German Courses

• Fall and spring semester

• Speaking, writing, reading, and understanding of basic German, with emphasis on communication and proficiency

Learn German, no prior knowledge necessary!

• Fall and spring semester

• Continue your Elementary German Education! Topics: Festivals and Celebrations, At home and on Vacation, Getting around and transportation.

• Fall and spring semester

• Continue your German Education! Topics: At the doctor and your health,city life Job and career, and Nature.

Intensive review of grammar, with emphasis on the development of the skills of speaking, listening comprehension, reading, and writing.

• Fall and spring semester

• Continue your Intermediate German Education! Take a trip through Germany and learn about the language, culture, history and music through checking out several cities.

Intensive review of grammar, with emphasis on the development of the skills of speaking, listening comprehension, reading, and writing.

• Spring  semester

• This course aims to help you understand German grammar and put it in context. Helps you understand the grammar and know how to use it in both written and spoken German. 

• Fall semester

• This course aims to build and improve your conversational skills by strengthening active vocabulary knowledge, train your listening and speaking skills, and develop strategies to understand and respond in everyday German situations. Activities both inside and outside of class are based on communicative interaction. In addition, this course will also guide you further into learning about current events und topics in the cultures of the German-speaking countries. Since this is a conversation course, speaking and listening skills are the main emphasis rather than grammar-based writing skills. While grammar knowledge is an important part of language learning, grammar will be explicitly addressed only insofar as it supports learners’ ability to converse. 

• Fall semester

• This course is designed to help you develop your proficiency for reading longer texts in German, to better analyze what you read and watch, and to introduce you to areas of  topical concern related to German-speaking culture, broadly defined. Students in the course will determine the topic areas they would most like to learn more about, and then assemble a collection of texts, which will serve as the focus of our class over the course of the semester. We will investigate various themes, such as literature and culture, cultural studies, history, politics and education, and the role of science and the environment. The course focuses primarily on building reading proficiency, but visual media will also play a part.

• Spring semester

• This course invites all students on a journey through a variety of writing and speaking adventures in German. From academic to creative writing, and from theater to presentational speaking, offers opportunities to bring all language skills to life.

• Fall semester

• This course allows you to work on a project for a German company, write a German job application, experience German business Culture and explore Germany's economic relations.

• Spring semester

• This course covers current research approaches to the German-speaking world such as environmental, migration and memory studies to help students articulate a unique question about the German-speaking world based on their individual interests. Over the course of the semester, students explore their focal area by designing a project that can take a variety of forms, from the classic research paper to digital exhibitions, audio-visual media, or artworks. Develops research skills, discovers interdisciplinary approaches, and discusses outcomes with peers and the community. The majority of course materials and language of instruction are in German.

• Fall semester 

• The Weimar Republic has been described by many historians as the crucible in which the roots of National Socialism were forged. Although characterized by economic depression, political factionism and social decline, Weimar Germany also experienced a profound cultural growth. The medium of film helped to articulate many of the advances that were making themselves felt within the artistic, political, and economic arenas.

This course will examine a handful of films from this exciting period in German cinema production, with an eye to engaging issues of Otherness and its filmic depiction within the cinematic genres of horror, science fiction and suspense, with a possible foray into film melodrama.  Here, the concept of Otherness as an embodiment of prevalent gender, race, social, spatial, and political constructs, will be explored.

• Fall semester

• WHY A COURSE ON MIGRATION, ART, & PLACE in Berlin and Phoenix? Germany and the United States attract large numbers of immigrants and have diverse migrant populations with different but also comparable histories. WHAT WILL WE DO? We will investigate migration to Germany & the United States with a focus on art as a means of cultural expression, community building, and justice. HOW WILL WE DO IT? We will engage in hands-on and service learning activities in a small lab setting. WHAT WILL BE THE OUTCOME? We will use our research to design projects that have the potential to impact our local context and change the world

• Fall semester 

• What is it that makes us human? In this course, we will explore humanity as a fluid category in perpetual motion. Our emphasis will be on female, queer, and disabled protagonists, who have traditionally been situated at the limits of the human. Among other things, we will discuss the strange ecologies of android bodies, probe the subversive potential of the cyborg in relation to questions of disability, and think about what it means to be human in the Anthropocene by drawing on the political promise of ecofeminist thought. Bringing theories of posthumanism into conversation with feminist and queerstudies, disability studies, and the environmental humanities, this course will reconsider international and German-language film and literature, including classic fairy tales, graphicnovels, and recent science fiction.