Courses

This is an unofficial list of courses that will be offered in Germanic Studies in fall 2026. 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 2026

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:   10-10:50, 11-11:50, 12-12:50 
  • 102:    11-11:50
  • 103:   12-12:50
  • 104:    10-10:50

GER 214: Conversational German Through Popular Culture and Media; TR 11-12:15. Instructor: Dr. Imke Meyer

Hone your German conversation skills using a variety of German-speaking movies, music, television shows, podcasts, social media trends, and more! This intermediate-level course offers focused practice in speaking German via discussions about German pop culture. Increase your cultural competency with course materials that advance your understanding of cultural phenomena in German-speaking countries as we compare and contrast German and American popular culture. Using language in popular TV, music, films, and texts as a springboard for our structured conversation practice, this course will also help you refine your pronunciation and grammar, expand your vocabulary, and gain facility with idiomatic phrases. Class will meet three days per week on campus and media will be accessed outside of class as homework. Taught in German. Prerequisite(s): Credit or concurrent registration in GER 104.

GER 333: Crime & Detection in German Culture; TR 9:30-10:45. Instructor: Instructor: Dr. Heidi Schlipphacke

The “Krimi” is one of the most popular genres in contemporary Germany. The fascination with crime and the thrill of detection characterize narratives as diverse as classical detective novels, psychoanalytical “case studies,” and popular television shows. In the 20thcentury, German national crimes include the history of colonial terror and genocide in Africa and the horrors of the Holocaust during the Nazi period. In East Germany between 1949 and 1990 the Stasi (secret police) employed repressive and violent tactics in support of the totalitarian government. We will discuss and analyze a variety of works that engage with these and other crimes and whose narratives are structured around the process of revealing a hidden truth, including crime stories, stories of uncovering family histories, and narratives of horror. Narratives of crime and detection offer an opportunity to search for truths and to bring these truths to light. We will focus on literary works; a graphic novel; visual art; television; films; and psychoanalytical case studies. Discussions will take place in German, and most readings/screenings with be in German. Prerequisite: GER 211 or GER 212 or the equivalent. May be repeated to a maximum of 9 hours.

Fall General Education Courses Taught in English

GER 217: Introduction to German Cinema; MW 2:00-2:50, F online asynchronous. Instructor: Dr. Sara Hall; 3 hours.

This course will provide an overview of one of the most influential national cinemas in the world beginning with the celebrated films of Weimar Germany (1919-1933) and including films made under the Nazis (1933-45), post-war popular cinema (Heimatfilme), films of the critically acclaimed New German Cinema of the 1970s, cinema made in socialist East Germany after World War II, historical dramas, and art house and international favorites of the contemporary period. We will consider the parameters of national cinema, asking to what extent a nations films can be seen as a projection screen for cultural hopes and anxieties. Along these lines, the specters of fascism and the Holocaust loom in post-war German cinema along with the history of the division of Berlin and Germany from 1945-89. We will likewise consider these films in light of the limits of national categorizations for cinema in a globalizing world. In addition to screening and analyzing films, we will read a number of theoretical texts that will provide an aesthetic and cultural frame for interpretation.
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. While concentrating on the German context, and in particular on the works of the Brothers Grimm, in addition to those of Hans Christian Andersen and other authors from the Romantic Period, the course also considers fairy tales drawn from a number of different national traditions and historical periods, ranging from Norse mythology to present-day American culture. The course is organized in topic-based modules. It begins by investigating the origins of the fairy tale form in cultures of oral storytelling and its eventual transposition to print, performed by the Brothers Grimm. Students will examine the historical and socioeconomic circumstances that informed the Grimms’ project of collecting, editing, and disseminating tales, paying special attention to the processes of nation-building and identity-formation through constructions of cultural memory in the wake of the Napoleonic occupation of Germany and the emergence of nationalism in the Romantic movement. With the historical context of the German fairy tale established, the course turns to poetics: students will analyze the fairy tale in contrast to related forms, such as the legend, the epic or mythological tale as well as the literary adaptations by Andersen and other contemporary writers. Afterward, the course focusses on examining various approaches for interpreting fairy tales and for determining their meaning, including methodologies derived from structuralism, folklore studies, gender studies, and psychoanalysis. Specifically, students will explore pedagogical and political uses and abuses of fairy tales and trace the evolution of specific tale types through their transformations in various media.
Creative Arts course, and Past course.

GER/HIST 228: Iron and Blood: Germany in the Making (The Making of Modern Germany); TR 12:30-1:45. Instructor: Dr. Patrick Fortmann

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.
Understanding the Past Course

GER 244: Food and Cultural Imagination; TR 2-3:15. Instructor: Dr. Heidi Schlipphacke
This course will explore food cultures via creative works that engage in a variety of ways with the topic. Material culture is an exciting way to connect creative works with lived experience, and Food Studies offers a particularly engaging avenue into exploring creative works. We will read and screen a variety of creative works representing diverse cultural contexts, in particular those of Northern and Central Europe, in order to analyze the varied discourses and values associated with food and eating – spanning the gamut of community and cultural pride to mass food production and alienation. We will analyze critically not only the modes of representation in creative works, but also affective responses that are associated with food and consumption. We will hone our skills of reading and screening creative works closely in order to appreciate the ways in which imaginative representations of food, cooking, and eating reflect and inform complex relationships to food and bodily experience within Europe and in the European diaspora.
World Cultures Course

 

Fall 2026 Graduate Courses

GER 531: Holocaust Literature; R 3:30-6 pm. Instructor: Dr. Elizabeth Loentz

GER 550: German Literary Studies: Texts, Concepts, Theories; T 3:30-6 pm. Instructor: Dr. Imke Meyer

Past Course Descriptions