In our program, six German and two Scandinavian specialists collaborate fully in an intellectual enterprise focused on modernity. Our various sub-concentrations, which include philosophical and theoretical discourses, Holocaust- and memory-studies, visual culture, folk traditions and German Shakespeare Studies, represent substantive links to other departments and programs, in particular Philosophy, History, Judaic Studies, Art History, Music, English, Comparative Literature and Folklore.

Composed of faculty from departments and programs across campus, the German Studies Committee is an interdisciplinary collective committed to the study of theoretical and historical structures of delimitation in matters of German-speaking culture. This year's conference, entitled "Up Against the Wall," and held on November 12-13, 2009, commemorates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. See News and Events for a detailed program. (For information on previous music symposia, click here. For information on previous conferences click here. The German Studies Committee is also the editorial home of a new open-access online journal called KONTUREN, which focuses on questions of shifting borderlines in German Studies and contemporary theory.

With ample opportunity for study abroad, our more than 70 undergraduate majors pursue the B. A. with a focus in one of three areas: German Literature and Language; German Studies; Scandinavian. Language instruction covers not only German but also Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish. Our innovative graduate curriculum is designed to provide M.A. and Ph.D. students with a firm grounding in modern (post-1750) German literature and to enable them to locate this literature within the context of modern European history and thought.

The Pacific Coast, the Cascade Mountains, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Ashland) and the Oregon Bach Festival (Eugene) are among the natural and cultural amenities that make the University of Oregon an agreeable setting in which to study the literatures and languages of the German-speaking and Nordic countries.