German

University of California, Berkeley

This is an archived copy of the 2022-23 guide. To access the most recent version of the guide, please visit http://guide.berkeley.edu.

Overview

The Department of German offers language and literature classes in German, Dutch, and Yiddish, as well as breadth requirement courses (taught in English) on German philosophy, linguistics, political culture, and cinema. The department's degree options include an undergraduate major, a minor, and a PhD. Our renowned doctoral program is affiliated with the departments of Comparative Literature and Film and Media, the Program in Medieval Studies, and the Graduate Group in Critical Theory.

Both the size and diversity of our program allow us to balance thorough coverage of the basics with innovative thinking aimed at crossing borders. We have the critical mass to let our students explore interests outside the department and study with established experts. In these courses, our graduate students interact with students from across campus by all accounts a most beneficial experience. For the last half century, the Berkeley German department has consistently been recognized as one of the premier programs in the United States.

Other Department Resources

TRANSIT journal is published by the department and affiliated with the Multicultural Germany Project. With a focus on the German-speaking world, our journal invites critical work on a wide range of topics, from translations to travelogues and other forms of cultural transfer.

Undergraduate Programs

Dutch Studies: BA, Minor
German: BA, Minor

Graduate Program

Dutch Studies: Designated Emphasis (DE) offered through the Graduate Group in Dutch Studies
German: PhD

Visit Department Website

Courses

Select a subject to view courses

Dutch

German

Yiddish

Faculty and Instructors

* Indicates this faculty member is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Faculty

Lilla Balint, Assistant Professor. Contemporary German literature and media, theories of the Contemporary, aesthetics and politics, transnationalism and translation, digital writing, European Jewish literatures, literary and cultural theory, theories of the novel.
Research Profile

Jeroen Dewulf, Professor. Dutch studies, transatlantic slavery, German literature, European Studies, post-colonial studies, hybridity.
Research Profile

Karen Feldman, Professor. Critical theory, aesthetics, literary theory, 18th-20th century German thought, modern German philosophy, philosophy and literature.
Research Profile

Deniz Gokturk, Professor. German literature, German cinema, transnational cinemas, German-Turkish-European-American intersections in cinema, performance and spectatorship and reception, intertextuality and intermediality and translation, the politics and poetics of migration and globalization, urban imaginaries and mediations of place, theories of diversity and nationalism, comedy and community, modern rituals of regulating identity and authority and mobility.
Research Profile

Anton Kaes, Professor. Modern German literature and film with a special interest in the culture of the Weimar Republic; critical theory (Frankfurt School); literary and cultural theory; theory and history of film and photography; new methodologies of reading practices and interdisciplinary and comparative studies.
Research Profile

Niklaus Largier, Professor. Religion, literature, German, history of medieval and early modern German literature, theology, mysticism, secularism, senses, sensuality, history of emotions, passions, asceticism, flagellation, sexuality.
Research Profile

Thomas F. Shannon, Professor. German and Dutch, syntax, phonology; naturalness and syllable structure; passivization, perfect auxiliary selection, word order, processing factors; cognitive and functional grammar, corpus linguistics.
Research Profile

Chenxi Tang, Professor. European intellectual history, German literature from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, early modern European literature, legal humanities, cultural theory, comparative studies of Europe and China.
Research Profile

Lecturers

Nikolaus Euba, Lecturer.
Research Profile

Alec Leyzer Burko, Lecturer.

Laura Sacia Bonicatto, Lecturer. Intercultural Communication, Lexicography, Pronouns, Bilingualism/Multilingualism, Translation.
Research Profile

Esmee van der Hoeven, Lecturer.
Research Profile

Emeritus Faculty

Bluma Goldstein, Professor Emeritus.

Gerd Hillen, Professor Emeritus.

* Claire Kramsch, Professor Emeritus. Language, culture, pragmatics, society, education, applied linguistics, aesthetics, literacy, second language acquisition, language pedagogy, language in discourse, hermeneutic approaches to language learning.
Research Profile

Winfried Kudszus, Professor Emeritus. Psychoanalysis, semiotics, culture, literature, philosophy, psychology.
Research Profile

Joseph Mileck, Professor Emeritus.

Klaus Mueller, Professor Emeritus.

Irmengard Rauch, Professor Emeritus. Semiotics, Germanic linguistics, linguistic archeology, paralanguage, Old Saxon, Old Frisian, linguistic fieldwork, socio-cultural and cognitive approaches to language variation and language change, contrastive analysis and linguistic methodology, Gothic, Modern High German and its dialects, Old/Middle High/Early New High German.
Research Profile

Hinrich C. Seeba, Professor Emeritus. 18th 20th century German literature and culture, intellectual and institutional, enlightenment, Napoleonic era, vormarz, concepts and images history, role language nationalism, contemporary trends German literature, representations urban space.
Research Profile

Johan P. Snapper, Professor Emeritus. Dutch studies.

Elaine C. Tennant, Professor Emeritus. German, Habsburg court society in the early modern period, the development of the German language at the end of the middle ages, the Middle High German narrative tradition, literary and cultural traditions of the holy roman empire, European reactions.
Research Profile

Frederic C. Tubach, Professor Emeritus.

Contact Information

Department of German

5319 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-642-7445

Fax: 510-642-3243

Visit Department Website

Department Chair

Karen Feldman

5325 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: (510)642-2973

kfeldman@berkeley.edu

Undergraduate Advisor

Nadia Samadi

5311 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-642-7445

germanic@berkeley.edu

Graduate Advisor

Andrea Rapport

5307 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: 510-642-3786

germanga@berkeley.edu

Director of German Language Program

Nikolaus Euba

5403 Dwinelle Hall

euba@berkeley.edu

Director of Dutch Studies/Undergraduate Faculty Advisor

Jeroen Dewulf

5329 Dwinelle Hall

jdewulf@berkeley.edu

Head Graduate Advisor

Chenxi Tang

Phone: 5331 Dwinelle Hall

ctang@berkeley.edu

Department Manager

Sumali Tuchrello

5314 Dwinelle Hall

Phone: (510)642-6771

gspamgr@berkeley.edu

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