The department's research in the domain of German-language literature exhibits considerable breadth. However, the areas of interest shared by individual researchers within this subject also demonstrate common ground, thereby facilitating fruitful collaboration, including with researchers specializing in more linguistic domains.

The subject of German studies encompasses literature from approximately 1450 to the present day, offering a valuable historical perspective on the evolution of the novel and related cultural studies issues, such as the representation of urban space in literature.

Research on earlier texts primarily focuses on narrative prose written for an expanding urban readership in early modern Germany. These texts aim to entertain the reader while also conveying knowledge, and they can be said to be a precursor to the modern novel. They draw their material from both ancient and medieval sources, but also increasingly turn their attention to their own time, the "common man" and his movements in time and space.

In the context of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, the focus is on the development of the German novel, traversing genres such as the epistolary novel and the Bildungsroman, and styles like realism and modernism. A central inquiry concerns the novel's relationship to modernity, encompassing its capacity to unveil novel ways of comprehending and depicting the world, as well as its role as a theoretical instrument in the conceptualization of modernity.

In the context of 20th-century literary history, the prevailing focus of research has been on the domain of German-language literature and literary studies in Swedish exile. This area of research is particularly concerned with issues pertaining to multilingualism and cultural translation. The correlation between cultural history and literature also plays a role in research on contemporary literature, with urban space and its representations being a prominent area of interest.