Germanic Languages and Literatures

W. L. Harkness Hall, 432.0788
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.

Chair
Brigitte Peucker

Director of Graduate Studies
Ingeborg Glier (305 WLH, 432.0782, ingeborg.glier@yale.edu)

Professors
Aleida Assmann (Visiting), Ingeborg Glier, Cyrus Hamlin, Leo Lensing (Visiting), Brigitte Peucker, Jeffrey Sammons

Assistant Professor
Matthias Konzett

Fields of Study
Fields include medieval literature, German literature and culture from the Reformation to the twenty-first century in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland; literary theory; literary sociology; film.

Special Admissions Requirement
All students must provide evidence of mastery of German upon application.

Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree
Students are required to demonstrate, besides proficiency in German, a reading knowledge of two other foreign languages, one at the end of the second term, the other by the fifth term of study. Recommended are Latin and French, although other relevant languages may be substituted for these. Students are normally expected to teach undergraduate language courses under supervision beginning in the third year of study. An oral examination must be passed not later than the end of the sixth term of study, and a dissertation prospectus should be submitted soon thereafter, but not later than the seventh term of study. All students will be asked to defend the prospectus in an informal discussion with the faculty. The defense will take place before the prospectus is officially approved, usually in November or early December of the seventh term. Students are admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. upon completion of all predissertation requirements, including the prospectus. After the submission of the prospectus, the student's time is devoted to the preparation of the dissertation. A dissertation committee will be set up for each student at work on the dissertation. It is expected that students will periodically pass their work along to all members of their committee, so that faculty members in addition to the dissertation adviser can make suggestions well before the dissertation is submitted.

Two concentrations are available to students: Germanic Literature and German Studies.

Special Requirements for the Germanic Literature Concentration
During the first two years of study, students are required to take sixteen term courses, four of which may be taken outside the department.

Special Requirements for the German Studies Concentration
During the first two years of study, students are required to take sixteen term courses, seven of which may be taken outside the department. Students are asked to define an area of concentration upon entry, and will meet with appropriate advisers both from within and outside the department.

Master's Degrees
M.Phil. See Graduate School requirements. Alternatively, the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures offers, in conjunction with the Medieval Studies program, a joint M.Phil. degree. For further details, see Medieval Studies.

M.A. (en route to the Ph.D.). Students enrolled in the Ph.D. program may qualify for the M.A. degree upon completion of a minimum of eight graduate term courses and the demonstration of reading knowledge in either Latin or French.

Master's Degree Program. For the terminal master's degree students must pass eight term courses, six of which must be in the department, and demonstrate a reading knowledge of either Latin or French. A comprehensive written examination will be given at the end of the second term.

Program materials are available upon request to the Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Yale University, PO Box 208210, New Haven CT 06520-8210; german@yale.edu.

Courses
GMAN 550a, Kafka between Judaism and Christianity. Leo Lensing. Tues/Thurs 1-2.15
An introduction to key texts by Kafka, including two of the novels, The Trial and The Castle, and several of the most important shorter stories, The Judgment, The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, A Report to an Academy, and Josephine the Singer, or The Mouse Folk. Our approach is to take advantage of recent scholarship on Kafka's Jewish background, in order to explore the ways in which his fiction incorporates reactions to Judaism and to his own Jewish identity. We also focus on how the famous indeterminacy of Kafka's texts, their resistance to any one interpretation and indeed occasionally to any convincing interpretation at all, derives from their assimilation of sometimes contradictory traditions and ideologies. To this end, we also investigate some examples of the "Christian subtext" that coexists uneasily in the same texts that modern scholarship has claimed for reflection of matters Jewish. Readings and discussion in English.

GMAN 576b, Wolfram von Eschenbach. Ingeborg Glier. Wednesday 3.30-5.20
Wolfram's work is unique in narrative texture, experimentation with literary genres and traditions, reflection on contemporary reality, and last, but not least, humor. We read and discuss Parzival, Willehalm, Titurel, and some of the dawnsongs. We also view them against other literary achievements of the period and finally sample the role that Parzival in particular plays in nineteenth-century and contemporary Arthurian revivals.

GMAN 578a, Heine and His Age. Jeffrey Sammons. Monday 3.30-5.20
Readings of selected works of Heine from all his genres. The career of Ludwig Börne and the emergence of Young Germany in the context of censorship; Gutzkow's Wally die Zweiflerin and the Federal Ban of 1835; the political poetry of Vormärz. The political context of the time; introduction to the role these matters have played in contemporary German literary scholarship.

