cover four fields: Linguistics of German () German language and literature of up to about 1750 () German language and literature since approximately 1750 () Specifics of the didactics of teaching German () Several universities offer specialized curricula for school teachers, usually called "". In Germany, they are leading to a two step exam and certificate by the federated states of Germany cultural authorities, called the ("state exam"). History As an unsystematic field of interest for individual scholars, German studies can be traced back to Tacitus' Germania. The publication and study of legal and historical source material, such as Medieval Bible translations, were all undertaken during the German Renaissance of the sixteenth century, truly initiating the field of German studies. As an independent university subject, German studies was introduced at the beginning of the nineteenth century by Georg Friedrich Benecke, the Brothers Grimm, and Karl Lachmann. University departments and research institutions US Department of German Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson German Program of the Department of World Languages & Literatures, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Department of German Studies, Brown University Department of German, University of California, Berkeley Department of Germanic Languages, University of California, Los Angeles Department of German Studies, University of Cincinnati Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO Department of Germanic Languages, Columbia University Department of German Studies, Cornell University Department of German Studies, Dartmouth College Department of German, Duke University Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University Department of Germanic Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Germanic Studies, Indiana University German and Scandinavian Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI Department of German, Scandinavian, and Dutch, University of Minnesota Department of German, New York University Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of German, Northwestern University Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Pennsylvania Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania Department of Germanic Languages and Literature, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Department of German, Princeton University Department of Germanic Studies, University of Texas at Austin Department of Classical & Modern Languages, Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri Department of Germanic and Slavic