Duke University 2008-2009 - Office of the Registrar - Duke University

open for credit to undergraduate students who have taken Intermediate German (65, 66, 69,
or equivalent). Does not count toward the major or minor, or toward the fulfillment of the
Foreign Language Requirement. Instructor: Staff. 3 units.
204S. German Business / Global Contexts. Current German economic and business
debates and events. Germany's position in the global marketplace and on ensuing intercultural
business encounters. Topics include state of Germany's industry and energy resources,
monetary policies and banking systems, environmental concerns, foreign trade, taxes, and
the social safety net. Attention to Germany's self-understanding as a "social market
economy" and the compatibility of that model with current trends in globalization.
Instructor: Fricker. 3 units.
209S. Introduction to Medieval German: The Language of the German Middle Ages
and Its Literature. Basic reading skills in the medieval German language (Middle High
German) developed by working with literary texts in their original idiom. Canonical texts
such as courtly love poetry (Walther von der Vogelweide), Arthurian romance (Hartmann
von Aue, Wolfram), and heroic epic (Nibelungenlied). Understanding manuscript culture,
philological inquiry, medieval intellectual practices, relationship between learned Latin
culture and educated vernacular cultures. Research paper required. Readings and discussion
in German. Instructor: Rasmussen. 3 units. C-L: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 201S
210S. Sex, Gender, and Love in Medieval German Literature. Historical contexts for
emergence of courtly love and the role of desire and interpretation in Gottfried von
Strassburg's Tristan und Isolde, courtly love lyric, 'maere.' Instructor: Rasmussen. 3 units.
C-L: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 203S
216S. The Grand Gesture: German Literature of the Seventeenth Century. The poetry
of excess, of performance, of the public posture; rhetoric; the prose of the rogue, adventurer,
and the Ne'er-do-well; comedy, farce, and the clown in the German literature of the Baroque
era. Instructor: Staff. 3 units.
221S. Literary Guide to Italy. 3 units. C-L: see Italian 221S; also C-L: Literature 280S
225S. Introduction to Goethe. Major works of lyric, narrative, drama, and theory,
throughout Goethe's career. Readings and discussions in German. Instructor: Morton. 3
units.
226S. Goethe's Faust. Goethe's masterpiece and life's work, conceived as a summation of
Western literature and mythology for the modern age. Readings and discussions in German.
Instructor: Morton. 3 units.
245S. German Literature and Culture 1900-1945. Radical social shifts and their
disruption of German culture and literary conventions during the first half of the 20th
century. From the poetry, film, manifestos, and revolutionary theater of Expressionism, to
the high modernism of Rilke, Kafka, Hesse, and Mann, to the didactic literary program of
Brecht and his circle, including Kurt Weill and Marieluise Fleisser, to the internationalist
goals of the Frankfurt School of Social Research. Emphasis on relations between text and
history, from WWI to Weimar to the persecutions and systematic destructions of the Nazi
era. Instructor: Donahue or Rolleston. 3 units.
247S. Contested Memories in German Culture since 1945. Major German literary,
filmic, and cultural works since 1945. Topics vary: representations of National Socialism
and the Holocaust in German culture; "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" (dealing with the past)
in German literature and culture; history, memory, and national identity in German,
Austrian, and Swiss literature. Instructor: Donahue. 3 units.
258S. Special Topics in German Literature and Cultural Studies. Instructor: Staff. 3
units.
260. History of the German Language. Phonology, morphology, and syntax of German
from the beginnings to the present. Instructor: Keul or Rasmussen. 3 units. C-L: Medieval
and Renaissance Studies 260B, Linguistics 260
Courses of Instruction 181