Courses

This is an unofficial list of courses that will be offered in Germanic Studies in Fall 2024. It is strictly for the use of expanded course descriptions. For the complete official course offerings, please consult the My.UIC portal.

For a list of all courses and general course descriptions, please see the UIC Academic Catalog.

Germanic Studies Classes Fall 2025

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GER 101, 102 (Elementary German I & II); GER 103, 104 (Intermediate German I & II). MWF 4 hours.
All beginning and intermediate German language courses are blended-online and classroom courses. Use of computer and internet access is required.

  • 101:    11-11:50 am, 12-12:50 pm, & 1-1:50 pm
  • 102:    11-11:50 
  • 103:    11-11:50 pm
  • 104:    1-1:50 am

GER 211:  Exploring German Cultures; 3 hours. Instructor: Dr. Heidi Schlipphacke; TR 11-12:15

This course will explore the concepts “home” and “Heimat” (homeland) through a cultural, historical, and political lens. What is understood to be“German” or “Germanic?” These concepts are both inclusive and exclusive.How do myth, political discourse, and cultural narratives contribute to notions of indigeneity? In exploring questions related to “home,” we will engage with a wide variety of cultural and historical textual and visual materials. Taught in German. In the context of analysis and discussions, vocabulary acquisition and a deepening of proficiency in German will be a course focus. Course Information: May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours. Prerequisite(s): GER 104 or the equivalent.


GER 310: Contemporary German Language, Culture, and Society. 3 hours. Instructor: Dr. Imke Meyer; TR 2-3:15 pm

As the world enters a period of cultural and geostrategic realignment, Germans need to confront their history anew. In a world that is being reordered at a rapid pace, does it make sense to hold fast to the commitment, made in the wake of World War II and the crimes of Nazi Germany, never again to build a German military that would have offensive capabilities? In the face of a resurgence of nationalism all across Europe and many other regions of the world, how should the German nation define itself? As migration and displacement of vast numbers of people increase around the world in the wake of wars, oppression, and climate change, should Germany look inward or open its doors wider to those in need? As AI increasingly embeds itself in our daily lives, how should schools and universities in Germany respond? To grapple with these and other questions, we will look to Germany’s history and present, to its literature, to its cinema, to its popular culture, and to its print, broadcast, and digital media to begin to find some answers. Taught in German. Course Information: May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours. Prerequisite(s): Credit or concurrent registration in GER 211; or Credit or concurrent registration in GER 212; or Credit or concurrent registration in GER 214 or the equivalent.

Fall General Education Courses Taught in English

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GER/SPAN/LCSL 207: European Cinema; Instructor: TBA; 3 hours; online asynchronous

This course provides an overview of some of the major developments and filmmakers in European cinema from the post-World War II period to the present. Europe is the home of the “art film,” and we will analyze this category by looking at various manifestations of this genre from a variety of European nations. The “art film” initially arose as a reaction to the hegemony of Hollywood after the war. Post-war European film reflects a complex love-hate relationship with American film, and this will become clear through an examination of the techniques of citation and parody used by European directors. We will learn about major film movements including Italian Neorealism, the French New Wave, New German Cinema, Dogme 95, the cinemas of Eastern Europe before and after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and contemporary transnational European cinema. Students will utilize film terminology to analyze films within their particular historical and cultural contexts. Course Information: Same as LCSL 207 and SPAN 207. Prerequisite(s): ENGL 160. Creative Arts course, and World Cultures course.


GER 217: Introduction to German Cinema; Instructor: Dr. Sara Hall; 3 hours; TR 12:30-1:45 pm

This course introduces students to a diverse selection of films made in Germany between 1895 and 2020 and offers practice in examining them as explorations and expressions of the human imagination and the human experience during the socio-historical events and transitions specific to twentieth-century Germany (East and West). Through reading assignments, in-class discussion, on-line discussion, quizzes, homework assignments and paper writing, students will develop analytical skills in the viewing and interpretation of films and in writing original arguments about film history and cinema culture. Students taking GER 217 will gain the vocabulary for interpreting, analyzing, evaluating and researching films in the context of the history that shaped and was shaped by them. They will advance their ability to read, experience and view films carefully, to think critically, to argue cogently and to communicate ideas about cinema and a non-US culture in written and oral form. This course serves as an elective in the Germanic Studies major and minor, the minor in Moving Image Arts and as a General Education course in the categories of World Cultures and Creative Arts and Ideas. This is a great course for people with an interest in German cultural history or international film history in general. Films will be watched outside of class, supplemented by online discussion and interactive elements on Blackboard. Course Information: Taught in English. No knowledge of German required. Area literature/culture. Creative Arts course, and World Cultures course.


