About German Studies @ Rice

The Department of German Studies at Rice University provides an ideal interdisciplinary setting for the study of German literature, history and culture in a wider international context.  Spoken by more than 120 million people, German is one of the main European languages; Germany, Austria and Switzerland are leading members of the international community, not only in terms of economy and politics, but also with regard to cultural and scientific achievements.

 

From the Middle Ages to the present, writers such as Wolfram von Eschenbach, Hildegard von Bingen, Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Thomas Mann, Ingeborg Bachmann, Christa Wolf and Paul Celan have made crucial contributions to the formation of modern literature and continue to shape who we are now, even at the beginning of the 21st century. Composers such as Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler and Schönberg have revolutionized the way we hear, play and understand music. Philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Heidegger, Adorno, Walter Benjamin and, most recently, Jürgen Habermas continue to shape much of contemporary intellectual debate far beyond Germany, as do social thinkers like Georg Simmel, Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, and Niklas Luhmann. This intellectual breadth is reflected in the expertise of the faculty members, which ranges from medieval studies, literary history and critical theory to social and political thought, women and gender studies, film and media studies, history of science, and intellectual history, often crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries.