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German with Film Studies (BA) (UCAS R2P3)

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Discover more about German with Film Studies at Warwick

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R2P3

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Bachelor of Arts (BA)

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4 years full-time, normally including a year abroad

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26 September 2022

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Modern Languages and Cultures

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University of Warwick

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We aim to equip you with excellent communication, research, critical and evaluative skills, all of which are highly sought after by employers.

Our German with Film Studies (BA) degree gives you the opportunity to specialise in the German language and culture while spending a quarter of your time on Film Studies.

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Germany has always been at the heart of European intellectual and cultural traditions, not least the birth of early cinema. This creates a natural synergy between these two subject areas.

German Studies at Warwick provides the opportunity to explore the extraordinary breadth and depth of the German language and culture in collaboration with recognised experts in the field.

Combining German with film means you will graduate as a highly qualified linguist with a deep understanding of key issues and developments in Germany’s past and present. You will gain advanced intercultural skills and excellent knowledge of visual aesthetics, cinematic culture, and narrative forms.

You will normally spend your second or third year abroad, consolidating and enhancing your learning.

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Building on the strong interdisciplinary links between German and Film and Television Studies, this degree combines in depth study of cinema in German culture with the opportunity to explore wider aspects of film and other cinematic cultures.

In your first year, you will take language classes designed to develop your knowledge and understanding of written and spoken German. To complement your language skills, you will follow two cultural modules that focus on the history and culture of German society since 1945 and German culture in the late eighteenth century. These modules provide an excellent and comprehensive foundation for studying further aspects of German literary, visual and political culture in the later stages of your degree. In addition to this, you will take the Film Studies module 'Discovering Cinema'.

In your intermediate and final years, you will take Film Studies modules and modules that further develop your German language skills. In addition to cultural modules on nineteenth and twentieth-century German culture, you will have an opportunity to develop your own particular interests by choosing from a wide selection of modules offered by German specialists that cover a broad range of subjects in German culture, society, literature, politics, philosophy, film, history, and business, as well as translation and transnationalism. You can also opt to study some of our interdisciplinary cross-School modules.

You can choose to spend your year abroad studying at a university in a German-speaking country or on a British Council Assistantship or a work placement. Currently, during the year abroad, students usually attend a residential orientation course in Germany at Easter time. Led by departmental staff, who travel out to lead the event, the course offers skills development, pastoral care, careers advice and guidance on final year study.

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We employ a variety of teaching styles within the School of Modern Languages including:

Lectures
Seminars (consisting of around 15 students and focussing on student participation)
Written and spoken language classes in small groups

You will spend the rest of your time:

Studying independently
Preparing for classes
Reading
Analysing materials set for study
Writing essays
Working on your language skills

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Seminars generally involve around 15 students.

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12 hours per week (15 hours per week in first year).

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We will track your progress through:

Language assignments
Essays
Presentations
Portfolio submissions
Examinations (written and oral)

To help you improve your skills you will receive detailed and personalised feedback throughout your course.

Your intermediate- and final-year marks each contribute 50% of your final degree classification.

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Study abroad

We strongly recommend that you take a year abroad as part of your modern languages degree, if you are able to. If you are unable to take a year abroad you will move to a three-year. You will be required to complete further language reinforcement work. You will also be encouraged to spend time abroad in other ways, during vacation times.

You will usually spend your year abroad doing one of three things:

Working as a language assistant teaching English in a primary or secondary school
Studying full-time at a partner university in your chosen country
On a work placement

Find out more about flexible Year Abroad options.

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A level typical offer

ABB to include German.

A level contextual offer

We welcome applications from candidates who meet the contextual eligibility criteria and whose predicted grades are close to, or slightly below, the contextual offer level. The typical contextual offer is BBB including B in German. See if you’re eligible.

General GCSE requirements

Unless specified differently above, you will also need a minimum of GCSE grade 4 or C (or an equivalent qualification) in English Language and either Mathematics or a Science subject. Find out more about our entry requirements and the qualifications we accept. We advise that you also check the English Language requirements for your course which may specify a higher GCSE English requirement. Please find the information about this below.

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IB typical offer

34 to include 5 in Higher Level German.

IB contextual offer

We welcome applications from candidates who meet the contextual eligibility criteria and whose predicted grades are close to, or slightly below, the contextual offer level. The typical contextual offer is 32 including grade 5 in Higher Level German. See if you’re eligible.

General GCSE requirements

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We welcome applications from students taking BTECs alongside A level German.

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Year One

Modern German Language 1

You will develop your translation, grammatical and speaking skills in German, and in doing so broaden your vocabulary and range of idiom, expression and awareness of various stylistic registers. You will work in a pair or group on a media project under the supervision of a tutor, which will contribute to your end-of-year mark in spoken German.

Modern German Language for Beginners

As a beginner in the acquisition of the German language, you will cover the main linguistic skills in speaking, listening, writing and reading. You will focus on gaining grammatical accuracy as well and communicative fluency and competence. By the end of the year, you will be expected to be able to sustain everyday conversations in German, read authentic texts such as newspaper articles, follow the gist of TV extracts and be able to write an intermediate range of texts in German. You will also work on basic translations to and from German as a means of consolidating your knowledge.

