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Tools for Transformation Funded Proposals

Modern Approach to Intermediate German

College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Germanics

Germanics will restructure its courses for Intermediate German 200 and this proposal will create a modular approach to the curriculum. There will be a 3-credit core component (grammar, reading, culture). In addition, students will have a choice between two 2-credit modules, which are designed to meet their interests in culture, literature, history, politics, and the arts. Berlin and Vienna have in the past two hundred years been centers of European culture and the two modules will focus on these two cities. Both modules are to address high culture as well as everyday culture.

The Berlin module should attract students who have an interest in history and political science but will also offer much in terms of the arts. The course deals with Berlin in the 20th century, which includes the Second Empire, World War I, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, postwar Germany and the city divided by the wall, unification and the relocation of the German government to Berlin. The Vienna module should attract students who are interested in music, art and architecture. The foci are the turn of the centuries. Vienna around 1800: the classical Vienna of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert; Vienna around 1900: the multinational Vienna of Freud, Mahler, Strauss, and Loos; Vienna around 2000: the city of today.

Both modules will be supported through web sites to be developed for the class. The design of these web pages should not only serve as an informational tool but will contain interactive exercises where students respond to various visual (paintings, architecture) or aural (music, speech) stimuli.

Contact: Manfred Bansleben
Associate Professor, Germanics
bansmw@u.washington.edu
Allocation: $60,109
Date Funded: July 1999

Tools for Transformation Funded Proposals