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The Graduate Program in Germanic Studies at UBC integrates a large scope of thematic and theoretical research areas. Students are guided by faculty whose teaching and research cover a wide range of German literature, film, culture, and media. Course offerings feature approaches grounded in varied theories and disciplinary perspectives. The program's structure encourages students to develop their individual focus of study and research in consultation with faculty. Students will develop a comprehensive knowledge of German cultural works in their aesthetic, social, political, cultural, and historical dimensions. Students learn how to apply a variety of critical methods and theories to the study of cultural texts, while developing skills that are applicable to many career paths.
Our graduate programs are situated in a thriving comparative department, which houses programs that concentrate on German, Nordic, and Slavic studies. Our departmental structure and the format of the degree encourage students to pursue their work in German Studies with an interdisciplinary and transcultural approach.
Within our small department, our faculty, whose expertise lies in all areas of German, Nordic, and Slavic studies, including queer and gender/sexuality studies, film and media studies, literary studies, and applied linguistics, prepare students for their future endeavours and support them with a range of professional development opportunities. The small size of our program guarantees individualized attention from advisors and other graduate faculty members.
Our forward-looking approach to graduate education can be seen in our emphasis on high-quality mentoring and supervision as well as our addition of the Arts Co-op program option. Co-op is a curricular program that allows you to develop career skills for work outside the traditional academic career path for Ph.D. grads.
The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies establishes the minimum admission requirements common to all applicants, usually a minimum overall average in the B+ range (76% at UBC). The graduate program that you are applying to may have additional requirements. Please review the specific requirements for applicants with credentials from institutions in:
Each program may set higher academic minimum requirements. Please review the program website carefully to understand the program requirements. Meeting the minimum requirements does not guarantee admission as it is a competitive process.
Applicants from a university outside Canada in which English is not the primary language of instruction must provide results of an English language proficiency examination as part of their application. Tests must have been taken within the last 24 months at the time of submission of your application.
Minimum requirements for the two most common English language proficiency tests to apply to this program are listed below:
Overall score requirement: 90
Reading
22
Writing
21
Speaking
21
Listening
22
Overall score requirement: 6.5
Reading
6.0
Writing
6.0
Speaking
6.0
Listening
6.0
Some programs require additional test scores such as the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or the Graduate Management Test (GMAT). The requirements for this program are:
The GRE is not required.
For admission to the doctoral program in Germanic Studies, applicants are expected to have a master’s degree (or equivalent) in German Studies or a related field.
Applicants are expected to have sufficient German language proficiency for graduate coursework in German Studies. For the doctoral level, this is normally C1 on the CEFR scale. If applicants’ proposed research requires additional language ability (e.g., in another language), they must demonstrate their proficiency.
All applicants have to submit transcripts from all past post-secondary study. Document submission requirements depend on whether your institution of study is within Canada or outside of Canada.
A minimum of three references are required for application to graduate programs at UBC. References should be requested from individuals who are prepared to provide a report on your academic ability and qualifications.
Many programs require a statement of interest, sometimes called a "statement of intent", "description of research interests" or something similar.
Students in research-based programs usually require a faculty member to function as their thesis supervisor. Please follow the instructions provided by each program whether applicants should contact faculty members.
Permanent Residents of Canada must provide a clear photocopy of both sides of the Permanent Resident card.
All applicants must complete an online application form and pay the application fee to be considered for admission to UBC.
Diversity, Decolonalization, and the German Curriculum (DDGC), a scholarly collective co-founded by Dr. Ervin Malakaj. “The Pasts and Futures of Queer German Studies,” funded by SSHRC and the German Academic Exchange Service. Faculty: Dr. Ervin Malakaj and Dr. Kyle Frackman. “Migration as Core Narrative of Plural Societies: Towards an Aesthetics of Postmigrant Literature,” funded by SSHRC. Faculty: Dr. Markus Hallensleben. Special issue of Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies on the Media Histories of Girls in Uniform, edited by Dr. Ilinca Iurascu. “Coming Out of the Iron Closet: East Germany and Homosexuality,” funded by SSHRC. Faculty: Dr. Kyle Frackman. “Epistolary Cultures circa 1800,” funded by SSHRC. Faculty: Dr. Gaby Pailer and Dr. Florian Gassner. Book series “Recursions: Theories of Media, Materiality, and Cultural Techniques” from Amsterdam University Press, co-edited by Dr. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young.
