German Studies

About this opportunity

Students interested in pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in German, creating a concurrent major that includes German, or adding a German minor to their program are in for a variety of fun, thought-provoking, and engaging experiences. We offer classes to help you begin, improve upon, and advance your German language learning adventure with a core faculty eager to help you succeed. Beyond achieving your goals of becoming a life-long learner of German, our classes also provide opportunities for exploring how people in German-speaking communities:

• understand the world through literature, film, the performing arts, and other cultural practices
• engage with the worlds of politics, economics, social justice, and humanitarianism
• think deeply about philosophy, the influence of history, and the environment
• have become global leaders in the fields of business, engineering, and the natural sciences

There are multiple opportunities for you to experience these things first hand by participating in a Global Intensive Experience, such as GIE - Engage Berlin: Migration, Art, and Place or in another recommended semester or summer program in Germany.

And our expertise extends further than just the challenging courses we offer! We help students prepare for their careers with our growing connections to local companies and annual career fair, and through a focused Business German class in cooperation with the Phoenix Chapter of the German-American Chamber of Commerce. We also offer professional language exams through the Goethe-Institut, support fellowships/scholarships through Fulbright and the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), and provide Fulbright language evaluations for students pursuing research and study abroad. Don't forget, Germany has some of the most attractive and affordable BA, Masters and Ph.D. programs.

Take advantage of a major, minor, or concurrent degree program in German and watch as the opportunities and points of connection to other parts of the globe take you in directions you never thought possible. Whether you are interested in engineering, science, health, sustainability, global business, art or literature, you will see immediate benefits from studying German.

Join us today by visiting the School of International Letters and Cultures. Any Barrett student who is considering majoring or minoring in German should contact the lead FHA.

Thesis

An undergraduate honors thesis in German Studies allows students the opportunity to produce sustained, research-based, qualitative and/or quantitative arguments about a topic that explores the diversity of German-speaking communities. These topics could involve second language acquisition, literature, film, history of science, sustainability, linguistics, and many other cultural studies areas. The SILC program in German abides by Barrett’s requirements for who can serve on an honors thesis committee: the director must be a continuing faculty member at ASU with a terminal degree (e.g. Ph.D., MFA, MA) and the second member can be anyone with sufficient expertise in the thesis topic. Graduate students and teaching assistants may not serve on the honors thesis committee.

Academic Preparation

Successfully completing a thesis in the SILC-German program involves a good command of the German language in spoken and written form and a broad understanding of the history and culture of German-speaking Europe and its impact on communities worldwide. Students must be able to complete research on their own, to prepare a bibliography of source materials, and be capable of reading their sources critically in order to scholarly books and articles in their own written argument.

Recommended Timeline

It is never too early to begin thinking about how the material in a particular course may provide a good basis for a research-based thesis. Keep in mind in the classes you take for your German major or minor what you found fascinating or of critical interest, and what questions you still want to ask about that topic, event, writer, artist, film, etc. This approach will also give you good ideas about who you might consider asking to be the director for your thesis. If faculty have a chance to read your work, and you can show them what excites you about it, then it will likely be easier to get them on board with working with you.

Typically work on the thesis itself begins in the Fall semester of a student’s senior year, though there are exceptions to this too. In the fall semester, students tend to focus on gathering the scholarly material they will consult, outlining the sections of the thesis, and fine-tuning their argument/thesis statement, all in consultation with their thesis director. There is no formula for writing, and sometimes students will begin writing as early as this same fall semester, or they begin in January of the spring semester. We always advise students to take a minimum of two semesters to devote to the research, writing, and defense of the thesis. We follow the Barrett timeline of holding the honors thesis defense during March, or early in the first week of April.

Other Honors Opportunities

Often our faculty will offer honors enrichment contracts, which are usually created on a case-by-case basis. (need two or three examples of successful recent contracts)

• the development of a lesson plan in a course on Language and Disability
• the creation of a science fiction short story in a German writing class
• a paper about Bismarck’s efforts in unifying Germany in the late 19th century
• an investment analysis and portfolio recommendations for investments in Germany
• a comparison of German and US Romantic literature, and much more

Several 400-level courses have an integrated honors section – these include:

• Reading Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud
• Holocaust and German Memory
• Experimental Narrative
• Weimar-Era German Cinema
• Animals in the Anthropocene
• Posthumanism and the Ends of Man

and we hope that this list will continue to grow.

Faculty in German: Areas of Expertise

Nina Berman, Professor
Transnational Germany; Multicultural Germany; German colonialism; Germany and the Middle East; Translation Studies

Daniel Gilfillan, Associate Professor
20th-Century German Literature and Film, Sound Studies, Holocaust Studies, Environmental Humanities

Eva Humbeck, Instructor
Cultural and Political Geography, Women and Space, Youth Literature 

Christopher Johnson, Associate Professor
17th- to 20th-Century German Literature and Thought

Sara Lee, Senior Lecturer
Second Language Pedagogy, Disabilities, Dyslexia, Bilingual Learning 

Natalie Lozinski-Veach, Assistant Professor
20th- to 21st-Century German Literature and Thought, Holocaust Studies, Environmental Humanities, Animal Studies

Kristi McAuliffe, Instructor
Holocaust Studies, German Literature, Intercultural Communicative Competence, Reader Response Theory

Christiane Reves, Lecturer Lower Division Coordinator
Migration Studies, 17th- and 18th-Century History, Economic and Business History, Jewish History, Journalism