Once considered only as an aspect of language practice in degree programs in English as a foreign language or confined within the narrow school subject Landeskunde (more or less superficial fact-based summaries of political and educational institutions), cultural studies - now often carrying the more academically reputable title Kulturwissenschaft or Landeswissenschaft or even Cultural Studies in German - has expanded into a subject in its own right with courses offered in classical cultural studies topics like feminist and queer theory, post-colonial pop culture and with more and more chairs and professorships. Sometimes Landeskunde, which is still taught at most German universities by British or American native speakers, has been turned into Area Studies or Regional Studies, where the emphasis is more on geography and history, education, political systems, religion and immigration, for example.

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