German - Structured

The Discipline offers supervision in a wide area of German interests. Each student is assigned a primary Supervisor(s) and a Graduate Research Committee made up of experienced researchers to plan their programme of study and to provide on-going support to their research. The student is immersed in a vibrant research environment, with regular research seminars, workshops, conferences, guest speakers from Ireland and abroad, and readings by German, Austrian and Swiss authors.



Students also have the opportunity to develop their practical skills, for example, by participating in German plays, classes on rhetoric and presentation skills and in particular by teaching undergraduate courses.

As part of the doctoral training available on the Structured PhD programme, students avail themselves of a range of interdisciplinary taught modules. The wide menu of available options include modules that:



are discipline-specific in that they augment the student’s existing knowledge in their specialist area



are dissertation-specific in that they supply core skills essential to completion of the research project e.g. additional language skills



acknowledge a student’s professional development e.g. presentation of a paper at an international conference



enhance a student’s employability through generic training e.g. careers workshops, computer literacy.

Candidates should have an honours degree in German; Second Class Honours, Grade 1 minimum (or equivalent international qualification).

Important: apply by mid-July for September entry.

Applications are made online via the University of Galway Postgraduate Applications System.

Structured PhD (German)—full-time, 4 years.

Structured PhD (German)—part-time, 6 years.

Areas of interest


Contemporary German literature and media

Gender Studies

Ecocriticism

Literature and psychology

Literary and cultural history of the dream

Autobiographical writing

Memory discourses

Literature and thought of German Enlightenment and Romanticism

GDR and post-Wende literature