Prof. Carolin Duttlinger Fellow and Tutor in German Wadham College Oxford OX1 3PN Tel.: 01865 277962 Fax: 01865 277937 E-mail: carolin.duttlinger@wadham.ox.ac.uk July 2018 Reading list for the First Year of Studying German at Wadham College Dear All, Many congratulations on getting a place to study German at Wadham! The German team is looking forward to meeting you in October. This letter will give you an outline of the first-year German course and the different modules (or papers ) involved. It ll tell you which books you need to buy and the preparations you need to undertake before coming here in the autumn. Course outline: The Modern Languages course at Oxford, whether you are studying two languages, German with another subject or German on its own ( German Sole ), involves a firstyear examination ( Prelims ) which will take place in June 2019. Your first year of study will prepare you for these exams. It ll aim to a) consolidate your written and spoken German language; b) give you a good understanding of German society and culture from 1890 to the present; and c) introduce you to the study of German literature. All students of German study two language papers in the first year. One involves translating out of and into German; the other involves writing essays in German and answering questions about a reading comprehension passage. This part of the course will be taught in German by German native speakers. For the literature part of your course, you will study a selection of prose narratives (novels and short stories) and plays written between 1890 to 1933. In addition, we will also study a selection of German poetry from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. This part of the course will be taught in English, and the essays you ll write for this will also be in English. We will study these texts in the following order: Michaelmas Term (October to December): the four plays. Hilary Term (January until March): the four prose works. The poetry will be studied alongside these across all three terms.
*** The following information is for students studying German Sole. If this is not you then please go straight to the next section headed Preparation for the course. If you are studying German sole, there are a further three papers that make up your first-year course: Introduction to German Film Studies This paper is in weekly seminars in the first (Michaelmas) term and introduces students to German cinema, focusing on four films from the time of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933). Introduction to German Medieval Studies This paper is studied in the second (Hilary) term and is taught by a combination of seminars and tutorials. It will focus on the close study of the medieval prose narrative Gregorius by Hartmann von Aue. Students will be given an introduction to the language and will be expected to read the set text in Middle High German. Key Texts in German Thought This paper is studied in second and third terms and will be taught in seminars. The focus will be on four short philosophical texts from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. *** For all German students Preparation for the course: 1) Literature At the end of this letter, you will find a list of the texts you will study in the first year. PLeasse buy them now (they are not very expensive) and read the four plays and four prose texts over the summer. Once you are here and the course has started, you will be very busy and won t have time to start reading these texts from scratch. It is therefore essential that you read these literary texts thoroughly before you come up to start your degree. How to prepare the texts: make sure look up any words that you don t know and write down their meaning into your book (into the margins). Given that some of the texts are long, it s also a good idea to write a brief plot summary at the top of every other page. This will make it much easier to find your way round the texts when we study them together. Some of these texts are quite difficult in terms of the language and the content. Please don t worry if you don t understand every detail. We will go through them bit by bit in our tutorials.
As you will start with the plays in Michaelmas Term it s a good idea to read them last of all, so you ve got them fresh in your mind when you arrive. You don t need to prepare any of the poems but make sure you buy the anthology of German poetry (see reading list below). If you want to get a first impression of German literary history, you could browse through Nicholas Boyle s German Literature: A Very Brief Introduction (Oxford University Press). For an overview of German history, see Mary Fulbrook s A Concise History of Germany (Cambridge University Press, updated edition 1992). 2) Language In Oxford we put a lot of emphasis on language learning, and 50% of your mark in the first-year exams will be based on language. For your weekly grammar lessons you should buy Martin Durrell s Hammer s German Grammar in the 5th edition (published 2011). In addition, make sure that you have a reliable German-English dictionary, such as Collins, Oxford or Langenscheidt. Other books you may find useful are: Practising German Grammar by Durrell, Kohl and Loftus (2nd edition), a vocabulary book such as Using German Vocabulary by Sarah M.B Fagan (Cambridge University Press, 2004) or Collins 10, 000 German words. Note also the very useful Collins German Verb Tables. While you will receive a lot of language teaching in your first year, you should make sure you do some grammar and vocab revision over the summer. In particular, please make sure you know your irregular verbs, tenses and cases. I ll be on research leave until Christmas, so won t be teaching you in your first term, but I ll see you at Freshers Dinner in October. Your German tutor in the first term is Ms Myrto Aspioti. She will be in touch before the start of term about meetings. In the meantime, though, if you have any questions, please do feel free to email me at the above address. I wish you a relaxing and productive summer and look forward to meeting you in October. Best wishes, Carolin Duttlinger Shopping list: Listed below are the most inexpensive editions of the prose works and plays. All of these can be ordered via Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk or www.amazon.de).
Plays: Arthur Schnitzler, Liebelei, in: Reigen / Liebelei: 2 Theaterstücke (Fischer Taschenbuch) Frank Wedekind, Frühlings Erwachen (Reclam) Bertolt Brecht, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek) M (film - directed by Fritz Lang) [DVD: Eureka 2012 Masters of Cinema edition. ASIN B0030GBSSO] Prose works: Theodor Fontane, Effi Briest (Reclam) Thomas Mann, Der kleine Herr Friedemann, in: Th. Mann, Frühe Erzählungen 1893-1912 (Fischer Taschenbuch) Franz Kafka, Die Verwandlung (Reclam) Irmgard Keun, Nach Mitternacht (List Taschenbuch) Poetry: Deutsche Lyrik: Eine Anthologie, edited by Hanspeter Brode (Suhrkamp) Language and grammar: Martin Durrell, Hammer s German Grammar and Usage (4 th edition; Hodder Arnold) Martin Durrell, Katrin Kohl, Gudrun Loftus, Practising German Grammar (Hodder Arnold) German Dictionary (Collins or Oxford) Collins 10, 000 German words Collins German Verb Tables For GERMAN SOLE students only: Middle High German: Hartmann von Aue, Gregorius: Mittelhochdeutsch/Neuhochdeutsch (Reclam; ISBN 978-3-15-001787-6) German thought: Immanuel Kant, Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht in: Kant Was ist Aufklärung? Ausgewählte kleine Schriften (Meidner: Philosophische Bibliothek vol. 512), ISBN 978-3787313570 Text also available online at: http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/?id=5&xid=1365&kapitel=1#gb and at: http://www.ac-nice.fr/philo/textes/kant-idee.htm Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Das kommunistische Manifest (Reclam; ISBN 978-3-15-008323-9)
Friedrich Nietzsche, Zur Naturgeschichte der Moral, in: Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse (Reclam; ISBN 978-3-15-007114-4) Sigmund Freud, Warum Krieg? in: Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (Fischer; ISBN 978-3596104536) Film: The college library has copies of all the prescribed films, so you don t need to buy them. Just in case you prefer to own your own copies, here is a list of the preferred editions: Nosferatu (dir. F. W. Murnau, 1922). DVD: Eureka 2013 Masters of Cinema edition (based on Murnau Stiftung restoration). ASIN: B00EQ27RLS Berlin: Symphonie der Großstadt (dir. W. Ruttmann, 1927). DVD: Edition Filmmuseum Berlin, die Sinfonie der Großstadt/Melodie der Welt (2 DVDs). ASIN: B001N2WG3I (This edition is cheaper when ordered from amazon.de) Die drei von der Tankstelle (dir. W. Thiele, 1930). DVD: Ufa Klassiker Edition. ASIN: B0002Y2Y62 Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (dir. F. Lang, 1933). DVD: Eureka 2012, Masters of Cinema edition. ASIN: B007Z0HJZ2