What You’ll Learn

An area of concentration in German requires a command of the language gained by completing coursework beyond the second year and/or participating in a program at another institution, especially one in a German-speaking country. In the past, New College students have accomplished this by completing summer ISPs and off-campus semesters at branches of the Goethe Institute in Germany.

At least one course in German history (Modern German History) is also required; and relevant coursework in art history, religion, music, or German philosophy is encouraged. The senior thesis may focus on any aspect of German cultural studies. Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged.

Faculty

• Lauren Hansen, Visiting Assistant Professor of German Language and Literature
• Wendy Sutherland, Associate Professor of German, Black European and Diaspora Studies

What Can I Do with a German AOC?

Recent Theses

• The End of History? Far-Right Authoritarian Parties in Europe and the Syrian Refugee Crisis
• A Study in Nationalism and its Effects on Historical Writing: German Nationalism and the Investiture Contest
• Luciferian Proto-Individualism in Two Adaptations of the Faust Legend
• ’Eres tú, Antígona?: Intertextuality and Representations of Authoritarianism in Two 20^th-Century Retellings of Antigone
• Sie sind wieder da: The Return of the Far-Right to German Parliamentary Politics
• Access: Graffiti Through a Privileged Lens
• Of Mafia and Men: Observing Transnational Organized Crime Structures in the Federal Republic of Germany
• “There Goes the Neighborhood”: Racial Politics from the Good Neighbor to the New Jim Crow
• Madness in Arthur Schnitzler’s Therese: Chronik eines Frauenlebens
• The Individual in the Modern Age: Early Twentieth Century Vienna
• Joseph K’s Inner Struggle: An Analysis of Franz Kafka’s The Trial
• Manuscripts Don’t Burn: The Evolution of the Faust Legend from Marlowe to Bulgakov
• An Economic and Social Analysis of Nazi Germany and the Volkswagen Project
• Asserting Identity: Jewish Repatriates in the GDR
• Experience Over Reason: Werner Herzog’s Kaspar Hauser
• Die Brücke: A Bridge to Artistic Revolution
• Herta Müller’s “Barefoot February”: A Translation
• “Was bedeutet Bio für Euch?” Exploring Collaborative Research on a Demeter Farm in Germany
• The Alps as Symbol of National Identity: An Analysis of the German Bergfilm
• The Better German: Asylum and the Construction of German National Political Identity, 1949–1993
• “Was ich bin sind meine Filme”: Cultural Reclamation and the Difference between Direction and Performance in Werner Herzog’s Work with Klaus Kinski and Bruno S.