The Department of German at Nanjing University, one of the first two German Departments established in China, was founded in 1947. The Department has been home to many esteemed Germanists, including Zhang Weilian, recipient of the Federal Cross of Merit and the Goethe Medal of the Federal Republic of Germany, and other prominent predecessors such as Shang Chengzu, Chen Quan, Liao Shangguo, and Ye Fengzhi.

For more than half a century, the department has trained numerous exceptional individuals in the fields of foreign affairs, international trade and economics, education, and research. Alumni include such distinguished figures as Yang Wuneng, an accomplished translator honored with both the Order of Merit and the Golden Goethe Medal, and Ma Canrong, former Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the Federal Republic of Germany, who has also received the Federal Cross of Merit.

The Department has a teaching and research team characterized by its solidarity and collaboration. The current 11-member faculty (including two professors, three associate professors and one assistant professor) all have educational or research experiences overseas. In addition, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) regularly dispatches experts to teach here.

Since 2006, the German Department has been authorized to award doctorates and has fostered a community of students, teachers, and scholars devoted to the study of German literature, linguistics, translation, and culture. Professor Kong Deming serves as deputy director of the German Subcommittee of the MOE Steering Committee for Undergraduate Programs in Foreign Languages and Literatures, and director of the National Band-4 Test Center for German Majors. The department was awarded “First-Class Undergraduate Program in German at the National Level” in 2021, and “Outstanding Undergraduate Program in German at the Provicial Level” in 2022.

Teaching

To cultivate versatile talents with multiple capacities, the German Department integrates research with teaching and constantly upgrades its curriculum development. Designed to provide students with solid training in language and building of intercultural competencies, the bachelor’s degree program enrolls approximately 25 students annually. The double bachelor’s degree program (German and Law),  launched in 2022,  aims at training talents proficient in both the German and Chinese languages and German laws and with global perspectives and national strategies in mind. During their study at NJU, students have achieved excellent results in national exams (PGG and PGH) and have won top awards in various competitions at home and abroad. For example, “The Diaries of John Rabe and the Peace City” project has expanded the foreign language programs and attained a series of awards, including “National Top 100 College Students’ Summer Practice Team” and the first prize in the “Jiangsu Provincial Competition of the 8th China International ‘Internet +’ College Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.”

Over the past decade, the German Department has maintained lively academic exchanges with renowned German universities such as the University of Göttingen, the University of Heidelberg, the University of Freiburg, the University of Munich, the University of Tübingen, and the Free University of Berlin. Undergraduate students regularly visit the German partner universities on one-semester or two-semester exchange programs.

The German Department of Nanjing University and the University of Göttingen established a joint master’s degree program in Cross-cultural Germanic Studies in 2008. Since then, there has been a constant exchange of students who study for one year in the respective host countries. To date, the joint master’s degree has been conferred upon almost 100 students by Nanjing University and the University of Göttingen.

Research

The German Department maintains a rigorous and open academic atmosphere, forming a virtuous cycle of teaching, research, and education.

In terms of textbook development, Professor Kong Deming serves as the leading author and chief editor of the four-volume German series of Understanding Contemporary China, a higher education textbook project commissioned by the National Social Sciences Foundation in 2021. Other faculty members in recent years have also published nationally planned textbooks such as Thesis Writing in German, A Comprehensive Course of German, and General Theories of German Linguistics.

As for academic research, Professor Chang Lingling was elected as a member of the International Scientific Committee of the German Language Research Institute (IWR) in 2019. In 2020, the international A&HCI journal German published a special issue of “Contrastive Analysis of German and Chinese,” edited by Professor Chang Lingling. Faculty members of the German Department have published approximately 20 monographs and a number of high-quality papers in international and domestic journals (A&HCI and SSCI), covering the fields of German language, German literature, cultural studies, and foreign language pedagogy.

With regard to translated works, notable translations include The Diaries of John Rabe, Conversation with Goethe, Dialects of Modernity and Postmodernity, Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy, and German novels and poems written by Nobel laureates. Meanwhile, faculty members chair or participate in a variety of research projects at national and provincial levels, including “Studies on the Generation of German-Specific Sentence Structures: Projection and Construction,” “On the Writing of Memory in German Immigrant Literature,” “On the Construction and Imagination of Berlin Romanticism,” and “Classics of German Literature and National Ideals.”

Contact us

Tel: 025- 89683001

Postal Address

Department of German

School of Foreign Studies

Nanjing University

163 Xianlin Avenue

Nanjing 210023

China