German Studies modules:

The Changing Face of Germany in Film and Text

In your study of the intellectual history of post-war Germany, you will consider the rise of the mass media and the role played by writers and intellectuals. Through your analysis of diverse literary and filmic texts, you will build your understanding of major landmarks in German history, including post-WWII political reconstruction, the development of the press in the Federal Republic, unification and military reintegration, the opposition to rearmament and student movements, and migration and settlement. The work of intellectuals such as Heinrich Böll, Peter Weiss, Bernhard Schlink, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Paul Verhoeven will inform your studies.

Power and Passion: The Making of Modern German Culture

Starting with the study of the social milieu of late 18th century Germany, you will consider the cultural and intellectual changes of this period, and in particular the rise of the middle classes in the Age of Enlightenment. You will engage with the work of the globally significant writers of this period, including Goethe and Schiller, and study the light they cast on the emerging middle-class consciousness just prior to the cataclysmic changes of the French Revolution of 1789.

Plus an optional module in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures or an approved outside option (30 credits)

Two modules from Film Studies:

Film History and Methods

This module will focus on film and history, exploring the various ways film texts have been analysed as reflecting social and cultural historical moments, filmmaking movements of particular eras, and how films have historicised individuals and events. There are many ways to ‘do’ film history and this term will not be an exhaustive survey of the history of cinema. Instead, it will offer some key contexts, methodologies, and traditions that have formed the wide-ranging study of film and history.

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Film Analysis and Methods

This module is concerned with the close reading and interpretation of film texts through close textual analysis. Over the course of the module, you will acquire the skills and vocabulary necessary to analyse the ways in which meaning is conveyed through the formal properties of film. This module is also concerned with the broader applications of close textual analysis. By the end of the module and you should be confident in applying your skills of textual analysis in order to interrogate the political dimension of audio-visual texts.

Intermediate Year

Modern German Language 2

In this second-year module, you will increase your general and specialised vocabulary in German through translation into English and German, essay-writing in German, spoken and listening comprehension, and work on business-related materials. In pursuit of these aims, you will learn to identify and rectify grammatical problems, and gain increased sensitivity towards language in general, and an awareness of register, semantics and style in particular. You will also gain important research skills, including correct use of dictionaries.

German Studies module:

Reason, Romantics and Reactions. Germany in the Age of Revolution

You will get to grips with the emerging sense of German nationhood, against the background of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. You will study concepts such as the state, the nation and the classical ideal as an aesthetic and political model through the work of authors such as Goethe, Schiller and Hölderlin, before exploring German Romanticism up to its critical reappraisal in the 19th century. You will develop your appreciation of the role of the artists in the German Weltanschauung and the rise of nationalism to broaden your understanding of how literature reflects different models of progress and anticipates social and political change.

Read more about Reason, Romantics and Reactions. Germany in the Age of RevolutionLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2022/23 year of study).

Plus an optional module in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures or an approved outside option (30 credits)

A Film Studies module:

Hollywood Cinema

This core module will build on what students have learned about Hollywood in first year modules by expanding their knowledge about Hollywood in what has been deemed its ‘classic’ period. The module will illustrate important aspects about the industrial system that dominated Hollywood filmmaking from the late 1920s to the early 1960s, including style, genre, and stars. By first focusing on Hollywood as an industry, examining the practices and cultures of film production, the module will then consider its ideological influence by promoting specific American values and traditions through political issues, such as race and ethnicity.

Final Year

Modern German Language 3

In this third-year module, you will use vocabulary of increasing sophistication in both general and specialised fields, and improve your skills in spoken and written German and translation. You will improve your listening and reading comprehension skills, and learn to identify and rectify grammatical problems. An important aim of the course is to cultivate sensitivity towards language in general, and an awareness of register, semantics and style in particular.

German cultural module:

The Rise of Capitalist Modernity: Gender, Class, Identity

You will study the evolution of modern German literature, from Poetic Realism, through Naturalism and Modernism across a wide spectrum of authors, genres and themes in dialogue with major social, cultural and political movements that mark the transformation of Germany and Austria from the 1870s onwards. Themes include the Industrial Revolution, social critique and the dramatic form, sexuality, adolescence and education in the Wilhelmine period, gender roles and modernity, and the lead-up and response of German writers to the First World War. You will analyse major literary movements through the work of, among others, Theodor Fontane, Gerhart Hauptmann, Arthur Schnitzler, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann and Georg Kaiser, and appreciate how the arts became a vehicle for expressing ambivalent attitudes to modernity.

Read more about The Rise of Capitalist Modernity: Gender, Class, Identity moduleLink opens in a new window, including the methods of teaching and assessment (content applies to 2022/23 year of study).

Plus an optional module in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures or an approved outside option (30 credits)

A Film Studies module:

Film Aesthetics

You will begin by exploring overarching ideas about aesthetics and how these relate to evaluative, historical and political discourses. The study of film aesthetics will subsequently see you applying these tenets to the evaluation and interpretation of film, particularly in the light of considerations of representation, mode and genre, and social context. By bringing together philosophical and theoretical questions of aesthetics with detailed textual analysis of a range of films, you will learn to apply such concepts to your understanding of contemporary international cinema.

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There may be costs associated with other items or services such as academic texts, course notes, and trips associated with your course. Students who choose to complete a work placement or study abroad will pay reduced tuition fees for their third year.

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