# German studies

German studies, also often known as German philology, 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

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.).

## 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, 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.

## 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 (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 curricula for school teachers, usually called "Deutsch (Lehramt)". In Germany, they are leading to a two step exam and certificate by the federated states of Germany cultural authorities, called the Staatsexamen ("state exam").

## 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.
The Nazi period, and immediate predecessor periods before and after World War I, left large parts of the field, which had drifted off more and more into race-biological thinking, greatly compromised and damaged, as major proponents on both the literature (e.g. Prof. Josef Nadler in Vienna) and the linguistics side (e.g. Prof. Eberhard Kranzmayer in Graz) were actively working for the Nazi Party (Kranzmayer, Höfler) and their racist goals (Nadler) While great efforts have been made in the denazification of the field, some biases are suggested by overseas Germanist to have remained. After all, post-war academia, with "Nazi party membership among university professors greatly exceed[ing] that of the population at large," was not a complete restart, least of all, in German philology, where 90% of university teachers were NSDAP members.

## University departments and research institutions
### Austria

* Institute for German Studies (Institut für Germanistik), University of Vienna
* Institute for German Studies (Institut für Germanistik), University of Graz, the first Germanistik in Austria founded at the request of Anton Emanuel Schönbach in 1873

### Bénin

* Département d'Etudes Germanique (DEG), Université d'Abomey-Calavi

### Botswana

* Department of Education and Language Skills, Botho University

### Canada

* Department of German Language and Literature, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
* Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Toronto

### China

* Department of German, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Haidian District, Beijing
* Institute of German and European Studies, Tongji University, Yangpu District, Shanghai

### 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

### Ireland

* Department of Germanic Studies, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, Ireland
* Department of German, National University of Ireland – University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

### Israel

* Bucerius Institute for Research of Contemporary German History and Society – University of Haifa
* Haifa Center for German and European Studies – 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
* 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

### Greece

* Faculty of German Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
* School of German Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

### Russia

* Department of Area Studies, Moscow State University

### South Africa

* School of Languages and Literatures, University of Cape Town
* Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French, University of the Free State
* School of Languages, North-West University
* Ancient Modern Languages Cultures, University of Pretoria
* School of Languages and Literatures, Rhodes University
* Department of Modern Foreign Languages, University of Stellenbosch
* Department of Foreign Languages, University of the Western Cape
* Department of Literature, Language and Media, University of the Witwatersrand

### Spain

* Área de Filología Alemana, University of Salamanca

### Uganda

* Department of European and Oriental Languages, German Studies, Makerere University

### United Kingdom (UK)

* 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

### United States of America (USA)

* 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
* Department of Germanic Languages, Columbia University
* Department of German Studies, Cornell University
* Department of German Studies, Dartmouth College
* Department of German, Duke University
* Department of German, Georgetown 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 and Russian, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont
* 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 Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages, Michigan State University

### Zimbabwe

* Department of Languages, Literature and Culture University of Zimbabwe