Updated 15 March 2005. Items will be posted with the newest at the top.

posted 15 March 2005 - GER399 will showcase its group project, a recording of the radio play (Hörspiel) "Der Fisch" / "The Fish" (1972), by Lothar Streblow, on Thursday, 17 March 2005, from 11 am to noon in 393 Neuberger Hall. The theme of the play is ecological disaster, authoritarian government, and freedom. The graphic below gives a start on what happens in the drama… The presentation will be in German and English, with refreshments, a program booklet, door prizes, and, if all goes well, a CD for each attendee.

At the left are the graphics for the "Fisch" T-shirt, one of the door prizes at the showcase. Click on the picture to enlarge it in a new window. Click on the sound controller below to hear the chilling conclusion of "Der Fisch." In the world of 3005, where people live in cities under glass domes after a global ecological disaster, the authorities cannot allow someone to go around telling people that she has seen a fish and that maybe they soon won't need to live in confinement. (mp3 with QuickTime, 60" / 1MB)

posted 15 March 2005 - GER 399, in conjunction with GER 320, has won one of the two 2005 PSU Awards for Teaching & Learning with Technology. The award will be conferred at the PSU Technology Fair on 3 May. Selection this link to see the application document.

posted 1 January 2005 - Welcome to GER 399 "German Science Fiction." Although I have one of the oldest (1996) and biggest websites at PSU, this is the first year that GER 399 has had its own area of my site. But plenty of materials from my work with German SF have already been available. Use these fast links to look at (and hear!) them:

The Empire Strikes Out, my book about German SF. Copies will be made available for use without charge during the course, and the PSU library has it as well. Powell's may a one for sale.

The Papa Joe & Co. project - performance of a German SF radio play, recorded in binaural (synthetic head stereo) sound. The recording was begun in a previous version of this course, but there's still more to do.

Here are some thoughts about the course.

Use this link to read an article I published about teaching and learning literature and language.

1) I don't believe in lecturing to passive learners, and I hope you don't either.

2) Learning about literature should also include development of language skills.

3) Literature doesn't have to be an "academic" subject, and most students don't want it to be. Neither do I. You should be able to relate it to your "normal" life (but through that you can also learn much of the "academic" aspects).

4) Enrollment is small, so everyone needs to be an active and eager contributor (and to work well with others).

As you can see from the book I wrote about German SF, I can provide you with a wide range of core materials and also many specialized ones - both the original texts and what has been written about them. Along the way I can provide a "survey" of German SF, but we are not just going to read through a collection of texts in an effort to go from the beginnings of German SF (whenever that is) up to now. But I do have a good collection of early and rare editions, from finely published books to pulp novels to radio dramas.

I intend for a major focus of the course (maybe THE major focus) to be an interaction with one rich text: a chance to read it, discuss it, look into its background, think about its audience, and also perform it (or present it to others in some similar way). The likely candidate is Franke's "Papa Joe & Co.," but there are other possibilities, some of which depend on how many people stay in the course. For example, we could do Streblow's futuristic environmentalist piece "Der Fisch," which has been done twice by this course before, but could certainly benefit from some more attention. There many other ways to keep ourselves productively occupied.

But that remains to be determined. What about the immediate stuff?

At our first meeting I want to do a lot of exploring and gather a lot of information about you. Here are activities I'm considering, almost all of which involve both use of German and development of content for the course:

1) The usual "ice-breaker" activity, but with a focus on Science Fiction (and Science, and Fiction…)

2) An inventory of language proficiency

3) An inventory of specialized skills that might be of use in the course

4) A quick intro to German SF and its relation to the major tradition of Anglo-American SF (with some mention of other major strands of SF, such as Russian and French)

5) A movie excerpt that both illustrates the importance of German science and SF in the development of Anglo-American SF and also lets us check out the German skills.

If that goes more or less as planned, I want to give you some things to read and do for Thursday and later:

An article about how another course at another university promoted learning of language and culture by staging a play.

The short story that became Franke's radio play "Papa Joe."

A classic American SF short story, so that we can explore the concepts of SF that we bring to the course.

The entry about German SF from a standard SF reference work.

As far as initial assignments go, other than doing the obvious reading and other investigating, I want to take an hour or so for us to tell (in German) about our own reading experiences and preferences, our experience of science, our experience of SF, etc.

Sometime soon, too, we need some "touchy-feely" activities, such as how to develop our production team and really make it function. And maybe even how the group will judge the success of its endeavors and (horrors!) how grades are awarded.

As far as meeting structure goes:

1) We may move some meetings to the FLL video room, since there is a lot of movie and audio material to consider.

2) We may decide to set up a regular weekly structure, where Tuesday is devoted mostly to the Big Picture of German SF (with maybe some lectures and similar presentations), and Thursday is the day when we get our hands dirty with production activities.

Let's see! / Mal sehen!