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2022/2023

Contemporary German Literature

Code: 100209 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2500245 English Studies OT 3 1
2500245 English Studies OT 4 1
2501801 Catalan and Spanish Studies OT 3 1
2501801 Catalan and Spanish Studies OT 4 1
2501902 English and Catalan Studies OT 3 1
2501902 English and Catalan Studies OT 4 1
2501907 English and Classics Studies OT 3 1
2501907 English and Classics Studies OT 4 1
2501910 English and Spanish Studies OT 3 1
2501910 English and Spanish Studies OT 4 1
2501913 English and French Studies OT 3 1
2501913 English and French Studies OT 4 1

Contact

Name:
Jordi Jane Llige
Email:
jordi.jane@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
catalan (cat)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
Yes
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

Teachers

Jordi Jane Llige

Prerequisites

Prerequisites:

This subject does not require prior knowledge of German language. The works will be read in Catalan or Spanish translation, and will be discussed in these languages. Eventually the originals will be compared with the translations in order to comment on specific aspects.

Objectives and Contextualisation

Objectives:

Learning objectives: the course aims to offer, through six authors, an approach to one of the most brilliant periods of the German expression literature, starting from the repercussions of the First World War and continuing its evolution during the interwar period.
We will comment authors from different German-speaking territories and focus on the diversity of aesthetic and ideological approaches that we find in their literary proposals: Ödön von Horváth, F. Kafka, B. Brecht, A. Seghers, J. Roth and Rilke.
The analysis will include the comparison with the other Western literatures of the same period.

 

Competences

    English Studies
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Draw up essays in Spanish, Catalan or German about literature or cinema originally in German.
  • Generate innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activities.
  • Identifying and relating the major issues of Western literature within German literature.
  • Identifying the basic concepts of history, culture and literature in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret feature films based on literary works originally written in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret literary works originally written in German.
  • Relating the concepts and information from different fields of German literature, and relating these with the concepts and information of human, artistic and social fields in German.
    Catalan and Spanish Studies
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Draw up essays in Spanish, Catalan or German about literature or cinema originally in German.
  • Generate innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activities.
  • Identifying and relating the major issues of Western literature within German literature.
  • Identifying the basic concepts of history, culture and literature in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret feature films based on literary works originally written in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret literary works originally written in German.
  • Relating the concepts and information from different fields of German literature, and relating these with the concepts and information of human, artistic and social fields in German.
    English and Catalan Studies
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Draw up essays in Spanish, Catalan or German about literature or cinema originally in German.
  • Generate innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activities.
  • Identifying and relating the major issues of Western literature within German literature.
  • Identifying the basic concepts of history, culture and literature in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret feature films based on literary works originally written in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret literary works originally written in German.
  • Relating the concepts and information from different fields of German literature, and relating these with the concepts and information of human, artistic and social fields in German.
    English and Classics Studies
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Draw up essays in Spanish, Catalan or German about literature or cinema originally in German.
  • Generate innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activities.
  • Identifying and relating the major issues of Western literature within German literature.
  • Identifying the basic concepts of history, culture and literature in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret feature films based on literary works originally written in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret literary works originally written in German.
  • Relating the concepts and information from different fields of German literature, and relating these with the concepts and information of human, artistic and social fields in German.
    English and Spanish Studies
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Draw up essays in Spanish, Catalan or German about literature or cinema originally in German.
  • Generate innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activities.
  • Identifying and relating the major issues of Western literature within German literature.
  • Identifying the basic concepts of history, culture and literature in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret feature films based on literary works originally written in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret literary works originally written in German.
  • Relating the concepts and information from different fields of German literature, and relating these with the concepts and information of human, artistic and social fields in German.
    English and French Studies
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Draw up essays in Spanish, Catalan or German about literature or cinema originally in German.
  • Generate innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activities.
  • Identifying and relating the major issues of Western literature within German literature.
  • Identifying the basic concepts of history, culture and literature in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret feature films based on literary works originally written in German.
  • Mastering the basic concepts in order to understand and interpret literary works originally written in German.
  • Relating the concepts and information from different fields of German literature, and relating these with the concepts and information of human, artistic and social fields in German.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analyse a text from different aspects and summarising the results of the analysis in a global interpretation.
  2. Analyse various aspects of a film and summarise the results of the analysis in a global interpretation.
  3. Apply various analysis and interpretation methods of films.
  4. Apply various methods of analysis and interpretation of texts.
  5. Assess from literary texts the various cultural contexts from a critical perspective.
  6. Have criteria in order to assess the aesthetics of a literary work or film.
  7. Identify literary genres and currents of great importance to the history of German literature.
  8. Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in the German language.
  9. Practise the critical discourse and implement the argumentative processes.
  10. Produce new professional initiatives.
  11. Recognising theories of other human, artistic, and social areas and applying them to German literature and cinema.
  12. Students must be capable of comprehending advanced academic or professional texts in their own language or the another acquired in the degree.
  13. Students must be capable of precisely arguing ideas and opinions in their own language or another acquired in the degree.
  14. Use the specific expressive resources of the essay genre.

