German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents, and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German history, and German politics in addition to the language and literature component. Common German names for the field are Germanistik, Deutsche Philologie, and Deutsche Sprachwissenschaft und Literaturwissenschaft. In English the terms Germanistics or Germanics are sometimes used (mostly by Germans), but the subject is more often referred to as German studies, German language and literature, or German philology.
Modern German studies is usually seen as a combination of two sub-disciplines: German linguistics and Germanophone literature studies.
German linguistics is traditionally called philology in Germany, as there is something of a difference between philologists and linguists. It is roughly divided as follows:
Old High German (Althochdeutsch) 8th – 11th centuries
Middle High German (Mittelhochdeutsch) 11th – 14th centuries
Early New High German (Frühneuhochdeutsch) 14th – 17th centuries
Modern German (Standard German, German dialectology) 18th – 21st centuries
In addition, the discipline examines German under various aspects: the way it is spoken and written, i.e., spelling; declination; vocabulary; sentence structure; texts; etc. It compares the various manifestations such as social groupings (slang, written texts, etc.) and geographical groupings (dialects, etc.).
The study German literature is divided into two parts: Ältere Deutsche Literaturwissenschaft deals with the period from the beginnings of German in the early Middle Ages up to post-Medieval times around AD 1750, while the modern era is covered by Neuere Deutsche Literaturwissenschaft. The field systematically examines German literature in terms of genre, form, content, and motifs as well as looking at it historically by author and epoch. Important areas include edition philology, history of literature, and textual interpretation. The relationships of German literature to the literatures of other languages (e.g. reception and mutual influences) and historical contexts are also important areas of concentration. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory: Fourth Edition (ISBN 0-14-051363-9) is printed in English but contains many German-language literary terms that apply cross-culturally in the field of literary criticism; quite a few of the in terms in the book originated in German but have since been adopted by English-language critics and scholars.
At least in Germany and Austria, German studies in academia play a central role in the education of German school teachers. Their courses usually cover four fields:
Linguistics of German (Sprachwissenschaft)
German language and literature of up to about 1750 (Ältere Sprache und Literatur)
German language and literature since approximately 1750 (Neuere Literaturwissenschaft)
Specifics of the didactics of teaching German (Fachdidaktik)
Several universities offer specialized curriculae for school teachers, usually called "Deutsch (Lehramt)". In Germany, they are leading to a two step exam and certificate by the federal states of Germany cultural authorities, called the Staatsexamen ("state exam").
In recent years, German has looked for links with the fields of communications, cultural studies and media studies. In addition, the sub-branch of film studies has established itself.
As an unsystematic field of interest for individual scholars, German studies can be traced back to Tacitus' Germania. The publication and study of legal and historical source material, such as Medieval Bible translations, were all undertaken during the German Renaissance of the sixteenth century, truly initiating the field of German studies. As an independent university subject, German studies was introduced at the beginning of the nineteenth century by Georg Friedrich Benecke, the Brothers Grimm, and Karl Lachmann.
University departments and research institutions
USA
Department of German Studies, Brown University [1]
Department of Germanic Languages, Columbia University
Department of German Studies, Cornell University
Department of German, Duke University
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University [2]
Department of German, New York University, [3]
Department of German, Northwestern University [4]
Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, [5]
Department of German, Princeton University, [6]
German Program of the Department of World Languages & Literatures, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, [7]
Department of German Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, [8]
Department of German, University of California, Berkeley, [9]
Department of Germanic Languages, University of California, Los Angeles, [10]
Department of German Studies, University of Cincinnati
Department of Germanic Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL [11]
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
[12]
German and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst [13]
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI [14]
Department of German, Scandinavian, and Dutch University of Minnesota [15]
Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, [16]
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Pennsylvania, [17]
Department of Germanic Languages and Literature, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, [18]
Department of Germanic Studies, University of Texas at Austin [19]
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, The University of Virginia [20]
Department of Germanics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, [21]
Department of German, University of Wisconsin – Madison
Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, [22]
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, [23]
Department of German, Yale University [24]
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, [25]
UK
Department of German, University of Oxford
Department of German, University of Cambridge
Department of German Studies, University of Warwick
Canada
Department of German Language and Literature, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario [26]
Czech Republic
Department of German and Austrian Studies, Charles University in Prague
Department of German Studies, Palacký University in Olomouc
India
Jawaharlal Nehru University India [27]
Ireland
Department of German, National University of Ireland – University College Cork, Cork, Ireland [28]
Israel
Bucerius Institute for Research of Contemporary German History and Society – University of Haifa
Haifa Center for German and European Studies [29] – University of Haifa
Germany
"German studies" is taught at many German universities. Some examples are:
Germanistisches Seminar der Universität Bonn, Institut für Germanistik, vergleichende Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn [30]
Institut für deutsche Sprache und Literatur I & II, Albertus-Magnus-Universität zu Köln [31] [32]
Institut für Germanistik I & II, Hamburg University [33]
Germanistisches Seminar, Heidelberg University Faculty of Modern Languages
Institut für deutsche Philologie, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich [34]
Germanistisches Institut, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster [35]
Deutsches Seminar, Tübingen University Faculty of Modern Languages
Greece
Faculty of German Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens [36]
School of German Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki [37]
Russia
Department of Area Studies, Moscow State University [38]
Spain
Área de Filología Alemana, University of Salamanca [39]
