German Studies

Anyone who learns German has an open access to Germany, its culture and to the outstanding location for science and career it is. With proficiency in the German language, a 'Germany competence' is connected, which often also represents a decisive factor for career and market opportunities. In addition, knowledge of the German language and culture promotes social and academic integration during study and research stays in Germany.

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DAAD and German Studies

Learning German opens numerous opportunities not just in Germany but also in your home country. There are many reasons for learning and studying the German language: better career prospects, a desired study or research stay in Germany, as well as cultural, political or economic interests. The promotion of German studies and the German language abroad is a priority area for the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Read on to find out the many activities, events, scholarship programmes and DAAD team involved in the field of German language and studies.

Symposium for Young Researchers

Jointly organised by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies and ICAS:MP Metamorphosis of the Political, the Early Career Research symposium will offer a platform for young researchers to showcase their work in the overarching subject of Cross-Border Mobility.

The symposium will address students of Humanities and Social Sciences – You as German/German Studies students certainly form a part of this target group, and your applications too are eagerly awaited.
Find out more on www.daad.in/ecr

DAAD Funding Programmes

The DAAD offers numerous funding programmes across all subject fields – for individuals as well as for higher education institutions.

Here you see a selection of special programmes limited to the field of German Studies. Students and scholars of this field are of course welcome to apply for research grants for doctoral programmes in Germany, for bi-nationally supervised doctoral degrees etc.
Click here for more information.

University Summer Courses / Hochschulsommerkurs (HSK) - Deadline 2 Dec 2024

Individual Funding

This programme aims to help students and graduates improve their knowledge of German (general language, special language) and their cultural knowledge of the country. The programme funds specific courses (taught exclusively in German) which are offered by state or state-recognised German universities and affiliated language schools.

Institutional Funding

The German Language, Literature and Culture: Institutional Partnerships Worldwide (GIP) programme uses Federal Foreign Office funds to promote cooperation between institutes that offer German studies and/or German as a foreign language at German higher education institutions and at their partner institutes abroad. It supports the relevant departments at foreign universities in the continuous modernization of their curricula, in the qualification of their junior staff and in their international networking and helps to further develop attractive offers that strengthen interest in the German language and in Germany in the university context.

HSK helped me a lot to improve my language skills and also to gain confidence with communication. I made a lot of friends and shared thoughts about culture!

Isha Bajaj, Doon University

Online Resources for Teachers - Dhoch3

The Dhoch3 program supports the education of future teachers of German at higher education institutions abroad with online study modules. The ten modules that it offers deal with different topics in the subject area ‘German as a Foreign Language (GFL/DaF)’. These are available on the online learning platform Moodle free of charge for teachers. Dhoch3 creates an additional range of materials and literature that can be integrated into existing courses and at the same time gives an impulse for the development of new courses.

Read more

DAAD Lecturers and Language Assistants

The DAAD appoints Lecturers and Language Assistants at foreign universities to teach and promote German studies abroad. They also support with various DAAD activities like scholarship counseling and disseminating information about study and research in Germany. Their jobs are as varied as they are diverse!

…DAAD Lecturers

Dr Jan-Helge Weidemann (Delhi University)

Weidemann

Jan-Helge Weidemann joined the Department of Germanic and Romance Studies of the Delhi University as DAAD lecturer in August of 2020. Until 2018, he had been teaching in Guangzhou and Shanghai (China) for six years in total. He received his bachelor’s degree from Jacobs University Bremen, Germany, in History and Theory of Art and Literature, which he followed up with an MA in Film Studies at the University of Southampton in the UK. He completed his PhD in Literature at Jacobs University in 2012, writing about cinematic experience from the perspective of media anthropology.

Dr Michael Stadler (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

Stadler

Dr Michael Stadler has joined the Centre for German Studies of JNU as a DAAD Lecturer in January 2022. Until 2021, he worked as an academic employee at Tübingen University’s newly founded ‘College of Fellows’ and from 2019 – 2020, he worked in the context of Robert Bosch Foundation’s Lectureship Program in Asia as a German Lecturer in China (Sichuan). Stadler received his BA degrees in Philosophy and Cultural Studies from Radboud University Nijmegen, his Erasmus Mundus MA degree in philosophy from the Universities of Toulouse, Luxembourg, Memphis (TN) and Prague, and his PhD degree in Philosophy from the Universities of Vienna and Ferrara.

Dr Christina Rath (Savitribai Phule Pune University)

Rath

Dr Christina Rath joined the Department of Foreign Languages of the SPPU as DAAD lecturer in August 2021. She pursued her PhD in Linguistics at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne. Her PhD study followed Syrian Arabic learners of German in the second language context and aimed at getting a better understanding of the development of pragmatic competence in the second language. The project reflects her current research interests in Second Language Acquisition, Interlanguage Pragmatics (in particular acquisitional pragmatics), Intercultural Communication and Linguistic Politeness. Before her time in Pune / India, she had been teaching at the University of Cologne and the University of Adelaide (Australia).

…DAAD Language Assistants

Sascha Wichmann (University of Mumbai)

Wichmann

Sascha Wichmann joined the Department of German of University of Mumbai as a DAAD Teaching Assistant in June 2024. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work and a Master’s degree in Social Theory from Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Sascha’s master’s thesis was on Theorizing society through literary short prose in the Weimar Republic. As a teaching assistant, he currently teaches German literature and film, among other subjects.