School of Record for American Institute for Foreign Study in Austria

ANTH/AHST 304: Austrian Folk Art and Folk Customs                                                  3 Credits

Prerequisite: One college level Anthropology or Art History course

School of Record Articulation: 3000 Level Anthropology

The purpose of this course is to provide the student with a survey of Austrian Folk Art and Folk Customs embedded in the broader field of cultural anthropology and the “minor arts”. The main emphasis will be on material and non-material culture in the Alpine Region: belief systems, annual cycle (calendar year, church year), lifetime cycle, traditions, rituals, customs, making a living (agriculture, hunting, craftsmanship etc.) daily life past and present, (tools and techniques, nutrition= eating and drinking, healing arts, festivities, entertainment), built environment (architecture), costumes (“Tracht”, Lederhosen and Dirndl), folk art, music, literature etc.

ASHT 303: European Art and Architecture l: Renaissance and Baroque                  3 Credits              

Prerequisite: One college level Art or Art History course

School of Record Articulation: 3000 Art History

This course covers the development of European art and architecture from the 15th century (late medieval and early Renaissance to approx. mid of 18th century) Baroque era. Major works of this period reflect the complex and wide-ranging changes, developments in thought, attitudes and major social and political upheavals of the time and will deal with major monuments of western architecture, painting, sculpture, and ‘minor arts‘, both in theory and by using Salzburg, the “Northern Rome”, the buildings (sacred and profane), statues, fountains, collections displayed in galleries and museums etc. as an open air classroom.

BUSI/ECON 301: Europe and the Global Economy                                                         3 Credits

Prerequisite: One college level Business or Economics course

School of Record Articulation: 3000 Level Economics

Specific economic goals and achievements of the onetime eastern bloc countries as they strive to establish functioning market economies. The effects of these developments on the economy of Europe and the world. Changed roles of international institutions (EC, IMF, World Bank), their consequences and multinational business opportunities are also discussed.

BUSI/ECON 313: International Management Strategies                                               3 Credits

Prerequisite: One college level Business or Economics course

School of Articulation: 3000 Level Management

Students learn features of strategic management and planning and their application in an international field; Instruments such as a scenario-technique and portfolio analysis are practiced and students also learn to create their own strategies.

BUSI/MGMT 315:  Communication Skills for Management                                         3 Credits

Prerequisite: One college level Business or Economics course

School of Articulation: 3000 Level Management

The course will focus on planning for effective communication and working visually using various media as well as how to make effective presentations. Students are expected to present ideas to the class and accept constructive criticism from the group.

ECON/POLI 320: International Political Economy                                                          3 Credits

Prerequisite: One college level Political Science or Economics course

School of Record Articulation: 2000 Level Politics

Examine the relationship between the political realm and the economy, especially in modern international affairs. The link between international politics and the economy of our current globalized world is studied with regard to competing theories, competing economic orders and explore major topics from the field of International Political Economy (IPE); including the classics of the main schools of IPE, among them the theories of Realism, Liberalism and Marxism as well as the approaches of Keynesianism and Monetarism also deal with the history of the management of international economic relations (esp. since 1945), with various concepts of power in international politics and the key institutions of today’s global economic system (such as WTO, World Bank and IMF).

ENGL 300: Travel and Identity                                                                                              3 Credits

Prerequisite: Intermediate college level course in English Literature

School of Record Articulation: 3000 Level English

This course introduces students to a variety of different forms of literary text which describe travel in Europe—from poetry and novel to travel writing and journals—but which also open up complex questions about the identity of travelers themselves. The experience of being exposed to new cultures and contexts can destabilize a traveler’s sense of their private self or cause them to reflect on how others perceive them in ways they would not at home. This course asks students to reflect on their own experience in weekly journal entries alongside responding to literary texts in essay and presentation work.

ENGL 302: Concepts of Heroism in Western Culture                                                     3 Credits

Prerequisite: N/A

School of Record Articulation: 1000 Level English

Concepts of heroism in the literature of six epochs or cultures: Classical/Mythological, Medieval/Christian, Renaissance, Age of Reason, Romantic and Modern. Examples vary but these are typical archetypes studied: Hercules, Achilles, Beowulf, Siegfried (Medieval), Mark Anthony (Shakespeare), Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe), Werther (Goethe), Siegmund and Siegfried (Richard Wagner).

