Head: Professor Philip Thomson
Graduate coordinator: Professor David Roberts
The Department of German offers three postgraduate courses leading to research degrees: MA by coursework and thesis, MA by thesis, and PhD. All courses may be taken full-time or part-time. Students can specialise in German literature or German linguistics.
Members of staff and their fields of special interest
Silke Hesse Franz Kafka; baroque literature; Grimmelshausen; women's literature.
Pavel Petr Kafka; German literature of Prague; theory of the comic; empirical studies of literature.
Kate Rigby Romanticism; modernism; postmodernism; literary theory; cultural criticism; feminist theory; drama and theatre studies.
David Roberts Heinrich Mann; Goethe, Canetti; theory of the German novel; realism in literature; contemporary German literature; theory of parody; postmodernism.
Philip Thomson The grotesque; modern German poetry; literary theory; B. Brecht; contemporary German and Australian fiction.
Walter Veit Medieval and baroque studies; comparative literature; literary theory; poetics; aesthetics, rhetoric and intercultural studies.
Monty Wilkinson German synchronic and diachronic syntax and phonology; older stages of Germanic languages; grammatical relations and linguistic universals.
Rod Wilson Language teaching methodology; German social critical song.
Doctor of Philosophy
For students with a BA honours degree (H2A or above) or equivalent, or an MA or equivalent. Candidates are required to write a thesis on a topic approved by the department. They will be asked to deliver papers at research seminars designed to discuss problems of research in progress, and prepare for regular discussion with their supervisor.
Master of Arts by thesis only
For students with a BA honours degree (H2A or above) or equivalent. Students are required to write a thesis on a topic approved by the department, to attend seminars relevant to their area of research and prepare for regular discussions with their supervisor.
Master of Arts by research and coursework
The MA by coursework and thesis is designed to give all MA candidates an introduction to and experience in modern research methods, to give candidates proceeding to the PhD a broader background in their chosen subject and to offer those for whom the MA is the final goal an opportunity to extend their professional knowledge. Students pursue a supervised course of reading in their chosen options, and will be required to write a number of essays. They will be asked to prepare for and actively participate in regular seminars conducted by specialists, and in Part II of the MA will write a thesis on a topic connected with one of the options selected.
MA Part I
Compulsory subjects
GNM4400 is compulsory for German linguistics students; GNM4600 is compulsory for German literature students; GNM4020 and GNM4030 are compulsory for both.
For students entering with a three-year bachelor degree with credit results in the third part of the major sequence. Students complete forty-eight points of coursework.
* GNM4020.06 Advanced German language I
* GNM4030.06 Advanced German language II
* GNM4180.12 German drama, theatre and society
* GNM4360.12 The cultural critics
* GNM4380.12 Language and society: sociolinguistics from a German language perspective
* GNM4400.12 German phonology and morphology (not offered in 1995)
* GNM4480.12 German literature 1871-1918 (not offered in 1995)
* GNM4540.12[[ordfeminine]] Medieval German and historical linguistics (not*offered in 1995)
* GNM4600.06 Theory of literary criticism I: the theory
* GNM4610.06 Theory and practice of literary criticism II: the practice
* GNM4660.12 Special reading course in German
* GNM4760.12 Women and German writing (not offered in 1995)
* GNM4780.12 German for business and trade (not offered in 1995)
MA Part II
Students with a BA honours degree with a grade of H2A or above, or equivalent, may be permitted to go straight into Part II. Two of the following subjects will be undertaken plus a 66 per cent thesis of 25-35000 words. Some of the coursework subjects are available in both first and second semesters.
Students specialising in literature
* GNM5010.08Medieval German literature
* GNM5020.08 Sixteenth and seventeenth-century German literature
* GNM5040.08 Classical German literature
* GNM5050.08 Romanticism in German literature
* GNM5070.08German literature 1900 to 1945
* GNM5080.08 German literature 1945 to the present day
* GNM5160.08 Special topic (in consultation with the staff)
Students specialising in linguistics
* GNM5100.08 German syntax
* GNM5150.08 Special topic (in consultation with the staff)
Students interested in interdisciplinary studies may, with the permission of the faculty and the departments or centres concerned, count graduate work undertaken in other departments and centres towards this degree.