Contemporary German Topics

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course is designed for advanced students of German language and culture who wish to further develop their German language skills and learn to debate the most central issues and controversies of current affairs. In terms of content, we will delve into the political system and the 2021 federal election, debates about sustainability and climate protection, and the controversy surrounding Berlin's Humboldt Forum (which in turn has brought Germany's colonial past into focus), among other topics. We will also enrich the course with field trips and guests - for example, we will incorporate a visit to the Berlin Humboldt Forum into the course and talk to representatives of the parties' youth organizations about the election and the formation of the government. At the end of each module, after a thorough study of facts and arguments and sometimes artistic contributions (e.g. political satire, film), there will be a model debate in which all course participants will take on a role that they have specifically rehearsed. And of course, this course is also specifically about preparing for these debates by studying and practicing idioms, phrases, and grammatical structures that will be used both in the debate itself and in short presentations and essays. Structure: each of the three modules gets 5 seminar sessions and then in the 5th session the role-play debate takes place. The last three sessions are for final debate and the final presentations.