The program in Germanic Studies has exceptional strengths in several subfields. These include literary studies (literatures of migration and mobility, 18th-century women writers, literary history and historiography), media studies (media theory, cultural techniques), queer studies (theories and analyses of gender and sexuality in cultural works), film studies (early cinema, East German film), and applied linguistics (pragmatics, sociolinguistics, translation studies, second language acquisition, curriculum studies).
UBC Library’s resources are considerable, chief among them Koerner Library and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Rare Books and Special Collections has extensive collections of materials related to German Studies and book history, ranging from medieval manuscripts to 20th-century political texts. Graduate students have access to a dedicated lounge and office space in the heart of our department’s floor in Buchanan Tower.
| Fees | Canadian Citizen / Permanent Resident / Refugee / Diplomat | International |
|---|---|---|
| Application Fee | $116.25 | $168.25 |
| Tuition * | ||
| Installments per year | 3 | 3 |
| Tuition per installment | $1,838.57 | $3,230.06 |
| Tuition per year (plus annual increase, usually 2%-5%) | $5,515.71 | $9,690.18 |
| Int. Tuition Award (ITA) per year (if eligible) | $3,200.00 (-) | |
| Other Fees and Costs | ||
| Student Fees (yearly) | $1,116.60 (approx.) | |
| Costs of living | Estimate your costs of living with our interactive tool in order to start developing a financial plan for your graduate studies. | |
Applicants to UBC have access to a variety of funding options, including merit-based (i.e. based on your academic performance) and need-based (i.e. based on your financial situation) opportunities.
Typical support for doctoral students is approximately $30,000 per year for four years but often continues for five years, contingent upon satisfactory academic progress and funding availability. Updated average funding amounts are listed in the “Average Funding” section below. Funding packages may include scholarships, grants, teaching assistantships, and research assistantships, depending on the student’s area of specialty and the department’s funding resources.
Our graduate students receive extensive support and mentorship from faculty in the required annual applications for awards (e.g., SSHRC, Affiliated, external funding agencies). Successful applications in these competitions can substantially increase students’ annual financial packages.
Graduate students are guaranteed up to $1,500 in research and professional development support from the department each year, in addition to the resources available from the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and the Faculty of Arts.
From September 2024 all full-time students in UBC-Vancouver PhD programs will be provided with a funding package of at least $24,000 for each of the first four years of their PhD. The funding package may consist of any combination of internal or external awards, teaching-related work, research assistantships, and graduate academic assistantships. Please note that many graduate programs provide funding packages that are substantially greater than $24,000 per year.
All applicants are encouraged to review the awards listing to identify potential opportunities to fund their graduate education. The database lists merit-based scholarships and awards and allows for filtering by various criteria, such as domestic vs. international or degree level.
Many professors are able to provide Research Assistantships (GRA) from their research grants to support full-time graduate students studying under their supervision. The duties constitute part of the student's graduate degree requirements. A Graduate Research Assistantship is considered a form of fellowship for a period of graduate study and is therefore not covered by a collective agreement. Stipends vary widely, and are dependent on the field of study and the type of research grant from which the assistantship is being funded.
Graduate programs may have Teaching Assistantships available for registered full-time graduate students. Full teaching assistantships involve 12 hours work per week in preparation, lecturing, or laboratory instruction although many graduate programs offer partial TA appointments at less than 12 hours per week. Teaching assistantship rates are set by collective bargaining between the University and the Teaching Assistants' Union.
Academic Assistantships are employment opportunities to perform work that is relevant to the university or to an individual faculty member, but not to support the student’s graduate research and thesis. Wages are considered regular earnings and when paid monthly, include vacation pay.
Canadian and US applicants may qualify for governmental loans to finance their studies. Please review eligibility and types of loans.
All students may be able to access private sector or bank loans.
Many foreign governments provide support to their citizens in pursuing education abroad. International applicants should check the various governmental resources in their home country, such as the Department of Education, for available scholarships.
The possibility to pursue work to supplement income may depend on the demands the program has on students. It should be carefully weighed if work leads to prolonged program durations or whether work placements can be meaningfully embedded into a program.
International students enrolled as full-time students with a valid study permit can work on campus for unlimited hours and work off-campus for no more than 20 hours a week.
A good starting point to explore student jobs is the UBC Work Learn program or a Co-Op placement.
Students with taxable income in Canada may be able to claim federal or provincial tax credits.
Canadian residents with RRSP accounts may be able to use the Lifelong Learning Plan (LLP) which allows students to withdraw amounts from their registered retirement savings plan (RRSPs) to finance full-time training or education for themselves or their partner.
