German is one of several majors taught within the Department of German and Scandinavian.

Department of German and Scandinavian

Undergraduate degree: B.A.
Undergraduate minor

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

You might want to study German or Scandinavian language and culture to get in touch with your roots. Maybe your grandparents sang German folk songs, baked delicious Danish pastries, or told tales about the old country. Maybe you’ve already traveled in Europe or want to learn about cultural differences and immerse yourself before traveling to Europe. You may want to build a solid future in global business. Whether you studied German in high school or will be a new student in German or Scandinavian, you already know the clear benefits to gaining intercultural experience and language skills.

Learning another language fulfills the primary purpose of a university education: It will prepare you to reason, analyze, solve problems, and communicate in a world of widely differing cultures.

More than 100 million people speak German as a first language. It is not only the language of Germany, Austria, and a large part of Switzerland, but is also spoken in many European countries. More than one thousand companies based in German-speaking countries have subsidiaries in the U.S. In all of these firms there is a need for employees with an understanding of both German language and culture.

The UO Department of German and Scandinavian ranks among the top 10 colleges and universities in the number of students majoring in German. The UO also has the only program in Oregon in which students can get a major or a minor in Scandinavian. Classes are discussion-based with engaging activities designed to involve and engross students, with both group and individual writing assignments.

Some UO graduates study abroad with awards from The Fulbright Program and the German Academic Exchange Service. The UO offers a local internship program for advanced students of German to teach German in an elementary or middle school. Or you might take advantage of an opportunity to intern in a German-speaking or Scandinavian country.

Points of Interest

• Get a taste of music, art, philosophy, and literature while building your language skills through on-campus course work.
• Experience the magic of our study-abroad programs in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway or Sweden. Ski, take a dip in a frozen lake, research your ancestors, learn culture and idiom from native speakers—all while receiving UO credit.
• Join the weekly German conversation group—Stammtisch—that includes native Germans from the Eugene area.

Sample courses

• First-Year and Second-Year German provide a thorough grammatical foundation and promote the active practice of speaking, listening, reading, and writing in German. Students also learn about the cultures of German-speaking countries and the changes taking place in unified Germany.
• Postwar Germany: Nation Divided is an introduction to literary and cultural movements of public dissent, including 1960s student revolutions, in postwar Germany.
• German Fairy Tales explores German fairy tales in historical, cross-cultural, and theoretical context, from the Brothers Grimm and romantic tales to adaptations by Tchaikovsky and Sendak.
• Emergence of Nordic Cultures and Society looks at the early history of the Nordic area from pre-Viking days to the mid-1800s. Includes Scandinavian and Finnish folklore, Shamanic traditions of polar peoples, folk art and music.
• Periods in Scandinavian Literature includes topics such as modern breakthrough and modernism in Scandinavian literature. Student discussion, oral presentations, and written papers.

Interdisciplinary Opportunities

German studies can enhance any course of study as a minor or as a double major. Students have found it compatible with history, geography, business administration, philosophy, religious studies, linguistics, folklore, classics, economics, sociology, anthropology, political science, Russian, Spanish, French, English, theater arts, art, biology, mathematics, humanities, music, and educational studies.

Hands-on Learning

Many German students enhance their studies through one of the three University of Oregon-sponsored exchange programs: the year-long Baden-Württemberg program, the spring intensive German-language program in Tübingen, or the new year-long program in Vienna. Another possibility is the five-week, total-immersion summer program at the Deutsche Sommerschule am Pazifik in Portland.

Student Work

Will Clark says that spending his senior year of high school studying in Germany gave him a good hold on the language. “I figured it would be senseless not to pursue the language at a university level,” he says. “I also believe that as a functioning member of society, it is extremely important to learn and understand a second language.”

A double major in political science and German, Clark says his upper level German literature classes have been his favorite courses thus far. “They not only dramatically increased my fluency, but introduced me to important literature I may not have otherwise come into contact with,” says Clark. “I also enjoyed the comfortable atmosphere, and the freedom to discuss literature that I had read with my peers.”

Andrew Leavitt spent his junior year of high school as an exchange student in Germany, then studied German at the UO while finishing up at Thurston High School in Springfield. “I liked the UO campus and faculty,” he says, “and since I had just gone on a long trip abroad, I wanted to stay local.”

Now a double major in German and accounting, Leavitt says his favorite German class was Introduction to German Culture and Society, which melds modern history and art.  “It was interesting to see how the artists’ works were interpreted by their peers and to see how their art made lasting contributions to German culture.”

Anna Smoot chose to major in German because it was one of her favorite classes at Fallston High School in Forest Hill, Maryland. At the UO, she especially enjoyed her class in German culture and thought. “I like looking at a culture over the course of history through different media,” she says.

Smoot works as a German tutor through UO’s Academic Learning Services, and is already applying her love for language and culture here at the UO. With enthusiastic support from friends and teachers, she started a German folk dance group during her freshman year.

Selected Faculty Work

Professor Susan Anderson focuses on German and Austrian literature from the late 19th century to the present. Recent courses have explored the epic tradition in German novels, postwar and post-wall German culture, and diversity in contemporary Germany.

Professor Kenneth Calhoon’s research and teaching interests range from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries with particular emphasis on drama, early cinema, aesthetics, and the history of manners. Courses include enlightenment, romanticism, literary theory, and film studies.

Professor Alexander Mathäs has taught courses on drama, the Doppelgänger motif, postwar literature, and German culture. He is interested in how writers attain a sense of who they are through the creation of literature. His current research explores whether humanist ethics might still have purchase in a postmodern world.

Associate Professor Dorothee Ostmeier’s research and teaching focus on German literature and culture of the 18th to the 20th centuries. Her courses on fairy tale traditions, especially on their magic and uncanny realities, tackle the moves from utopian to anti-utopian tales and link these to questions of social marginalization, gender imbalance, imaginary friends and schizophrenic characters.

Ellen Rees, associate professor, teaches courses in Norwegian language, as well as modern Scandinavian literature, cinema, history, and culture. Her primary research interests are prose modernism (especially from the 1930s) and contemporary cinema (especially the Danish "Dogma 95" movement and the Norwegian "Norwave" of the last decade).

Career Opportunities

You can use your bachelor’s degree in German or Scandinavian studies to pursue a career in college or secondary teaching, international business, diplomacy, government or foreign service, and translation and editorial work among many other options.

German heritage permeates Western society, particularly in the areas of classical music, literature, science, philosophy, and theology. There are endless applications for a working knowledge of the German language.
 

Contact Information
(541) 346-4051
(541) 346-4126 fax