ENGL 310: Atrocity and Modernism: The Literature and History of 20th Century Europe  3 Credits

Prerequisite: One college level English or Literature course

School of Articulation: 3000 Level English

The 20th century was a period of unprecedented destruction in history. As a result, the optimistic belief in the constant progress of mankind towards a better future was shattered. Many writers reflect the historical atrocities and their traumatic psychological impact in their works, among them Joseph Conrad, Franz Kafka, Bertolt Brecht, and Anna Ahmatova. This course gives an overview of the relationship of material change, literary form and ideas. It examines imaginative writing in periods of war and oppression, notably Stalinism, Nazism and the Holocaust.

GERM/HIST 307: Hitler und das Dritte Reich (Hitler and the Third Reich)               3 Credits              

Prerequisite: Intermediate German language proficiency and one college level History course

School of Articulation: 3000 Level German

Adolf Hitler is analyzed as a psychological phenomenon and a study in tyranny. His personality is set against the complies historical situation that facilitated his rise to power: the political, economic and social climate that provided a fertile basis for the use of political terror and the first effective employment of mass propaganda as a political weapon.

GERM 101: Elementary German I                                                                                        3 Credits

Prerequisite: N/A

School of Record Articulation: 1000 Level German

Students with no previous German or with only one semester in college usually place into this level. The course covers functional uses of the language as well as grammar, cultural themes, introductions, exchanging information, writing letters, the present tense, the noun and the cases, personal pronouns and possessive pronouns, sentence structure, questions, prepositions, list of irregular verbs, basic communication and listening comprehension.

GERM 102: Elementary German II                                                                                      3 Credits

Prerequisite: GERM 101: Elementary German I

School of Record Articulation: 1000 Level German

Starting with review, this course covers grammar suitable for students who have already covered the fundamentals. Topics include communication techniques, writing letters, present tense, present perfect tense and future tense, use of cases, pronouns, sentence structure, questions, prepositions, irregular verbs.

GERM 201: Intermediate German I                                                                                    3 Credits

Prerequisite: Basic grammar is a prerequisite although a brief review is given at the start of the semester.

School of Record Articulation: 2000 Level German

Students who have studied German throughout high school and continued with one semester in college, or students who have two to four semesters in college, usually place into this level. Topics include grammar, communication and speaking techniques, listening comprehension, analyzing texts and training in everyday situations

GERM 301: Intermediate German II                                                                                   3 Credits

Prerequisite: GERM 201: Intermediate German I

School of Record Articulation: 3000 Level German

Students must be able to write a German text demonstrating familiarity with main aspects of text production and grammar. Topics include: readings from modern literature and newspaper articles; oral communication; discussion; short reports; text analysis; development and usage of extended vocabulary.

GERM 401: Advanced German                                                                                             3 Credits

Prerequisite: GERM 301: Intermediate German II

School of Record Articulation: 4000 Level German

This course builds upon the skills gained in Intermediate German II and develops them to enable students to understand and respond to quite complex lines of argument, both in oral and in written form. Students are introduced to more complex forms of grammar and more sophisticated vocabulary, to give them the ability to carry out and refine tasks within the world of German, using the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing.

HIST 301: World War II and Central Europe                                                                     3 Credits

Prerequisite: N/A

School of Record Articulation: 3000 Level History

The course will focus on nationalism and the construction of national identity as a key element of the 20th century in Europe and explore how nationalism created the context and ideas in which World War II erupted and the examine how WWII affected especially the multi-national area of Central Europe as well as how the trauma of WWII influenced the re-building of nations after 1945 and the creation of founding myths and collective memories (“master narratives”) of peoples on each sides of the Iron Curtain and the transformations of these narratives since the end of the Cold War.

HIST/POLI 325: The Rise of the Right: A History of Fascism                                         3 Credits

Prerequisite: N/A

School of Record Articulation: 3000 Level History

A comparative study of European and non-European far right movements from the end of WWI to the present. Focus on a variety of fascist and other authoritarian movements in Europe and other countries. Topics will be the ideologies of the far right, historical forms of fascism, the return of far right parties in Western Europe; neo-Nazi violence and the growth of the radical right in the former communist countries.

