German

This is the language course to take if you have had no previous experience of the German language. The emphasis is on comprehension, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary and basic grammar. This course can be counted towards all programs in German.

Note: Students with any previous knowledge of German are REQUIRED to take a placement test offered at the department.

This course is intended for students with some prior knowledge of German. It is equivalent to the Spring Term of GER100Y1. The emphasis is on comprehension, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary and basic grammar.

This course taught in English is intended for students who are unfamiliar with German culture. It examines historical, political and cultural developments in Germany from about 1871 to the present focusing on literary and non-literary texts. (Note: This course is required for the major and specialist program; it should be taken within the first two years.)

In this course we will examine the growing awareness of the strange new world beyond Europe in the so-called Age of Reason. How did writers respond to the challenges of radically different cultures? What did their way of life and their world view mean for a Europe that placed reason above all other human qualities? How did the fact of slavery and exploitation change the way they viewed the "New World"? What did this encounter mean for growing preoccupations with common humanity? We will read a number of classic texts from the European Enlightenment with an eye to these and other questions. All readings and class discussions will be in English. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Cities have been described as places of desire and places of fear. They pulse with life, bringing together people from different class, gender, and ethnic backgrounds, simultaneously giving rise to a sense of freedom and oppression, a sense of belonging and alienation. This course will explore the city as a physical reality that shapes our lives, but is also a projection of our deepest imaginings. Through readings of philosophical and sociological texts by influential theorists of the city, we will consider various ancient and modern conceptions of urban space and subjectivity. Alongside these theoretical readings, we will also examine literary and filmic representations of the city as a space of desire, memory and power. All readings and class discussions are in English. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Grimms Fairy Tales – we all know and love them. But what do we really know? Which versions are we familiar with? Most likely not the ones by the Brothers Grimm. And certainly not in German! This course is a journey into the mythical German Schwarzwald, a place of wolves and witches, the realm of the fantastic. It is not a traditional language course, as we won’t be cramming grammar and vocabulary, at least not excessively. Rather, we will learn German playfully by reading, analyzing and acting out original folk tales, their Romantic adaptations and modern retellings. In the process we will enrich our understanding of German language and culture. Please note that basic knowledge of German is required to participate in this course (i.e. at least one year of solid high school instruction). Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This course will introduce students to the various attempts in German literature over the course of the past 200 years to define the boundary between human and non-human agents. It will examine the idea of a mechanical being, of prostheses (both physical and emotional), of self-motivated matter, of narrating agency in non-human beings, and of imagining the limits of human action. In reading select texts on this topic, we will explore the physical, mental and moral qualities that purportedly separate human from non human agents. Students will gain insight into the problem of defining human beings in the context industrialization, mechanization, automation and artificial intelligence. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Technology has changed our lives, and scientific knowledge has enhanced human capacities. At the same time, though, this development is also experienced as a threat. Killing missiles, controlling 'Big Brothers,' and monstrous creatures are often considered the flip-side of technological advancement. This course asks: What is the relationship between technology and the "human"? Can there be progress of technology without a regress of humanity? Or is technology liberating us from the bonds of nature? We will discuss possible answers to these questions by looking at key texts in German literature, philosophy, and cultural history from the eighteenth century to Post-Modernity. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

In this course we read some of the most enjoyable plots and stories in German Literature and examine how the pleasure of reading sets readers free to re-imagine themselves and the world released from everyday pressures and the repressive weight of the status quo. Readings are all in English translation and include texts by Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Keller, Heine and Kafka. Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option. 

This course continues the work done in GER100Y1 / GER101H1. It further expands on basic grammar and vocabulary, practice in comprehension, composition, and conversation.

This course is equivalent to the Spring Term of GER200Y1. It further expands on basic grammar and vocabulary, practice in comprehension, composition, and conversation. The Department reserves the right to place students in the appropriate language course on the 200- and 300 levels.

This course offers a transition from the language courses to the topic courses on the 300-level. It introduces students to German literature and provides them with working methods and analytical tools relevant for the study of German literary texts in the original German.

