Mission Statement

Georgetown University Department of German (GUGD)

In accord with Georgetown University’s Jesuit tradition, the German Department seeks, through its scholarship, and its undergraduate and graduate programs, to expand the disciplinary and cross-disciplinary knowledge of German and enhance students’ imagination and commitment to the common good.

At the undergraduate level, the Department aims to enable students to become competent and culturally literate users of German who can employ the language in a range of intellectual and professional contexts and who can also draw from it personal enrichment and enjoyment. It does so by engaging students with diverse content areas within an integrated curriculum whose pedagogies reflect the best available research regarding the multiple links among language, culture, and ways of knowing.

At the graduate level, the Department seeks to prepare PhD and MA students for a range of career paths in academia and other professional contexts enabling them to participate in shaping their areas of expertise and engagement through scholarship, teaching, and service. It does so by building a broad foundation of German literature and culture from the 18^th century to the present, as well as fostering critical approaches in the research specialties of its faculty, including contemporary literature and culture, issues of gender and sexuality, intersections of social change and literary form, digital humanities and digital pedagogies, film and media studies, curriculum development, and literacy studies.

(1997; last revised 2019)