This course satisfies students’ calls for more sustained interaction with German literature. We read a variety of German-language texts from the Austro-German literary tradition, with an an emphasis on literary genre, close reading of content, and improvement of student writing and speaking skills. We read and discuss longer German-language literary texts over a more extended period of time per text. We discuss five canonical, influential poems in modern German literature and undertake in-depth discussions of three shorter Erzählungen and American-influenced postwar Kurzgeschichten. We learn about and discuss German literary and aesthetic movements, along with their formal characteristics and aesthetic motivations. We make it our task to execute careful close readings of the texts we read. Here the point is not to merely “catch the drift” of the plotline, but to make a diligent effort to tease out important, often gratifying, details of the text that can assist us in deepening our understanding of the text. We finish by reading the single most commercially and internationally successful German novel ever published, Erich Maria Remarque’s controversial Im Westen nichts Neues (1929).

Course Requirements:

Student grades are determined by attendance, participation, and the writing of approximately five essays and rewrites in German.