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Student Feedback:
Student Feedback:
"The interactiveness of this class was perfect for skill-building. Herr Obst constantly tested our understanding of the material and our discussions were often more like conversations, challenging me immensely but also allowing me to greatly improve throughout the semester. Herr Obst's lectures on the text were always fascinating and thought-provoking, and the in-class activities were helpful - especially, I thought, the mapping of allusions in IchundIch and of themes and colors in Baal. I enjoyed receiving feedback on response papers and essays, which was constructive but also encouraging. The open-endedness of discussions was neat; one student's comment might lead us onto a fascinating thought-path from which we all learned. It was truly a collaborative class."
"I was never made to feel embarrassed for making mistakes; Herr Obst kindly and patiently taught us the correct ways to say things. He also considered our ideas and viewpoints and commented on them thoughtfully, while sharing his own perspective, not as the authoritative position, but as a part of a dialogue. He invited debate and critical questions, and the class lent itself to that very well."
"Make sure you are prepared to put in the work for this class. The small group format forces you to be engaged, and the readings are difficult and take time. But there is no better way to improve your German. And you will always be grateful for the opportunity to experience those great works of German theater which are assembled so thoughtfully for this class."
This advanced course, taught in German, familiarizes students with theatrical plays that stand out for stylistic, formal, or thematic reasons, and which challenged the social and artistic conventions of their times. Students improve all four language skills in a relaxed and friendly, yet engaging setting, while also learning about basic concepts of literary theory.
I wanted to show students how the theatrical stage is and has been a place where humans explore what it means to be human. In particular, we focused on the “abysmal” aspect of the human (Woyzeck), namely its characteristic ability to commit incomprehensible and horrible acts. As a secondary goal, I also wanted to introduce students to the idea that theater (and literature in general) often reflects upon itself, questioning the formal conventions of its genre. To that end, I often selected plays that contain a “play within a play,” or a “stage on a stage,” yielding a mise-en-abîme structure. For that reason, many of the authors I chose were radical innovators and notoriously ahead of their times (such as Jakob Lenz, Georg Büchner, or Else Lasker-Schüler), and were often recognized as such much later.
In one unit, we were reading Ichundich by Else Lasker-Schüler, a complex play full of cultural and historical references and allusions, as well as one that defies traditional linear narrative. When gathering their first impressions, I learned that the students liked it a lot, but nevertheless found it hard to read. I asked them to articulate what specifically it was that made the text a difficult one. After they named multiple aspects, I pointed them to the editorial annotations I provided along with the text. They listed all the references and allusions, many of which would necessarily go over their head when reading the text for the first time. I asked them to go through all the scenes for the day individually, and find which references they contained. I then let them discuss their findings in pairs, and group them thematically.
Gathering findings on the board is an interactive and useful way to visualize relationships of characters, themes, and other aspects of a text.
Lenz's play was at first published anonymously. Students enjoyed reading an author, who, while not non-canonical, can be considered both and outsider and an innovator in relation to the established literary scene of his time.
Especially when reading literature from past epochs, there is the challenge of contextualizing instances in literature that reference offensive and harmful stereotypes, and acts of hostile and violent behavior towards minorities. I find it important to convey to students that the artistic and lexical vocabulary to deal with these issues was different than nowadays, and that viewpoints expressed by characters in the text are not necessarily those of the author. In Jakob Lenz's play The Soldiers, there is a scene featuring a Jewish character named Aaron. His home is entered at night by a group of soldiers, who climb into his bed and scare him deeply, only to play a prank at his expense on one of their own comrades. Aaron is not listed as a character in the beginning of the play, and does not feature hereon after. He also makes stereotypical utterances to mark him as “the Jew.” Students keenly observed that his character was a flat, offensive stereotype, not even listed as a character in the play.
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