Beyond the Two Cultures Model: German Literature/Ecology

Charlotte Melin
Department of German, Scandinavian and Dutch
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

The Case for German + Sustainability Studies

Readings

Literary intellectuals at the one poleat the other scientists . . .

C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures (1959)

Each week students participate in a discussion blog written in

German. The topics ask students to connect the assigned readings
with other aspects of their learning and experience. Students who
have engaged in study abroad add contrastive perspectives.

. . . language is understood as an essential element of

a human beings thought processes, perceptions, and
self-expressions; and as such it is considered to be at the
core of translingual and transcultural competence. . . .
Language is a complex multifunctional phenomenon that links an
individual to other individuals, to communities, and
to national cultures.
MLA Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages (2007)

Sample questions:

Consumer goods play an important role in the work we

are reading as an indication of our impact on the
environment. Select an object and analyze its
potential impact on the environment. What do you think
it means to think of consumption as a sustainability
issue?

German 3441Course Description

Works Cited

Active Learning Assessments

Students research materials for oral reports and collaborative
final project. (Sample courtesy of Jennifer Decker)

Goodbody, Axel. Nature, Technology and Cultural Change in

Twentieth-Century German Literature. Palgrave: McMillen,
2007.
MLA Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages. Foreign
Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed
World. Profession. New York: Modern Language Association of
America, 2007.

Course Objectives

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1998.

In this course students will:

Umweltbundesamt. http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/index-e.htm
expand abilities to read, interpret, and appreciate literary
and multi-media texts related to environmental topics.
exercise effective communication skills in German and English
in ways that lead to the development of critical literacy skills

Student-generated Glossary
For grade credit, students contribute vocabulary items to a glossary
located at the course website. Entries include key terminology,
grammatical information (such as noun gender), definitions, an
example of how the word can be used in a sentence, and
appropriate citations.

explore the complex relationships among the

formal/aesthetic dimensions of literature, the social/historical

Sample (in English translation):

contexts of works we read, and the global perspectives relevant

der Schrebergarten: small garden in a garden colony, named after

Dr. Daniel G. M. Schreber (1808-61). The Schrebergarten is a
microcosm of Switzerland today <http://www.swissinfo.ch>.

to addressing environmental issues today.

www.P osterPresentations. com

Links from the course website facilitate exploration of

international connections through supplementary readings,
video, and audio materials. Students have opportunities to
critically evaluate the reliability of websites, use on-line
reference sources, and encounter dialectical variations in
spoken German.

Compare the understanding of environmental issues in

Pfisters Muehle with the situation today. To what extent do we see
environmental questions similarly? How do we view
progress today differently from Raabes characters?

Course premise: The majority of German majors are double majors

and many students who minor in the department have majors
in fields that intersect with sustainability studies, such as Global
Studies, Journalism, Ecology and related science disciplines.
Internationalization of the curriculum connects these
areas of educational concentration.

TEMPLATE DESIGN 2008

Global Connections On-line

Kaminer uses descriptions of photographs at the beginning

of his work to contrast the relationship to nature of
generations in and past and people today. Select two
photographs that show the relationship between man and
nature and describe them in German.

Germany is global leader in exports of environmental protection

products
Umweltbundesamt/The Federal Environmental Agency
(2008)

Volcanic eruptions in Iceland, local food, oil exploration, polluted

waters, aluminum factories, Chernobyl, global warmingif you
follow the news in the past year, these items have been on your
radar, but did you know that these issues have been important in
German literature in the long 20th century? In this course, we will
explore environmental issues through the lens of German literary,
film, and nonfiction texts. Our readings will include poetry,
Enzensbergers epic poem about the limits of technological
progress, Der Untergang der Titanic (The Sinking of the Titanic),
short novels and novellas. We will begin with Kaminers satire about
gardening, local food, and Thoreau, Mein Leben im Schrebergarten
(My Life in the Garden Plot). Turning our attention to Raabes
Pfisters Muehle (Pfisters Mill) from 1884, which describes the link
between factory construction and water pollution, we will encounter
what is considered to be the first text in German about
environmental issues. Thomas Manns Tristan (1901), a story that
takes place in an alpine sanatorium, introduces us to the ways in
which landscape has been imagined to shape identity.
Leuteneggers Kontinent (Continent) records the impressions of a
fictional journalist assigned to research the community near to a
Swiss aluminum plant, Wolfs Stoerfall (Accident: A Days News)
meditates on the implications of Chernobyl in terms of human life,
and Falkners Bruno takes a wry look at the handling of a rouge
bear incident as well the issue of global warming. Parallel to the
literary our reading of texts, we will analyze several cinematic
treatments of ecological issues and examine essays in ecocritism
(Goodbody) that will guide our analysis of texts.

Forum Discussions

Contact information
Charlotte Melin
Department of German, Scandinavian and Dutch
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
melin005@umn.edu