Neues Curriculum

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Introduction

In recent years, many once traditional departments of German Languages and Literatures underwent a transformation to German Studies departments. These German Studies departments now include the teaching of German history, art, philosophy, gender studies, European Studies, and more in addition to language and literature instruction. The implications of this progressive expansion of German Studies need to be considered. Furthermore, budget restrictions oftentimes call for the merger of several departments, and interdisciplinary approaches are increasingly supported and demanded by the administration, also contributing to the need for a restructuring of German programs. The question remains how to ensure a steady enrollment in traditional German language and literature courses and to prepare students for a much changed job market in the field of German at the same time. It is therefore important to consider new ways of attracting students to German other than through language study and the exposure to German through literature.
Another major concern of higher education in the United States is the focus on international education. Compared to their international counterparts, American students in the past have had relatively limited exposure to global education including study abroad. The US government has increased its efforts to support study abroad experiences for American students at the secondary, but also at the post-secondary level. Generally, participation in study abroad programs has increased among undergraduates throughout the United States; however the trend seems to go towards short term study abroad programs rather than semester or year-long programs. As Cate Brubaker noted, there are numerous positive aspects of short-term study abroad programs such as minimal interruption of the students’ academic year at the home institution and the ability to take courses abroad that are compulsory at the home institution to fulfill general education requirements. Furthermore, as these programs are typically faculty-led, parents and students feel more secure.[1]
Although study abroad participation has increased significantly over the past decade among American undergraduates, college programs across the nation need to be proactive in their efforts to convince American students of the benefits of this aspect of a college education and attract them to such programs. In the following paper, I will describe a study abroad program at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh that is aimed at internationalizing our students’ educational experience through an innovative approach. This program is not tied to a specific discipline, but is truly interdisciplinary, but nevertheless succeeds in attracting students to the German division through the inclusion of a topic course on modern German history and society. I will give a general overview of the history of this program and its components, and will then focus on the course on modern German history that I taught in Germany over the past few years.

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[1] See: Brubaker, Cate. “Six Weeks in the EIFEL: A Case for Cultural Learning during the Short-Term Study Abroad.”

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Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of articles on events that make German Studies more visible on campus and for the community. If your novelty event caused a PR roar, please share your idea: email editors@neues-curriculum.org.

By Astrid Weigert

“And the first prize goes to…,” these celebratory words were the final fanfare for the speech competition project at the Department of German at Georgetown University, which a month earlier had been part of a week-long set of activities commemorating the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. An animated group of about 60 attendees, among them undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff, cheered the 3 winners, and watched excerpts of their winning speeches on Youtube, all the while enjoying German Christmas pastries and hot cider.  What ended so joyously during our holiday party on December 9, 2009, had been set in motion almost a year earlier when my Department, like many others, received a letter of invitation from the German Information Center (GIC) to participate in the “Freedom without Walls” student project week.

The letter of invitation had outlined a number of potential projects that could be part of such a “Freedom without Walls” campus week. We settled on the following: building a replica of the Berlin Wall, a public lecture by German author Peter Schneider and a second one by Prof. Michael Lützeler on Peter Schneider’s oeuvre, a “Berlin Club Night” for the students, a photo exhibit, a film series, and finally, the speech competition in which students would reflect on the significance of the historic event.

Given my Department’s emphasis on curricular cohesion and on teaching all classes in German, it was clear that we wanted GU students to present their speeches only in German (and not in English as the GIC letter had suggested). Our first challenge, therefore, was how to prepare our students in terms of content and language to give a rather complex speech in German on a political-historical topic. The speech competition subcommittee, consisting of our curriculum coordinator Dr. Marianna Ryshina-Pankova, Ph.D. candidate Rebecca Weidner, and myself, quickly identified an existing instructional unit on the fall of the Wall in our 3^rd year course as the best point of departure. A closer look at the materials used in this unit, however, revealed that they were focused exclusively on the years 1989-1990 and reflected only the events and issues of that particular time period. Clearly, if we wanted our students to speak meaningfully about the significance of the events 20 years later, we would need to redesign the unit and include materials ideally up to 2009.

By Stephen Brockmann

I want to divide my discussion of teaching German culture into two parts. The first is a brief theoretical discussion of what we mean when we talk about German culture in both Germany and the United States; the second is a more practical discussion of the implications of my theoretical discussion for the teaching of German culture at American universities. My reflections are tailored specifically to German culture but no doubt also have relevance, albeit with variations, for the teaching of other cultures.

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