UCLA
The Department of Germanic LanguagesPhoto credit: Patricia Wiley
The UCLA Department of Germanic Languages offers a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in English and German. For information about specific section times and locations please view the UCLA Schedule of Classes.
For a complete listing and description of department courses visit the UCLA General Catalog.
Three great 20th-century Yiddish cultural centers of New York, Warsaw, and Vilna each had unique resonance, and produced or had tremendous influence on many literary giants who chose to write in Yiddish. Readings in English translation explore selected prose, drama, and poetry masterworks; and wherever possible, film adaptations are viewed. Examination and contrast of subject matter, writing styles, and legacies pertinent to influences of cities with which writers are most closely associated, all within broader context of modern Yiddish literature. Some major themes explored include influence of place on Jewish identity and aspiration; social currents and literary expression; women’s voices and Jewish particularity; and wellspring of tradition versus lure of modernity.
Lecture, three hours. Requisite: course 131A or 131B. Varying topics of importance and relevance to Yiddish literary study. Reading and analysis of wide range of 19th- and 20th-century literature. P/NP or letter grading.
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Use of media of Yiddish cinema (classic films and documentaries) as primary focal points to examine ways in which one heritage culture, that of Ashkenazic Jews, adapted to forces of modernity (urbanization, immigration, radical social movements, assimilation, and destructive organized anti-Semitism) from late-19th century to present. Exploration of transformational themes in depth through viewing of selected films, readings, research and weekly papers, and in-class discussions. P/NP or letter grading.
Lecture, four hours; language laboratory. Requisite: course 103B. Grammatical exercises, conversation, reading and analysis of simple texts. P/NP or letter grading.
Lecture, five hours. Enforced requisite: course 1. P/NP or letter grading.
Lecture, five hours. Enforced requisite: course 4. P/NP or letter grading.
Lecture, three hours. Taught in English. Analysis of major issues in German feminism today (e.g., status, creative work, and reception of women writers in various periods such as Romanticism, Fascism, and/or divided/unified Germanies). Letter grading.
Seminar, three hours. Limited to senior German majors. Collaborative discussion of and reflection on courses already taken for major, drawing out and synthesizing larger themes and culminating in paper or other final project. Must be taken in conjunction with one course numbered 140 or higher. Letter grading.
Lecture, three hours. Enforced requisite: course 152 or 153. Grandparents: Negotiating History, Memory, and Identity Across Generations. Stories that grandparents tell and stories about grandparents are crucial means of negotiating one’s relationship to history, partaking in cultural memory, and defining identity. Such stories have been strikingly prominent in contemporary German literature and culture, both as a means of securing identity and of questioning it. In this course, we will examine how grandparents figure in select contemporary German memoirs, short stories, essays, films, and documentaries. We will also consult scholarly perspectives on issues raised by foregrounding grandparents, history, and memory such as the influential study Opa war kein Nazi. Finally, students will also have a chance to reflect creatively about their own familial configuration in relationship to the material we are discussing. The course will be taught in German and will help you develop your German in reading, speaking, and writing at an advanced level. Letter grading.
Lecture, three hours. Introduction to Middle High German language, with particular emphasis on developing facility in reading. Study of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary combined with introduction to poetic forms and cultural context. Letter grading.
This course draws on both cultural memory studies and on migration studies in order to investigate the intersection of migration and memory.
Two diametrically opposed assumptions generally govern thinking about the effects of migration on memory: either that migration leads to a loss of memory or that migrants live enclosed in their memories of a lost homeland. In this course, we critically examine these assumptions and attempt to formulate alternative conceptions, building on the transnational/ transcultural turn in memory studies. Considering diverse forms of displacement, we will pay particular attention to the discursive and institutional conditions under which memory is shaped in migration. Questions will concern, among others, the relationship of literature to memory regimes, the body in movement as a site of memory, the notion of inheritance of the past, and the effect of language choice and translation on remembering.
Primary texts by W.G. Sebald, Barbara Honigmann, Hans-Ulrich Treichel, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Jürgen Becker, Menekse Toprak, and Olga Grjasnowa. Theoretical readings include Pierre Nora, Jan and Aleida Assmann, Marianne Hirsch, Irial Glynn and Oliver Kleist, and Roger Waldinger among others.
No previous knowledge of memory studies or migration studies required. All materials available in original and English translation. Class will be conducted in English. While the primary materials are principally drawn from contemporary German literature, the course welcomes students with interests in other periods and literatures to help interrogate the transferability of the questions under discussion.
For the first class, please read Pierre Nora’s foundational essay “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire” Representations (1989): 7-24, also available on the course website or from Professor Yildiz at yildiz@humnet.ucla.edu