Harvard’s curriculum is extraordinarily rich and dynamic. We believe that exposure to a variety of texts, media, and other cultural productions, together with solid knowledge of specific genres and traditions, is the best way to spark creative thinking and writing. While some courses are offered in two-year alternation, many are new offerings that permit us to explore special topics and keep our listings up to date. The faculty also teach General Education courses, which open up the department to larger national and international discussions. Faculty in the department share a number of intellectual engagements: the Age of Goethe, Austrian and German modernism, recent films and novels, and Nordic culture. These clusters are supplemented by cross-disciplinary interests in art history and visual culture, theory and philosophy, science and literature, performance studies, folklore, anthropology, and ethnopoetics. Our interests in theater and drama range from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century plays to Strindberg, Brecht, Heiner Müller and beyond, and include an annual theatrical performance by undergraduates. Students in Germanic Languages and Literatures are strongly encouraged to take courses in other departments such as history, philosophy, music, art, comparative literature, and history of science, to name just a few.
A distinctive feature of our program is the breadth of its language offerings, which include German, Swedish, and the entire spectrum of other Nordic languages. Class sizes are small, and students receive close attention from their instructors. An interactive approach allows students to develop language skills rapidly and efficiently. The German and Scandinavian clubs, as well as language tables in the houses and other language-related activities supported by the department, offer more informal ways to practice speaking the foreign language in real-life situations. Study and work abroad programs provide immersion experiences in Germany and Scandinavia.