Please review Filing taxes in Canada on the student services website for more information.
Applicants have access to the cost estimator to develop a financial plan that takes into account various income sources and expenses.
9 students graduated between 2005 and 2013. Of these, career information was obtained for 9 alumni (based on research conducted between Feb-May 2016):
These statistics show data for the Doctor of Philosophy in Germanic Studies (PhD). Data are separated for each degree program combination. You may view data for other degree options in the respective program profile.
This program went through a name change in previous years that may have included curriculum changes. It was previously known as: Doctor of Philosophy in German until 2011. Historical data on this page may include data collected under the previous name(s) of the program.
| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Applications | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Offers | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| New Registrations | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Total Enrolment | 7 | 8 | 6 | 9 | 9 |
Students in research-based programs usually require a faculty member to function as their thesis supervisor. Please follow the instructions provided by each program whether applicants should contact faculty members.
This list shows faculty members with full supervisory privileges who are affiliated with this program. It is not a comprehensive list of all potential supervisors as faculty from other programs or faculty members without full supervisory privileges can request approvals to supervise graduate students in this program.
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Dr. Zimmermann reviewed how modern German-language literature challenges views of refugees as problems that threaten European liberal nation-states. Texts can illustrate that neither European citizens nor refugees are permanent outsiders or insiders to a place. The findings are relevant for literary discourses on the categorization of migrants. |
| 2021 | Dr. Franzen's dissertation added to our conceptual understanding of systemic violence. Asking how Nazi Germany's juridical genocide practically and paradoxically worked, her research showed how aspects of a subjectively civilized and heroic norm/self-education, systemic embraces of subversive acts and some prisoner's survival identity formed part of its functioning. |
| 2021 | Dr. Leesing's thesis examined how high-rises were portrayed in diverse media in Germany from 1945 to 2020. Her findings showed how the high-rise changed the definition of 'home' while also becoming a tool for cultural forgetting and institutional surveillance. This work stresses the importance of architecture and media in a time of cultural shifts. |
| 2018 | The fairytale fantasy is a hybrid literary genre that combines fairy tale and fantasy characteristics. Through an examination of two sets of case-studies from different national literatures, Dr. Dreier provided means to the understanding of the narrative apparatus and the revisionist qualities of fairytale fantasy works. |
| 2018 | Dr. Nowak examined the space of the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw during the German occupation of Poland as experienced by those forced to inhabit it. In her thesis, she introduced a concept of violence that allows a description of space itself as a form of violence. Her work contributes to Holocaust Studies as well as current research on space and violence. |
| 2017 | Dr. Kage analyzed horse-riding as a companion species practice and cultural technique in German literature around 1900. Her research shows the shifting relationship between humans, animals and their surroundings. It also adds to our knowledge of current developments in Ecocriticism, the study of literature and the environment. |
| 2016 | Dr. Hoellering showed how Turkish-German ethno-comedians occupy a social position similar to medieval jesters, and how their distinctive humor deflates stereotypes that have developed over centuries. His work helps to understand ethno-comedy as an effective platform for the cultural participation of marginalized groups. |
| 2015 | Dr. Baer focused on how wards of the state are portrayed in German literature from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Her research advances our understanding of the international history of foster care, and of how literature, their translations and literary studies contribute to society's understanding and perception of that history and of those in care. |
| 2012 | Dr. Redlich investigates how Yoko Tawada's German literary texts can be read as politically charged cultural criticisms. In particular this research reveals how the unstable production and perception of 'race' is a central literary theme in nearly all of Tawada's literature. |
| 2011 | In her dissertation, Dr. Roy analyzed autobiographies written by individuals who were spied upon by the Stasi, the former East German secret police. She studied how these authors used their own Stasi files to write about their lives under surveillance and how these file-based autobiographies constitute a new autobiographical sub-genre. |
Course offerings include approaches from historical, cultural, media, performance, and gender/sexuality studies and move beyond a traditional epoch-based mode of disciplinary engagement.
Students have the opportunity to: develop comprehensive knowledge and critical judgment of German literary history; acquire an understanding of literary texts in their aesthetic, social, political, (inter)cultural, and historical dimensions; apply a variety of critical methods and theories to the study of literary texts; and refine literary sensibilities, analytical skills, and conceptual abilities.
Departments/Programs may update graduate degree program details through the Faculty & Staff portal. To update contact details for application inquiries, please use this form.
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