as teachers, fit into the larger foreign language teaching community.
Required Texts:
Brown, H. Douglas. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (Paperback). Pearson ESL (2nd. Ed.), 2000.
Kramsch, Claire. Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Margulies, Nancy and Nasu Maal. Mapping Inner Space: Learning and Teaching Visual Mapping (Paperback). Zephyr Press (2nd. Ed.), 2001.
German 597A: POETICS AND SPECULATION: ON A PROBLEM IN AESTHETIC THEORY
Instructor: Dennis Schmidt
Tuesday 2:30 - 5:30
Schedule #:168706
402 Burrowes
E-mail:djs61@psu.edu
Office # 202 Sparks
This course will examine the development of aesthetic theory in the wake of Kant’s Critique of Judgement and the challenge it posed for aesthetic theory. After some treatment of Kant, the first part of the course will concentrate on this theme German Idealism and German Romanticism (the key figures for this part of the course will be Hegel, Hoelderlin, Schelling, Schiller, Schlegel). The second part of the course will consider the reception and new impulses given to this theme in recent French Aesthetic Theory, especially in deconstruction (here Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy will be key figures).
Topics to be addressed include the question of the relation of language to feeling, the idiom of pleasure, the nature of genius and the limits of expression, the meaning of fragmentation and of wholeness.
The course will be run as a lecture/seminar: The first half of each meeting will be a lecture, the second will be a seminar. Active participation in discussions is expected. Bi-weekly papers (3-5 pages) are also required.
German 597B: The Acquisition of German and Dutch
Instructor: Carrie Jackson
Monday & Wednesday 1:00 - 2:15
Schedule #:154693
402 Burrowes
E-mail:cnj1@psu.edu
Office # 415 Burrowes
This course is designed to provide students with an overview of the current literature on the acquisition of German and Dutch by children, with a comparative examination of selected research on the acquisition of German as a second language (L2). Though we will deal mainly with German and Dutch data, these will be evaluated within the larger context of general theories of both first- and second-language acquisition. Over the course of the semester we will consider questions surrounding the acquisition of phonology, morphology (especially gender and noun plurals) and syntax (in particular word order and verbal inflection). Students do not need to have a background or previous coursework in linguistics or psycholinguistics. Although the class will be conducted in English, reading knowledge of German is desirable, in order to better understand the data we will be examining.
