German Studies 1

Students must choose 2 of the following 3 sections:
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Introduction to Linguistics

Contact hours: 12 lectures
Course description: What do we mean when we say that we ?know? a language? These introductory classes on the field of linguistics examine the idea of native speaker competence, exploring key areas such as phonetics, phonology, morphology and meaning in language.
Teaching and learning methods: Lecture-based course.
Methods of assessment and examination: The course is assessed by two in-class exercises.
Language of instruction: English
Core text: Keith Allan et al, The English Language & Linguistics Companion (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)

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The Truth about Women? Representations of Women in Literature and Art around 1900 (Sem. 1; 2 hrs. per week)

Course description: The time period around 1900 is marked by vast social and cultural changes, which resulted in social role models, particularly constructions of gender identity, being increasingly challenged. Since the establishment of psychoanalysis, the unconscious and the ?enigma of the woman? have become key themes in theory but also in literature and art. Psychoanalysis played a major role in constructions, such as the femme fatale and the femme fragile, in philosophy, literature and art. The defined role models of the bourgeois society were increasingly questioned as a hypocritical way of preserving patriarchal structures and excluding women from social participation.

The module focuses on the representation of women in contemporary literature, art, and theory. We will discuss texts of various genres (novella, short stories, poetry), depicting women and thematise gender issues, analyse representations of women in visual arts and examine theoretical approaches to understanding the ?mystery of the woman?, for example in Freudian psychoanalysis. Writers and thinkers ? mostly male ? attempted to explore and describe the psychology of women, their various roles in family and society and the conflicts arising from the diverse expectations they were confronted with. On the one hand both literature and theory contributed immensely to the emancipation of women, on the other hand the images of women created in these sources still reproduced traditional concepts of gender and have to be deconstructed as male projections. A major local focus of the course will be Vienna, the home of psychoanalysis, of writers such as Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Peter Altenberg, and painters such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. In addition we will read texts by Stefan Zweig and Rosa Mayreder.
Assessment: Take-home essay. Attendance is obligatory and counts towards assessment. 1 % will be deducted from the total mark for every missed class.
Core texts to be bought by students before start of term:
Arthur Schnitzler: Fräulein Else. Ditzingen: Reclam 2001.
Arthur Schnitzler: Frau Berta Garlan. Ditzingen: Reclam 2006.
Stefan Zweig: Brief einer Unbekannten. Erzählung. Fischer: Frankfurt a. M. 2006.
Excerpts of the following texts will be provided as handouts in class:
Stefan Zweig: Leporella; Rosa Mayreder: Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit.

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German Language Cinema 1 (3 hrs. per week)

Course description: The aim of the course is to provide students with an understanding of the history of German film from the beginning up to 1945. We will discuss modes of production as well as aesthetic aspects of the silent film era. We will look at the innovations in cinema during the Weimar Republic and finally at the function of cinema in the Nazi period. The course will introduce students to film theory and explore aspects of style and technique in 20thcentury German cinema. Special attention will be paid to ?film classics? and their remakes and students will become acquainted with the relevant terminology of academic cinematic criticism.
Teaching and learning methods: The course is lecture-based with student participation in the form of group work presented in class, reviews and short summaries of critical and theoretical texts..
Methods of assessment and examination: 30% presentation; 40% film review; 30% summary of critical and theoretical texts. Attendance is obligatory and counts towards assessment. 1 % will be deducted from the total mark for every missed class.