As the oldest academic program in German Studies in North America, the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Penn combines a commitment to the traditions of literary studies in German with a forward-looking approach to new developments in the field. Our faculty offer a range of undergraduate and graduate courses spanning German literary history but also at the forefront of theoretical explorations in areas such as cultural studies, critical theory, material culture, history of the book, German-Jewish studies, gender studies, the history of sexuality and the body, film studies, and inter-art studies.
In addition to a comprehensive program of German language instruction, including a curriculum in Business German, a distinctive feature of our department is our offerings in Yiddish, Dutch, and Swedish.