GER 219: Princesses and Storytellers; Instructor: Dr. Patrick Fortmann; Online Asynchronous 

This course analyzes the structure, meaning, and function of German fairy tales and their enduring influence on global literature, film, and popular culture. Concentrating on the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and the course examines fairy tales from a variety of cultures and traditions, ranging from Norse mythology to present-day America. The course is organized in topic-based modules. It will investigate the origins of the fairy tale form in cultures of oral storytelling and its eventual transposition to print. Students will examine the historical and socioeconomic circumstances that informed the Grimms’ project of collecting, editing, and disseminating tales as well as emerging practices of tale creation. The course will also introduce standard scholarly approaches to interpreting fairy tales and their adaptations, such as folk lore studies, narratology, gender studies, psychoanalysis, and animal studies. Through close readings of literary tales, the course provides basic tools for narrative interpretation and critical argumentation. Course Information: Taught in English. Area literature/culture. No knowledge of German required. Creative Arts course, and Past course.


GER/HIST 228: Iron and Blood: Germany in the Making (The Making of Modern Germany). 3 hours. Instructor: Dr. Patrick Fortmann; TR 9:30-10:45

“Iron and Blood: Germany in the Making” The course offers a comprehensive survey of the German experience in Central Europe and elsewhere, in the so-called “long nineteenth century” – in many respects the formative period for the making and un-making of the nation in the world. It specifically focusses on major political, cultural, and socioeconomic trends in Germany and beyond that influenced the multifaceted processes of nation-building in a global context. The course considers the impact the Germans had on the world and, conversely, the decisive impact the world had on the Germans. Working through divers textual, audial, and visual sources and in dialogue with recent scholarship, the course explores questions of memory and legacy and aims at decentering persistent ideas of nation and ethnicity by way of highlighting the interrelatedness of migration and identity-formation. Course Information: Same as HIST 228. Taught in English. Past course.


For more information about Germanic Studies courses, please contact Ms. Meg LaLonde (mlalonde@uic.edu) or Dr. Patrick Fortmann (pfortmann@uic.edu): http://lcsl.uic.edu/germanic.

Fall 2025 Graduate Courses

GER 514: Germanic Culture from the Industrial Revolution to the Present; Instructor: Dr. Sara F. Hall; T 3:30-6 pm

This course will inquire into German literature’s textual and contextual visual economies. Mobilizing concepts such as apparatus, subjectivity, focalization, perspective, transparency, identification, triangulation, and desire, we will examine how texts relay the sensory experiences of characters while they also activate emotional and sensory responses in readers. Particular attention will be paid to the social, cultural, and technological environments represented in the texts and those shaping the surrounding culture of literary production and reception. Readings will draw on work by authors such as Aichinger, Bachmann, Brecht, Böll, Hoffmann, Hoffmansthal, Kafka, Kaschnitz, Keun, Kracauer, Özdamar, Schnitzler, Seghers, Tieck, and Wolf. Texts are available in German as well as in English; discussions will be in English.

GER 550: The Aesthetics and Politics of Kinship; Instructor: Dr. Imke Meyer; R 5-7:30 pm

This course will explore the diverse kinship structures represented in modern German imaginative works spanning the 18th to the 21st century. Kinship (“Verwandtschaft”), family (“Familie”), and friendship (“Freundschaft”) are nebulous and intermingling concepts in the German Enlightenment and the periods that directly follow it. We will read a variety of literary, theoretical and philosophical works that highlight the allegorical and political functions that inhere in theories of family and kinship. We will likewise explore kinship through the lens of race and posthumanism (human/animal and human/machine relations) and in the context of the categories of class and gender.

Past Course Descriptions