You can study German Studies as part of the two-subject Bachelor's programme as a

• First or second subject (60 credit points)

• minor subject (30 credit points) combined with a main subject (90 credit points)

• First subject with 90 credit points, combined with a second subject (30 credit points).

The subject of German Studies can be studied either with the career goal of teaching or a non-teaching career goal. If you wish to become a teacher, you must observe the combination of subjects for the respective teaching profession.

German Studies is the study of the German language and literature as well as the teaching and learning of German as a mother tongue and as a foreign language. Oldenburg German Studies comprises the subject areas of modern literary studies, medieval studies, linguistics, German as a foreign language/German as a second language, specialised didactics as well as Low German and Sater Frisian.

Modern literary studies deals with German-language literature from the early modern period to the present day. The work and research focus of literary studies here includes drama and theatre, literature in newspapers and magazines, the relationship between literature and medicine, modern and postmodern literature, children's and young adult literature since the Enlightenment, including children's media (picture books, film) and literary theory.

Medieval studies is the study of German literature and language of the Middle Ages. The Oldenburg Medieval Studies Centre focuses on research into medieval narrative, poetry research (minnesong, sacred poetry) and the mediality of pre-modern literature (orality, transition to book printing).

The research focus within linguistics lies in system linguistics, currently in particular in graphematics, i.e. the writing system of German, and in morphology. Another research focus is in the field of prosody.

In the field of German as a foreign language/German as a second language, the research focus is on the relationship between state monolingualism and social multilingualism and, in co-operation with intercultural pedagogy, on problems of intercultural communication and the teaching of German.

Research projects on linguistic-literary learning are carried out in the field of didactics of German . In language didactics , the focus is on research into the adaptivity of teachers' language behaviour as well as in the areas of language in the subject, advanced language acquisition, writing didactics, writing language acquisition and linguistic participation in digital (university) teaching. In literature and media didactics, the focus is on subject-specific skills and teaching research as well as teacher training research. Other research focuses include the development of tasks for reading and literature lessons as well as the history and theory of literature teaching.

The subject area of Low German and Sater Frisian deals on the one hand with the Low German and Sater Frisian language in its historical and regional variation as well as in the context of multilingualism and language contact; and on the other hand with Low German literature, its materiality and mediality, which is analysed from its beginnings to the present day, among other things against the background of diglossia and multilingualism in the Low German language area.

Graduates of a German studies degree programme find jobs in adult education and in public and public schools. The entire media sector (press, radio, film and television) and the publishing industry offer very different fields of work.
You can complete the subsequent Master's programme with a Master of Education or a Master of Arts. The former qualifies you for a career in education, while the latter has a more specialised focus and provides the basis for a career outside of education.

Prof Dr Jörg Peters