This is an anecdote, but the data I've seen confirms it. A German PhD graduate from here from awhile back, now in the private sector, told me there were only four German jobs in the U.S. last year. Two of them were for what this graduate called "Afro-Deutsch," a "field" I did not know existed (they were, I take it, aimed at 'diverse' candidates). Under these circumstances, this alum doubted whether the German Department at the University of Chicago could continue offering a PhD in the subject. That would be extraordinary, if it comes to pass.
Although German was the lingua franca of scholarship throughout the 19th-century and into the first half of the 20th-century, it has been fully displaced by English since WWII. One result is declining demand from students--the rationale given for the recent decision by the University of Chicago Lab School (the K-12 school run by the University) to close its excellent German instruction program (one of my kids was a beneficiary of it). (German, alas, can not sustain demand based on the number of countries where it is spoken [contrast Spanish] or the Anglo fascination with its food and culture [contrast French].) Still, a genuine research university has to support the subject, not just for the sake of offering language instruction (although that is the main "service" such departments provide) but for the sake of preserving and sharing knowledge of the literature and culture of the German-speakng world.
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