GMAN 579a, Medieval German Literature: A Survey. Ingeborg Glier. Wednesday 3.30-5.20
This course examines German literature from its "beginning" in the Carolingian Age until the time around 1500. We read and discuss representative shorter texts and selections of some larger ones (in the original and in translation). Special attention is given to the development of literary genres, the emancipation of vernacular literature from Latin culture, and the intricate relationships of authors and their audiences.

GMAN 599b, Thomas Mann's Narratives. Ingeborg Glier. Tues/Thurs 9-10.15
Die Erzählungen of Thomas Mann, written over a span of sixty years (1893-1953), read in the context of the novels and essays. Facets of Mann's poetic technique, specific current themes, and their transformations (love-art-death, the artist and society, self and reality). Conducted in German.

GMAN 616b, Freud on Culture. Matthias Konzett. Monday 1.30-3.20
This course examines the legacy of Freud's writings in relation to the cultural context of Vienna. Reading seminal works by Freud, we explore those aspects of his works that reach beyond the immediate concerns of psychoanalysis and can be understood as contributions to cultural studies and criticism. Works include major canonical texts of Freud and essays on the developing cultural history of Vienna. All texts are offered in English and German. Discussion in English.

GMAN 621a, Contemporary Europe in the Novel. Matthias Konzett. Monday 1.30-3.20
This course examines recent European novels from the 1980s to the present, focusing on the growing sense of a shared transnational European legacy and identity. Particular attention is given to themes of historical memory, cultural identity, postcolonial legacies, transformation of traditional European culture, the opening toward Eastern Europe, and the negotiation of multiculturalism. Authors include Kundera, Ransmayr, Kertesz, Kureishi, Barnes, Mulisch, Jelinek, Sebald, Eco, Sarraute, Chamoiseau, Ishiguro, Faschinger, and Cela. Readings and discussion in English.

GMAN 655a, Opera in Germany: Mozart to Kurt Weill. Cyrus Hamlin. Mon/Wed 1-2.15
Survey of the development of opera in the culture of the German-speaking countries from the end of the eighteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. Emphasis on the literary and theatrical aspects of these works, with regard to the interaction of text and music and the challenge of performance in the theater. Works considered include Mozart, Die Zauberflöte; Beethoven, Fidelio; Weber, Der Freischütz; Wagner, Der Fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser, and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; Strauss, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Die Frau ohne Schatten; Berg, Wozzeck; and Weill, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. No knowledge of German or training in music is required. Readings in English; conducted in English. Also CPLT 818au.

GMAN 692a, Sexual Textualities in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna. Leo Lensing. Thursday 3.30-5.20
An investigation of the ways in which discourses on sexuality dominated literary and artistic production within Viennese modernism. Readings and visual analysis of Altenberg, Freud, Hofmannsthal, Klimt, Kokoschka, Kraus, Schiele, Schnitzler, and others. Special attention is given to hybrid forms-Altenberg's "inscribed" photographs, Kokoschka's illustrated texts, Kraus's textual and photographic montages-and to creative and polemical interactions-Schnitzler's and Kraus's critiques of psychoanalysis, Kokoschka's and Schiele's revisions of Klimt, Hofmannsthal's responses to Freud. Readings in German, discussion in English. Also CPLT 559a.

GMAN 720b, The Films of Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders. Brigitte Peucker. Thursday 1.30-3.20
The three major directors of the New German Cinema. Topics include: postmodernism; high and low culture; film's relation to the other arts; issues of gender, race, and national identity; the influence of Hollywood. Readings in English; conducted in English.

GMAN 730b, Spectres of History. Aleida Assmann. Wednesday 1.30-3.20
"The past is not dead, it is not even past." This sentence from Faulkner (which was reused by Christa Wolf as the first sentence of her autobiographical novel Kindheitsmuster) captures well the experience of an ongoing troubled relationship with traumatic experiences of the past. The aim of the course is to provide an introduction to theoretical approaches to trauma from the point of view of different disciplines and to read literary texts that address the impact of various traumas of history. Texts to be discussed: Shakespeare, Hamlet; Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony; Toni Morrison, Beloved; Ruth Klueger, weiter leben. Also CPLT 730b.

Next: History