Germany is a 21st-century world leader in engineering, innovation, and global connections. At the center of contemporary Europe, Germany’s prominence in the European Union draws on its rich cultural traditions and complex history to imagine sustainable solutions for the future.
Studying German at Sewanee is more than just learning a language, it is a complete immersion into the diversity of German life, culture, and history. You can take courses ranging from a focus on global icons like the Volkswagen Beetle, to an exploration of German unification through graphic novels, and questions of identity and the German colonial past in film and literature.
Studying German at Sewanee will take you far. German is the most widely spoken language in the EU and the German economy is the world’s fourth largest. With more than 1,100 companies in German-speaking countries contributing more than 700,000 jobs in the United States the outlook is rosy for the modern German speaker. By pairing that with opportunities for study abroad, internships, and research available in German speaking countries, you will have a wide range of opportunities open to you from medicine and business to nearly any global industry. Our goal is to enable every student to study abroad, and the Jackson Cross Scholarship for students of German offers significant funding to help with the financial costs. Every single student who participated in our recent Sewanee in Berlin summer program received funding.
Sewanee graduates secure positions in a variety of fields. Some you would expect, others are a bit of a surprise. Sewanee prepares you for your profession and your passion. The first destination for Alondra Ramirez, a 2021 graduate, was profiled in a feature story. Other recent graduates' first jobs are listed below.
Sewanee graduates enjoy extraordinary acceptance rates to top graduate and pre-professional programs–about 95 percent to law school and over 85 percent to medical school. Below is a sampling of where Sewanee grads continue their education. Learn about outcomes for our German majors.
From navigating war-torn landscapes at home to pursuing an ambitious triple major at Sewanee, Kamilla Haidaienko, C’25, sets her sights on one goal: helping to shape the post-war reconstruction of her native Ukraine.
An examination of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (e.g., Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstilzchen, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood) and their role in German literature and culture along with a study of the literary fables and fairy tales of such writers as Lessing, Goethe, Tieck, Hesse, and Kafka. This interdisciplinary approach to fairy tales from the 18th century to the present also covers their operatic and cinematic versions.
This course examines German society and culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. Focusing on the Volkswagen Beetle and the city of Berlin as key sites for exploring political, social, and economic transformations, this course studies German society from 1945 to the present through its mass media, literature, cityscapes, and industrial products. This course is taught in English.
From the recruitment of Turkish "guest workers" to the ongoing refugee crisis, Germany has emerged as a multicultural nation of shifting and contested borders and identities. This course investigates how national, ethnic, racial, and religious identities are perceived and constructed in film, literature, and news media and how those identities intersect with, and are complicated by, class, gender, and sexual identities. Students engage critically with concepts such as migration, assimilation, hybridity, citizenship, diaspora, "majority" culture, and authenticity. This course is taught in English.
Liesl Allingham received a B.A. in German studies, political science, and international relations from Tufts University and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Modern German literature and culture from Indiana University at Bloomington. Her research is centered on gender and sexuality in the 18th century. Her publications and presentations have investigated intersections of gender and sexuality with memory, authorship, cross-dressing, mobility, visibility, and place.
Richard Apgar received a B.A. in German studies from Davidson College in 1997. In 2001, he began his graduate studies in Germanic languages and literatures at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Apgar's dissertation, "Taming Travel and Disciplining Reason: Enlightenment and Pedagogy in the Work of Joachim Heinrich Campe," examines the intersection of German children’s literature with the expanding world of the late 18th century. His other research includes travel literature of the 18th and 19th century, the representation of non-European cultures, and the emerging media culture of the Enlightenment.
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German and German Studies is hosting a talk by Dr. Claire Scott (Vanderbilt University) on Thursday, October 10 at 5:00 pm in Naylor Auditorium in Gailor. Dr. Scott will present on solidarity within groups of girls and women in two contemporary German-language films. The lecture will be in English and all are welcome.
A two-year odyssey takes a Sewanee history and German major from Tennessee to Berlin to navigate a web of archives and emotional revelations as she uncovers the lost stories of Holocaust victims. Read more to find out about her journey.
Read more about Co-Curricular Events to find out about events being hosted by the German Department and the German House this semester.
he German and German Studies department is pleased to welcome Dr. Didem Uca, Assistant Professor of German Studies at Emory University, to campus for a lecture tomorrow at 5 pm in Gailor Auditorium. Prof. Uca's research takes an intersectional approach to contemporary post/migration cultures. She will present work from her book project on the transnational Germanphone Bildungsroman. This event is co-sponsored by Women's and Gender Studies, International and Global Studies, and the Russian Department. The talk and all quotes from the text will be in Englis
Keisha Phillips is set to graduate this spring majoring in German and Politics. Read more to find out how this renaissance woman has grown as a scholar and embraced her identity by being a German major.
Read more to find the schedules for German tutoring, the German Table, German video gaming and German language yoga classes.
To create an immersive learning experience, Sewanee has several language houses (French, German, Russian, Spanish, and Italian) that simulate real-world language and cultural encounters. The head resident is a native speaker, and students speak their house language while “at home". Events throughout the year showcase educational and recreational aspects of the language house and the culture it represents.
International & global studies at Sewanee stretches far beyond the gates. Involving faculty members from departments across the College, the program spans disciplinary and thematic boundaries. The rapid pace and complex nature of our world require dexterity to navigate. At Sewanee, you will study the ever-changing political, economic, and cultural issues that characterize our world today. Here, experiencing the real world begins in the classroom.
At Sewanee, we pledge to offer each student an opportunity to study abroad. And at Sewanee, we keep our promises. Travel, learn, and cultivate your knowledge by communicating across cultures and acquiring a sensitivity to other ways of life. Apply social scientific methodologies to various frameworks. Learn to formulate solutions to global problems and apply those theories at home in a local context.
