German studies
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, 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
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 8th – 11th centuries
- Middle High German 11th – 14th centuries
- Early New High German 14th – 17th centuries
- Modern German 18th – 21st centuries
German literature studies
The study of 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,, 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 and historical contexts are also important areas of concentration. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory: Fourth Edition 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.German teacher education
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
- German language and literature of up to about 1750
- German language and literature since approximately 1750
- Specifics of the didactics of teaching German
German media studies
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.History
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
;US- Department of German Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson
- German Program of the Department of World Languages & Literatures, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
- Department of German Studies, Brown University
- Department of German, University of California, Berkeley
- Department of Germanic Languages, University of California, Los Angeles
- Department of German Studies, University of Cincinnati
- Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
- , Columbia University
- , Cornell University
- Department of German, Duke University
- Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
- Department of Germanic Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
- Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Department of Germanic Studies, Indiana University
- German and Scandinavian Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
- Department of German, Scandinavian, and Dutch, University of Minnesota
- Department of German, New York University
- Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Department of German, Northwestern University
- Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
- Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Pennsylvania
- Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania
- Department of Germanic Languages and Literature, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Department of German, Princeton University
- Department of Germanic Studies, University of Texas at Austin
- Department of Classical & Modern Languages, Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri
- Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
- Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Virginia
- Department of Germanics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
- Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
- Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic, University of Wisconsin – Madison
- Department of German, Yale University
- Department of German, University of Oxford
- Department of German, University of Cambridge
- Department of German, University of Manchester
- Department of German Studies, University of Warwick
- Institute for German Studies, University of Vienna
- Department of German Language and Literature, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
- Department of German, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Haidian District, Beijing
- Institute of German and European Studies, Tongji University, Yangpu District, Shanghai
;India
;Ireland
- Department of Germanic Studies, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, Ireland
- Department of German, National University of Ireland – University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
- Bucerius Institute for Research of Contemporary German History and Society – University of Haifa
- Haifa Center for German and European Studies – University of Haifa
"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
- Institut für deutsche Sprache und Literatur I & II, Albertus-Magnus-Universität zu Köln
- Institut für Germanistik I & II, Hamburg University
- Germanistisches Seminar, Heidelberg University Faculty of Modern Languages
- Institut für deutsche Philologie, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
- Germanistisches Institut, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
- Deutsches Seminar, Tübingen University Faculty of Modern Languages
- Faculty of German Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
- School of German Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
- Department of Area Studies, Moscow State University
- Área de Filología Alemana, University of Salamanca
Books
- Atlas Deutsche Sprache . Berlin: Directmedia Publishing. 2004.
- Die Deutschen Klassiker.
- Berman, Antoine: L'épreuve de l'étranger. Culture et traduction dans l'Allemagne romantique: Herder, Goethe, Schlegel, Novalis, Humboldt, Schleiermacher, Hölderlin. Paris: Gallimard, 1984..
- Beutin, Wolfgang. Deutsche Literaturgeschichte. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1992.
- Bogdal, Klaus-Michael, Kai Kauffmann, & Georg Mein. BA-Studium Germanistik. Ein Lehrbuch. In collaboration with Meinolf Schumacher and Johannes Volmert. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2008.
- Burger, Harald. Sprache der Massenmedien. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984.
- Ernst, Peter. Germanistische Sprachwissenschaft. Vienna: WUV, 2004.
- Fohrmann, Jürgen & Wilhelm Voßkamp, eds. Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Germanistik im 19. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1994.
- Hartweg, Frédéric G. Frühneuhochdeutsch. Eine Einführung in die deutsche Sprache des Spätmittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2005.
- Hermand, Jost. Geschichte der Germanistik. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1994.
- Hickethier, Knut. Film- und Fernsehanalyse. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1993.
- Hickethier, Knut, ed. Aspekte der Fernsehanalyse. Methoden und Modelle. Hamburg: Lit, 1994.
- Hohendahl, Peter U. German Studies in the United States: A Historical Handbook. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
- Kanzog, Klaus. Einführung in die Filmphilologie. Munich: Schaudig, Bauer, Ledig, 1991.
- Muckenhaupt, Manfred: Text und Bild. Grundfragen der Beschreibung von Text-Bild-Kommunikation aus sprachwissenschaftlicher Sicht. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1986.
- Prokop, Dieter: Medienprodukte. Zugänge – Verfahren – Kritik. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1981.
- Schneider, Jost, ed. Methodengeschichte der Germanistik. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009.
- Schumacher, Meinolf. Einführung in die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010.
- Shitanda, So. “Zur Vorgeschichte und Entstehung der deutschen Philologie im 19. Jh.: Karl Lachmann und die Brüder Grimm,” in Literarische Problematisierung der Moderne. Medienprodukte : Zugänge-- Verfahren-- Kritik, ed. by Teruaki Takahashi. Munich: Iudicium, 1992.
- Van Cleve, John W. and A. Leslie Willson. Remarks on the Needed Reform of German Studies in the United States. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993.
Journals
- The Journal of English and Germanic Philology
- Journal of Germanic Linguistics
- German Studies Review
- Muttersprache
- New German Critique
- New German Review
- Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte
- Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie
- Zeitschrift für Germanistik
- Germanistik in Ireland