German Studies

Home Undergraduate Program German Studies

Undergraduate Program
Drop-In Advising Hours
Declaring the Major or Minor

Print Materials (PDFs)
2009-2010 Course List
Major Worksheet
Senior Checkout Packet

Major Requirements

Prerequisite for the Major

German 5 is a pre requisite for all upper-division courses taught in German and for the German Studies major. Students are encouraged to take German 1 through 5 as early as possible in their academic program.

Course Requirements

All students are required to take a total of 10 courses, including a minimum of three courses in German literature and two courses in German history. No more than two of the 10 required courses may be lower -division courses, and no more than two may come from the Germany in a European or World Context list. A minimum of five of the 10 required courses must be taught in German or principally through German-language texts. Language competency to level five is required in order to pursue a German studies major.

All students must complete a senior oral examination (given by two faculty members) as part of the requirements for the major. Enrollment in a 2-credit oral examination preparatory course, History 199F, is required in the same quarter that the senior oral examination will be given. The preparatory course will be taken with the chair of the student's examination committee.

Regular consultation with a program faculty adviser is required.

Senior Oral Exam and Senior Checkout Packet

As fulfillment of the University Senior Comprehensive requirement in the major, German Studies majors are required to pass an oral examination. Each student shall identify two-three german studies faculty members to serve on the examination committee, one of whom shall be designated as the committee chair.

One quarter prior to the exam, all German Studies majors are required to complete a Senior Checkout Packet with their exam committee chair. At this time, all students must indicate their final degree plan on the Senior Check, complete a Petition for Undergraduate Individual Studies and schedule the oral examination, all with the assistance of the committee chair.
The purpose of completing the Senior Check and Petition for Undergraduate Individual Studies is to ensure that all students are on track to finish the major requirements by their graduation quarter and to obtain enrollment in HIS 199F, a two-unit individual study oral exam preparatory course.

The Senior Check and Petition for Undergraduate Individual Studies must be submitted to the History Department Office during Drop-In Advising Hours. The undergraduate adviser will issue an enrollment code for HIS 199F at this time. Both forms must be completed in entirety and approved by the committee chair before an enrollment code will be issued.

EAP and the German Studies Major

It is strongly recommended that students spend a period of time in residence in Germany through the University of California Education Abroad Program to further enrich their program of study and ensure a command of the language. Students are allowed to transfer up to five courses taken at German universities toward the requirements for the major. However, the five core courses in German literature and history must be taken at UCSC.

Declaration of Major or Minor Procedure

(See Academic and Administrative Calendar for declaration of major/minor deadlines.)

1. Pick up two forms:
• A declaration of major/minor form at advising.ucsc.edu. Make sure that Section 1 (monitoring of completed GEs) is completed with your college adviser.
• A German Studies major planning worksheet, available at the History Department or online.
2. Meet with one of the german studies faculty advisers to plan an individualized program of study. Obtain your faculty adviser's signature in Section II of the declaration of major/minor form and on your major planning worksheet.
3. Go to the History Department with your signed declaration of major form and your major planning worksheet. The undergraduate adviser will complete Section III. If no further advising from other departments is required, the adviser will then forward the completed declaration to the Registrar, your college office, and second department of study (when applicable).

German Studies Faculty Advisers

Mark Cioc, Professor of History
281 Stevenson• 459-3817 • cioc@ucsc.edu

Loisa Nygaard, Associate Professor, German Literature
627 Humanities 1 • 459-2842 • nygaard@ucsc.edu

Associated Faculty and Professional Interests

• Hunter Bivens, Associate Professor of Literature
  
Twentieth and twenty-first century German literature and film; Marxism and critical theory; psychoanalysis, lyric poetry; literary realism; the novel
• Walter Campbell, Lecturer in German Language
  Language teaching, 18th-and 19th-century German literature, history of German
• Mark Cioc, Professor of History
  German history, modern European history, environmental history
• Judith Harris-Frisk, Lecturer in German Language
  German language and cultural studies; German literature and intellectual history, 1750-present; turn-of-the-century Vienna and Weimar German; German issues of national identity and multiculturalism
• Theo Honnef, Lecturer in German Literature
• Donna Hunter, Associate Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture
  European painting (especially French) from 1600 to the 1960s; German art and visual culture between the two world wars; art as a social practice, portraiture
• Virginia Jansen, Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture (Emerita)
• Loisa Nygaard, Associate Professor of Literature
  Eighteenth-and early 19th-century German literature, romanticism; aesthetics and politics of landscape; military theory