MUSC 301: Music in the Age of Mozart                                                                             3 Credits

Prerequisite: N/A

School of Record Articulation: 3000 Level Music

This course will relate the music of an era to historical events and to the art and literature of the time period discussed. The discussion of composers’ lives, individual styles and representative works aim not merely to impart facts, but stimulate curiosity and enthusiasm. Although the course provides an overview of the whole Baroque and Classical period, emphasis is laid on Mozart, Salzburg’s genius loci, and students will be able to re-live much of what is taught by course-related field trips in Salzburg and Vienna.

MUSC 302: Music Listening and Comprehension                                                            3 Credits

Prerequisite: N/A

School of Articulation:  3000 Level Music

Aims to deepen students’ appreciation of classical music, focusing on Austria as the center of European music. Development of musical instruments (students see and hear early instruments during a visit to the local museum), music of the Renaissance and the Baroque, the Vienna Classical Cycle (Hadyn, Mozart and Beethoven), the Romantic Movement (Schubert, Brahms and Bruckner) and the 20th century (Mahler and Webern). Cost of concert tickets not included in program fee.

PHIL 301: The Modern European Mind                                                                              3 Credits

Prerequisite: One college level Philosophy course

School of Record Articulation: 3000 Level Philosophy

This course covers influential approaches towards society and politics from the Renaissance to our contemporary era and shows how the works of great philosophers contributed to the formation of modern ethics, political ideologies and a specific European mindset. We will read and discuss works of writers who made an important impact in the history of ideas. Among these thinkers are big names like the infamous Machiavelli, Enlightenment men of letters (like Voltaire and Rousseau), idealists (like Kant and Hegel), liberals (like Bentham and Mill), conservatives (like Burke), socialists (like Marx and Engels) and famous philosophers of science (like Popper).

POLI 305: A History of European Socialist Thinking                                                       3 Credits

Prerequisite: One college level Political Science or related History course

School of Articulation: 3000 Level Politics

The aim of this course is to be aware the plural tradition of European socialist thinking. It will be made clear that the theory faced continuous challenges by new ideas and the experiences in politics. To achieve an understanding of the development of European Socialist Thinking the main writers and their ideas are introduced and put into context to each other. This is partly done by reading original texts and partly by reading analysts who put them into perspective. Finally, the relevance of these ideas in contemporary Europe is investigated.

POLI 307: Protection of Human Rights                                                                               3 Credits

Prerequisite: N/A

School of Record Articulation: 3000 Level Politics

This course deals with fundamental questions of human rights protection and critically analyses legal aspects and achievements regarding human rights on the international universal and regional level, on the level of the EU and also on the national level. The course evaluates the role of international human rights protection and monitoring systems and deals with problems and challenges for the existing protection schemes. Human rights protection within the United Nations, the European Union, the Council of Europe and other International Organizations (e.g. OAS) are key focuses of interest. Current topics will be addressed in the introductory sessions, through oral presentations by students and in class discussions.

POLI 309: European Integration                                                                                           3 Credits

Prerequisite: One college level Political science or related History course

School of Articulation: 3000 Level Politics

This course deals with fundamental questions of European integration and aims at a critical analysis of advantages and disadvantages of a centralized European approach. The course covers fundamental questions and principles of European integration. Historical development of the European Communities and the European Union, European Union institutions, European Union legislative process, European Court system, division of powers between the European Union and the Member States, European Union policies including Common Foreign and Security Policy and the four freedoms built the central content of the course. Besides the European Union also other European organizations - like the Council of Europe and the OSCE – play an important role in European integration. Their functions will be discussed as well.

SOCI 312: Contemporary Austrian Culture                                                                       3 Credits

Prerequisite: One college level Sociology or History course

School of Articulation: 3000 Level Sociology

Insight into contemporary Austrian culture. Focus on education, family, ethnicity, political culture, media, Roman Catholic Church, attitudes toward welfare and business, leisure trends. Independent field research and the presentation and discussion of course topics is required.