Funding Initiative »Käte Hamburger Collegia«

In 2007, the Year of the Humanities, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) launched an innovative funding format: the International Research Centers in the Humanities, which today bear the name of the literary theorist Käte Hamburger.

Ten Käte Hamburger Centers have since been set up at German universities, where they conduct interdisciplinary research into a diverse range of topics, such as religion, media philosophy, performance and legal cultures, work or the environment. Not only have they become firmly established at their individual locations, they have also built up extensive networks and partnerships on regional, national and global levels.

More information about the Käte Hamburger Centers – international cutting-edge research in the humanities - can be found in this Brochure of the BMBF here.

Between 2007 and 2011, an international panel of experts selected a total of ten »Käte Hamburger Collegia« on the following topics:

2007: Dynamics in the History of Religions

Prof. Dr. Volkhard Krech, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

2007: Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie

Prof. Dr. Lorenz Engell, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Siegert, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar

2007: Interweaving Performance Cultures

Prof. Dr. Erika Fischer-Lichte, Prof. Dr. Gabriele Brandstetter, Dr. Christel Weiler, Prof. Dr. Matthias Warstat, Freie Universität Berlin

2008: Fate, Freedom and Prognostication. Strategies to cope with the Future in East Asia and Europe

Prof. Dr. Michael Lackner, Prof. Dr. Klaus Herbers, Prof. Dr. Thomas Fröhlich, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

2008: Morphomata. Genesis, Dynamics and Mediality of Cultural Figurations

Prof. Dr. Dietrich Boschung, Prof. Dr. Günter Blamberger, Universität zu Köln

2008: Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society

Prof. Dr. Christof Mauch, Prof. Dr. Helmuth Trischler, LMU Munich

2008: Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History

Prof. Dr. Andreas Eckert, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

2009: Imre Kertész Kolleg: Europas Osten im 20. Jahrhundert: Historische Erfahrungen im Vergleich

Prof. Dr. Joachim von Puttkamer, Prof. Dr. Włodzimierz Borodziej, Friedrich Schiller University Jena

2009: Law as Culture

Prof. Dr. jur. Werner Gephart, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

2011: Political Cultures of World Society (Centre for Global Cooperation Research)

Prof. Dr. Tobias Debiel, Universität Duisburg Essen
Prof. Dr. Claus Leggewie, Advanced Institute for Study in the Humanities
Prof. Dr. Dirk Messner, German Development Institute, Bonn

Image Credits