PathoGraphics
Graphic Medicine and Literary Pathographies
The aesthetics and politics of illness narratives in contemporary comics and literature: Narratives in the genres known as graphic medicine and literary pathographies both address liminal experiences such as illness, chronic disease, and disability, offering individual stories of patients, family members, and health care professionals.
Philological Laboratory
New Models of Approaches to Art beyond Criticism
The project’s objective is to develop ways of approaching formations of meaning that are not guided by the prevailing model of criticism. Critical tools developed in the disciplines shall be used in a more cautious and thoughtful way in order to satisfy one’s own experience of art. It is about admiring things as a critic, to be driven by curiosity, to give in to surprise – in short: to exceed one’s own knowledge.
TransPacifica
Middle European Observations of a New Global Center (1900–1945)
The Transpacifica group is conducting fundamental research into the German perception of the relations between China, Japan, and the USA during the imperialist era and the two World Wars. The research project examines the emergence between 1900 and 1945 of a pivotal geopolitical triangle in the Northern Pacific with the three upcoming world powers as its vertices. The associated dynamics of such a development was considered to have the potential to shift the center of world history onto the Northern Pacific region, leading up to the marginalization of Europe.
Aristotelian Negotiations
Hard and Soft Pathos in Tragedy
The development of the European tragedy involves a pervasive transformation in the imagination of tragic elements. What are the consequences in terms of cultural history and gender politics?
Community as Retrotopia?
Belonging in Literature and Video Art
The comparative study at the intersection of literature and cultural anthropology analyzes imageries of community in selected literary texts and video artworks within the context of categories such as belonging, recognition, and solidarity.
Phono post
Media Archaeology of Voice Mail
Greetings from the gramophone: in the first half of the 20th century, one could send acoustic greetings through phono post, which this project is archiving and analyzing for the first time.
