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Resources

Publications

Libraries

The library staff in both MMLL and the UL are always willing to help with any queries or problems you may have.

College Libraries vary in the provision they make for German books. College librarians are, however, usually willing to buy books on student recommendation when supported by a member of the Section or the Director of Studies. The Beit Library, a special collection of 15,000 volumes (located in the MMLL library) contains much specialist material.

The German representative on the Faculty Library Committee is Dr Mark Chinca (mgc10000@cam.ac.uk), who can be contacted in case of queries or suggestions.

The MMLL library

The MMLL Library is well stocked with essential texts, reference works, secondary literature, a large number of German language DVDs and more, including a small but growing selection of graphic novels in German. For more information please visit the Library website, and see also the Languages LibGuide for further information about accessing German resources.

More information about Cambridge libraries in general can be found here.


The Beit Library

The German Section is particularly fortunate in having access to the resources of the Beit Library, on the top floor in the in the MMLL Library. It is especially strong on the history of the German language, the classical period (esp. Goethe) and on the nineteenth century. It also contains a major reference section which has works like Goedeke, Grimm, ADB, Killy, Verfasserlexikon and a remarkable range of dictionaries, including dialect and historical works. The Beit has quite a number of titles not in the UL and it is essential to check its holdings in conjunction with the UL collection. Some Colleges also have important German collections (notably Trinity), some of which are on database.


The University Library (UL)

There are introductory tours of the University Library at the beginning of each academic year.

German

The University Library has excellent stocks in German subject areas. It has one of the major collections in German studies in the country.

The UL also has special collections in German. It holds incunables (pre-1500 imprints) published in Germany. There is a significant collection of printed dissertations from German universities, and a small collection of 'Schulprogramme'. The volumes of the Acton collection are particularly strong on political history and culture in the nineteenth century. The Schnitzler archive contains about one third of Arthur Schnitzler's manuscript papers and is being digitised. The Stefan Heym archive holds Heym's entire papers and a complete collection of his printed works. Other collections are the Bach collection (mainly German and Austrian texts 1900-1930), the Hunter-Alpine library of works on psychiatry, the Library of the Society for Psychical Research, special collections on World War One and on the Nazi period, the Bible Society Library, and a complete set of the illustrated volumes of the Insel Bücherei.


The Language Centre

General information

For language teaching the German Section shares resources with the Language Centre which has large stocks of audio and visual material. Please check access and availability with the Language Centre. For online material, please see here.  Material for specific courses (Translation, Audio Visual) will be made available to students on the relevant Moodle sites.

The Language Centre also hosts an online application, Just in Time Grammar, developed by Annemarie Künzl-Snodgrass and Silke Mentchen from the German Section, to help basic and intermediate students brush up their command of German grammar. It is freely accessible here.


Computer-aided Language Learning (CALL)

General information

The Faculty has a well equipped CALL facility (Computer Aided Language Learning) in the South Wing of the Raised Faculty Building. You are advised to familiarise yourself with the resources there as early as possible in your first year.


Internet Resources

This list of links to sites are specially recommended to students of German.


Films and Videos

The MMLL Library has a large collection of German films. These can be useful in language learning as well as for the formal study of film topics within the Tripos. For more detailed information see here.

 

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22 March 2024

Join prize-winning novelist Shida Bazyar in conversation with Miriam Schwarz and Tara Talwar Windsor to discuss how novels take their characters and their readers on journeys across cultural contexts, and how this can make both characters and readers re-assess the things they think they know.

German Graduate Research Series - Conduct, Culture, and Critique: Anthropologies of Ethico-Aesthetic Traditions

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The next event in this term’s German Graduate Research Seminar series, a collaboration with the Social Anthropology Society (CUSAS), will take place on Thursday 7 March at 16:00 in the Edmund Leach Seminar Room in the Department of Social Anthropology.

German Undergraduate Conference this Friday!

28 February 2024

The Faculty is delighted to welcome German Studies undergraduates and sixth form students of German to the Faculty for the Undergraduate Conference in German Studies 2024

Applying to Cambridge

Information for prospective applicants thinking of studying German at Cambridge.

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Cambridge Online German for Schools

Cambridge Online German for Schools (COGS) is a core element of the Cambridge German Network

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