The Field

German Studies

Our undergraduate program in German Studies offers a broad range of courses on the German-speaking world from the Middle Ages to the present. In addition to our language courses from beginning to advanced German, we teach classes on culture, society, film, literature, history, politics, and philosophy in both German and English.

Our German-language courses focus on the continuous development of listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. While improving their German language proficiency, students will also develop their ability to understand, articulate, and examine cultural, historical, and political issues in the German-speaking world through engagement with a wide variety of literary texts and media, including film, art, and music. STEM-German language courses prepare students to participate in scientific and technological research and industry in Germany. We provide tools for critical inquiry, and foster intercultural competence by establishing understanding of and ability to navigate inter- and intracultural differences.

Our strengths are in interdisciplinary literary and cultural studies. This is reflected in our regularly taught courses on witches and myths, folk tales, crime and criminals, the Holocaust, the Crusades and images of Islam, Berlin, refugee comics, East German films, turn-of-the-century Vienna, the quest for the grail, Yiddish and German-Jewish culture, and star culture and actresses. In these courses students learn to engage critically with the course materials, to interpret cultural texts within their historic and socio-political contexts, to develop analytical reading and writing skills, and to effectively communicate, discuss and exchange their ideas.

Scandinavian Studies

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is the only public university in the eastern United States to offer an undergraduate major or minor in Scandinavian Studies. The Program in Scandinavian Studies focuses on the cultures of Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Sweden and provides students with the opportunity to study a wide range of fascinating courses, on trolls, giants, and dwarves, Hans Christian Andersen, the dramas of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Scandinavian Mythology and old Norse.  Courses in accelerated beginning and intermediate Swedish are taught every year, allowing students to quickly gain a solid reading knowledge in the Swedish language.