Content

Contents:
 
The course is a review of the main trends, authors and works of German literature of the interwar period. The works will be read in Catalan or Spanish translation.
 
The seminar will be based on the commentary and analysis of the following books (eventually a dossier with copies of short texts will be used)
 
1- Franz Kafka: In the Penal Colony
2- Joseh Roth: Flight without End
3- Rilke: Poetic anthology
4- Ödön von Horváth: A child of our time
5- Bertolt Brecht: The good person of Sezuan
6- Anna Seghres: The Dead Girl's Class Trip

Methodology

Methodology:

 
The subject will be based on reading, searching for information, commenting and exchanging opinions.
The students will assume different roles in the seminar, which we will distribute throughout the course: present biographical information about an author and the context of creation of a work, the analysis of a text, a secondary source; the comment of a passage, etc.
At the end of a reading a comment scheme will be proposed: each student will have to present two comments throughout the course.
A paper will be elaborated about one of the readings proposed in the course.
The structure of the course will be more of a seminar than a master class.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Classes of analysis and interpreation of texts in the group 30 1.2 1, 4, 13, 12, 8, 7
Elaboration of comments and critical essays. Paper 15 0.6 13, 8, 11, 14, 5
Master classes with active student participation and collective discussion 30 1.2 1, 5
Presentations in groups or individuals 13 0.52 13
Type: Supervised      
Support tutorials 15 0.6 13
Type: Autonomous      
Reading books and secondary bibliography 15 0.6 4, 7
Use of Campus Virtual and Internet 10 0.4

Assessment

Evaluation:
Attendance to he sessions is obligatory.

The evaluation of the course will result from the mark obtained in each of the reading comments (30%); of the paper on one of the books (40%) and of the presentation and participation in class (30%).

The reading comments and papers, personal and individual, and related to the results of the analysis in class will be presented 10 days after the end of the discussion in class. The teachers will give the pertinent indications in each case.
If after the deadline for the delivery of the works, a comment is pending submission, it will be necessary to make the recovery through a comment on the day set for the recovery of the subject at the end of the semester.

Recovey: the presentation, the paper on one of the books and the comments are recoverable, as long as the student does not have any of those tasks as not presented. Only 30% of the subject can be recovered.

Students will obtain a Not assessed/Not submitted course grade unless they have submitted all the assessment items.

In the event that evaluative activities cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.

 

Score review process

On carrying out each assessment activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.

 

PLAGIARISM

VERY IMPORTANT: The total and partial plagiarism of any exercise will automatically be considered a SUSPENSE (0) of the plagiarized exercise. If the situation is repeated, the entire seminary will be suspended. PLAGIAR is to copy from unidentified sources of a text, be it a single phrase or more, that is posing as its own production (THIS INCLUDES COPYING INTERNET PHRASES OR FRAGMENTS AND ADDING THEM WITHOUT MODIFICATION TO THE TEXT PRESENTED AS OWN) and is a serious offense. It is necessary to learn to respect the intellectual property of others and to always identify the sources that can be made to serve, and it is essential to take responsibility for the originality and authenticity of the text itself.

In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.




Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Papers written at home 70% 20 0.8 2, 1, 3, 4, 13, 12, 6, 9, 10, 8, 7, 11, 14, 5
Presentation in class 30% 2 0.08 2, 1, 3, 4, 13, 12, 6, 9, 10, 8, 7, 11, 14, 5

Bibliography

Luis A. Acosta (coord..), La literatura alemana a través de sus textos, ed. Cátedra, Madrid, 1997 (UAB /Humanitats)

 

Ferran Gallego, De Múnich a Auschwitz. Una historia del nazismo, 1919-1945., ed. Plaza Janés, Barcelona, 2001.

 

Mª Isabel Hernández, Manuel Maldonado Alemán, Literatura alemana: época y movimientos desde los orígenes hasta nuestros días, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 2003.

 

Manuel Maldonado Alemán, El expresionismo y las vanguardias en la literatura alemana, ed. Síntesis, Madrid, 2006.

 

Hans Mayer, La literatura alemana desde Thomas Mann, trad. de Pilar Lorenzo, Alianza, Madrid, 1970  (UAB / Humanitats).

 

Ladislao Mittner, Storia della letteratura tedesca, Einaudi, Torino, 1984 (UAB / Humanitats).

 

Walter Muschg, Expresionismo, literatura y panfleto, Labor, Madrid, 1976. (IA). 

 

Antonio Ramos-Oliveira, Historia social y política de Alemania, 2 vol., Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 1973 (documentació històrica). (UAB / Humanitats).

 

Marisa Siguán / Hans Gerd Rötzer, Historia de la literatura alemana, ed. Ariel, Barcelona, 1990-1992 (UAB / Humanitats)

Software

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