Note: This course is required for the major and specialist program

This course taught in English is an introduction to major authors of German literature, such as J.W. Goethe, F. Kafka, T. Mann, G. Grass, C. Wolf and E.S. Özdamar, focusing on their key works and introducing central topics.

This course examines German cinema against the backdrop of European film history. European films share common references points anchored in the cataclysms of two world wars, and have also negotiated analogous postwar transformations in family life, urbanization, the regional and the national, cultural identity, labour relations, post-socialist societies, and state security. A comparative approach enables examination of what binds German cinema to European cinema – shared histories and political concerns--as well as what is nationally unique and distinctive. By matching select films with readings from social theory, cultural studies, and film studies, we will compare and contrast these socio-historical concerns while also attending to the medium specificities of film style, aesthetics, and narrative form.

This course introduces Yiddish language, literature, music, theater, and cinema through interactive multi-media seminars, designed to build proficiency in reading, writing and comprehending. No prior knowledge of Yiddish is required.

In this course, we examine key literary, philosophical, and cultural texts, in order to understand how modern culture approaches problems such as property, debt, and exchange value.

This course introduces students to basic concepts and vocabulary necessary for the German business context. All the language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) will be practiced in appropriate business contexts.

This is an introductory course to the thought of Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud and their pioneering contributions to the understanding of the individual and society in modernity. Readings include selections from writings of the early Marx, the Communist Manifesto, and Capital, Nietzsche's critique of culture, academe, and nationalism, and Freud's theory of culture, his views on the psychopathology of everyday life, on the meaning of dreams, symptoms, the return of the repressed, and what it might mean to live in a free society.

The movement of cultural products, material goods, capital, people, ideas, and information across national borders has resulted in a new quality of global interdependency. The course explores the contemporary character of globalization patterns and problems as they bear on German-speaking contexts. Readings in globalization history and theory.

Credit course for supervised participation in faculty research project. Details at https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/academics/research-opportunities/.... Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Continuing the work done in GER100Y1 and GER200Y1, this course offers German at the intermediate level focusing on extension of vocabulary, specific problems of grammar, essay-writing, reading and conversation. The Department reserves the right to place students in the appropriate course in the series GER200Y1 and GER300Y1.

This course is equivalent to the Spring Term of GER300Y1. It further expands on basic grammar and vocabulary, practice in comprehension, composition, and conversation at the intermediate level. The Department reserves the right to place students in the appropriate language course on the 200- and 300 levels.

Building on the work of GER205H1, this course offers a survey of German literature and culture from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Within a chronological framework, students read and analyze excerpts from representative works of major German writers. (Note: This course is required for the major and specialist program, and should be taken concurrently with GER300Y1.)

This course focuses on contemporary German culture as expressed through a variety of media. It approaches Germany and Germany's position within Europe and the world mainly (but not exclusively) through non-literary texts.

Goethe and his contemporaries saw themselves faced with a rapidly changing world. This course examines the innovative literary experiments they developed in response to these changing times.

This course focuses on German authors of the nineteenth century. Literary, political and philosophical texts are analyzed as a discussion of political uprisings, the industrial revolution and the emergence of German nationalism.

Franz Kafka's texts are read in the literary, historical, and philosophical context of fin-de-sicle Prague and central Europe.

Focusing roughly on the period from 1918 to 1945, this course examines literary and artistic movements like Dada, Bauhaus, the Golden Age in German film in the decades between World War I and Nazism.

An examination of post-World War II German literature and culture from Zero Hour through to present-day debates about the Holocaust and its memorialization within a German context.

An analysis of the artistic confrontation with deviance, madness, and outsiders. The course covers expressions of this confrontation in a variety of genres.

This course investigates contemporary German culture by paying attention to its other or alternate voices and perspectives, i.e. those not usually prevalent in mainstream cultural and sociopolitical discourses.

This course offers an exploration of the cultural developments of one of the most exciting capitals of the world, from the Bismarckian era to German reunification and beyond.

