An introduction to contemporary German with emphasis on communicative fluency. Extensive practice in all four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Videos and Web-based activities introduce the student to topics from contemporary culture in German-speaking countries. Three periods.

Strengthening and expanding of all language skills with special emphasis on idiomatic usage. Thorough grammar review, written, oral, and aural practice. Readings on contemporary cultural topics. Three periods.

This course examines the cinematic output of Nazi Germany as a test case for the development of film as propaganda. We consider the cinematic medium as entertainment and as a cultural event with the potential to influence a population. We trace the forebears of Nazi film, including WWI propaganda produced in Britain, France and Germany and Soviet films made to serve the revolutionary agenda. We examine the ways in which Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda deployed both overtly propagandist films and films that couched Nazi ideals in narratives from melodrama to fantasy, and examine whether films could exceed their official aims and become subversive. And we consider post-WWII developments: the continuing careers of producers of propaganda and the ways that modern media shapes new forms of propaganda.

This course focuses on fairy tales, their history, and their continued impact on contemporary culture. We begin by studying the tales themselves, trying to uncover their original meanings and purposes. Out of what historical moments and psychological needs did the tales arise? Why did the Brothers Grimm collect and compile them in the first place? We then consider the ways in which they have been rescripted and repurposed in everything from poetry to popular film, examining how cultural production appropriates these fairy tale structures, even while radically straying from them. We read these texts against the backdrop of a range of theoretical approaches to childhood and to literary and cultural criticism, in order to uncover their significance in the past and today.