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The Grinnell College German Departmental Offerings
The Grinnell College German Department offers
a wide variety of opportunities and activities open to both majors
and non-majors to help expand students' linguistic and intellectual
horizons beyond the classroom.
German Table
Film Series
Writer-in-Residence
Guest Lecturers
Native-Speaker Language Assistant
Multimedia Support
German Table
A weekly dinner meeting in Cowles Dining Hall at the "Deutschtisch"
gives students and faculty members an opportunity to speak German
in an informal setting. Students from the intermediate to the
advanced levels of instruction are encouraged to participate.
This semester German Table takes place every Tuesday night at
6 in a Cowles PDR.
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Film Series
Students are encouraged to make the most of the department's
fine collection of film, and in recent semesters several majors
have taken the initiative to organize a weekly film series. Screened
with English subtitles, these films have been well-attended by
majors, nonmajors and the wider campus community. Past series
have included one on New German Cinema (Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders)
and one on film adaptations of literary masterpieces.
See the current schedule of films for
this semester.
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Writer-in-Residence
Each year the department hosts a German writer-in-residence,
who teaches a seven-week mini-course during the spring semester.
Established in 1988, this course focuses on the current literary
scene in Germany. Grinnell's German department is the only one
of its size that offers such a program on an annual basis. Recent
guests have included the East German writer Jens Sparschuh; Cologne
specialist in film, theater and women's studies, Renate Moehrmann;
and Berlin filmmaker Jochen Bruenow. We are lucky enough to have
Oliver Schuette coming to join us this spring.
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Guest Lecturers
The faculty invite internationally known German speakers to
campus to speak about topics of interest to German students.
These guests talk with students in individual German classes
as well as giving a public lecture on campus. Previous speakers
have included poets Christoph Meckel, Arno Reinfrank; novelist
Barbara Frischmuth; and modern Germanists Peter Uwe Hohendahl
and Jost Hermand. With generous support from the German Marshall
Fund and other visiting scholar programs, Grinnell has regularly
featured speakers of particular interest to students exploring
the connections between German culture and international relations.
In the past year alone a prominent German economist and the mayor
of Leipzig, Germany have visited Grinnell's campus.
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Native-Speaker Language Assistant
Each year the department sponsors a different language assistant
from Germany, usually from Freiburg or Berlin. The assistant
is an older student who serves as an additional resource for
students of German and depending on student interest, organizes
extracurricular activities. The language assistant conducts German
212 (conversational practice) for intermediate and advanced students
in addition to a conversation section ("German Lab")
complementing the introductory language sequence (see Course
Offerings).
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Multimedia Support
Instruction at Grinnell is supported by the first Sony language
lab in the nation. The department houses an extensive and growing
film and laser disk collection of over 300 titles ranging from
early cinema classics to contmporary documentaries. Classrooms
are each equipped with a laser-disc/VCR/CD station. The College
receives daily satellite broadcasts from Germany (Deutsche
Welle), which are adapted for classroom use in some courses.
Films, videos and music complement various courses in the language
and literature sequence. Grinnell recently added a multimedia
consultant to its staff specifically to aid foreign language
faculty in integrating the latest technologies into their teaching.
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