The course offers close reading, rehearsing and staging of a play. Students will become familiar with the different steps of a theater production, be introduced to basic acting and staging techniques and get acquainted to leading theories of theater.

This course presents students with a survey of the history and development of the German cinema. It examines major trends of German cinematography focusing on thematic and formal aspects.

The topics of this course taught in English and open to students from other disciplines vary from year to year. Interested students can address questions to Woodsworth College.

Students who wish to petition the department for credit toward a specialist or major program in German will be required to do part of their work in German. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

The course conducted in Yiddish offers a review of basic grammar, stylistics, study of short literary texts.

This course examines literary works written in different languages, in ghettos and concentration camps during the Holocaust, as well as those reflecting on the genocide in its aftermath. We focus on literature as a means of engaging with the unimaginable and on the cross analysis of eye-witness and memory writing.

An overview of the major figures and tendencies in modern Yiddish literature and culture from the beginning of the 19th century to the present. Readings (in English) of modern Yiddish prose, poetry, drama and cinema.

Topics in modern Yiddish or German Jewish literature and culture from the beginning of the 19th century to the present, featuring a selection of readings of modern Yiddish prose, poetry, drama and cinema. Taught in English and open to students across disciplines.

This course provides students with a working knowledge of German business culture that allows them to navigate the German workplace. The main focus is to deepen students’ knowledge of business concepts.

Note: This course is required for the minor program in Business German

This course offers an intensive development of the linguistic skills needed in the context of business transactions and management in German-speaking countries. Through materials from various sources, students develop oral and written skills for competence in German business communication as well as cross-cultural awareness.

The course provides curricular support for a variety of work and community-engaged, experiential learning placements in the GTA and in German-speaking countries. The placements are designed to deepen linguistic, cultural, and analytical skills acquired in the classroom in work-related environments, create an awareness of the translatability of academic knowledge to other contexts, promote global competency, and foster links to the community. The number of weekly hours spent in the field, the scope of learning objectives, and the nature of reflective activities are determined on an individual basis in consultation with the host institution, the German Department, and other units in which the student is pursuing a program degree (as required). In addition to successfully achieving the formulated learning goals, students must complete assignments such as eJournals and research papers as well as participate in peer-to-peer reporting and post-placement interviews.

An instructor-supervised group project in an off-campus setting. Details at https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/academics/research-opportunities/.... Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

An instructor-supervised group project in an off-campus setting. Details at https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/academics/research-opportunities/.... Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Credit course for supervised participation in faculty research project. Details at https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/current/academics/research-opportunities/.... Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

This is a course for advanced learners of German reviewing complex features of the language and introducing them to aspects of German stylistics. The emphasis lies on oral and written communication.

This is a course for advanced learners of German reviewing complex features of the language and introducing them to aspects of German stylistics. The emphasis lies on oral and written communication.

This course taught in English offers an examination of key moments and themes in German intellectual history from the Enlightenment to the present.

This course offers an introduction to the language, literature and culture of Medieval Germany. The reading and translation of exemplary medieval German texts will introduce students to Middle High German and provide an insight into epochal concepts like courtly love and chivalry as well as courtly and monastic designs of identity.

An open course which explores specific aspects of German literature and culture.

An open course which explores specific aspects of Germanic Studies.

This course conducted entirely in Yiddish focuses on advanced reading, writing, vocabulary and conversation, the study of poetry, short fiction, and memoir literature by leading authors. Selected advanced grammatical topics are presented in conjunction with the study of texts.

The course is designed as an intensive Yiddish language training. The goal is to teach German speakers to read, write and speak in Yiddish. The curriculum relies on the German language skills of the students, and focuses on differences between Yiddish ad German grammar and vocabulary. Upon the completion of the course, students should be able to read Yiddish literary texts with a minimal use of dictionary.

Note: Graduate students can take the course in preparation for their Yiddish competency test.

A reading & research project in Germanic literature and/or culture involving a substantive research component. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

A scholarly project chosen by the student and supervised by a member of the staff. The form of the project and the manner of its execution are determined in consultation with the supervisor. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.