Graduate Certificate Program

Graduate Certificate

The Graduate Certificate Program in German Cultural Studies enables graduate students who are working on degrees in the Humanities and Social Sciences to acquire advanced language proficiency to carry out their research and to engage in interdisciplinary studies. Graduate work in German cultural studies with faculty from a wide array of interdisciplinary fields (German Studies, but also Anthropology, Art History, English, Cinema, Comparative Literature, Judaic Studies, Philosophy, and Sociology) can make an important contribution to students’ scholarly careers.

The program invites applications from graduate students who have been admitted to one of the fields listed above, who have at least intermediate level competence in German, and who are committed to building proficiency in the language and to expanding their conceptual and methodological approaches to research.

Upon completion of the program, students will be awarded a Graduate Certificate of German Cultural Studies.

German Studies FAQs

  • The Program sets itself the following goals
    • Interdisciplinary in nature, it seeks to produce research and scholarship that engages German and Central European studies in its many forms.
    • Participating students will develop fluency in the German language and expertise in German cultural studies.
    • The program builds on research links and support structures that have been developed between German faculty and faculty in other departments in order to broaden and deepen the students’ academic research; it will allow students to benefit from such collaborations between faculty members and disciplines.
    • The program will host an annual discussion round of workshops and presentations in which the faculty associated with the program, students enrolled in it, and scholars from other campuses will participate.
  • Program Requirements
    • Students need to establish competence in the German language at the third-year level.
    • It is expected that students spend one regular term or one summer in research and/or language study in a German-speaking country. Students can apply for financial support for this part of the program through a Paul Weigand Scholarship.
    • Students are required to take a total of 16 credits in German cultural studies and/or independent studies in their field of research. Undergraduate courses offered at the 300-400 level may be taken in partial fulfillment of this requirement, provided that the course requirements are modified to conform to graduate-level course expectations.
    • Students are expected to present results from their research at one or more of the annual conferences the program hosts.
  • How to register for the Certificate
    Please visit the Graduate School's website for application information or contact the Graduate School directly and staff will guide through the application process.
  • Courses

    Phil 540c
    Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment
    Melissa Zinkin

    This course will be an intensive study of Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment. We will discuss a bit what comes before, eg. Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, Kant’s first and second Critiques, and also what comes after, eg. Nietzsche, Heidegger, Lyotard, Hanna Ginsborg.   Topics include: beauty, the sublime, taste, the relation of beauty to morality, the relation of beauty to cognition, reflection, non-conceptual content, “normativity as such.”