In the United States, German studies traces its beginnings to the late nineteenth century, when research universities were founded on the German model. The dominance of German as a foreign language before World War I and the decline in enrollments during that war are salient points in the discipline’s social history. Today German studies finds itself at a crossroads, facing unexpected change in the structure of higher education and in the cultural and economic support for studying language and literature. Instead of taking a narrative or chronological approach, this volume foregrounds multiple, heterogeneous aspects of German as a discipline. They include:


The composition of the professoriat
Employment patterns
The place of women the dramatic effects of World Wars I and II, and of the Soviet Sputnik success, on enrollments, jobs, and budgets
The support—and indifference—of the large (once 4 million people) German American community
The role of research universities, leading scholars, major books in the field the role of professional organizations, conferences, and journals
The Americanization of German studies
The role of Jewish scholars and of the Holocaust
The fact of there having been two Germanys


German Studies in the United States is an important contribution to the history of higher education in this country.