“To read means to satisfy the philological drive, to make a literary impression on oneself. To read out of an impulse for pure philosophy or poetry, unaided by philology, is probably impossible.” (Athenaeum Fragment 391, transl. by Peter Firchow, in: Philosophical Fragments, 1991)

The Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies (FSGS) supports theoretically and conceptually ambitious dissertation projects in literary studies that engage with texts of both European and non-European origin. Its aim is to advance genuinely literary research perspectives that transcend national and monolingual frameworks and critically interrogate processes of globalization by situating cultural phenomena—including contemporary ones—within a broad historical horizon.

Its research areas include the relations between literary texts, the connections between literature and processes of linguistic reflection, rhetoric and poetics, the interaction between literature and other aesthetic media, and the interdependence of literature and epistemic discourses. There are no restrictions regarding historical period (from antiquity to the present) or language (world literatures).

The FSGS promotes methodologically innovative research in literary studies that sets international standards through comparative approaches to texts, media, and cultures. Its core focus lies in philological engagement with textuality and language, diachronic and synchronic comparison of languages, literatures, cultures, and media, a historical perspective that traces connections between literary texts and cultural processes of meaning-making, social development, and the production of knowledge, as well as a theoretical orientation that critically reflects the practice of literary studies and its key concepts and frameworks.

The choice of Friedrich Schlegel as the School’s namesake reflects the recognition that his work laid important foundations for a theoretically ambitious and methodologically innovative approach to literary studies, as it has been successfully developed at Freie Universität Berlin for many years.