The MEDIA CENTER provides visual and audio documentation of the ZfL’s research activities.

The podcast BÜCHER IM GESPRÄCH features researchers talking about their new publications.

The ZfL associates present their research at home and abroad. ZfL EN ROUTE shows where.

The ZfL BLOG regularly publishes contributions on current literary and cultural research.

From winter semester 2023 on, the ZfL dedicates its research to its annual theme ACTIVISM AND ACADEMIA.

The series INTERJEKTE and FORUM INTERDISZIPLINÄRE BEGRIFFSGESCHICHTE present knowledge in Open Access.

At the annual ZfL LITERATURE DAYS we discuss current topics of the literary and the academic world.

Events

08 Oct 2024

Book presentation
Zeitdiagnostik in Schlüsselbegriffen. Das Glossar der Gegenwart 2.0

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10 Oct 2024 – 11 Oct 2024

Workshop
Final Issues. Endings in Modern Intellectual History

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15 Oct 2024

Leibniz researchers answer your questions on topics that affect everyday life
Book a Scientist 2024. Speed Dating mit der Wissenschaft

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23 Oct 2024 – 25 Oct 2024

Workshop
Revolution revolutionieren. Walter Benjamin und die Frage nach Revolution und Revolte

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30 Oct 2024

Wednesday lecture
Petra Boden (HU Berlin): Eberhard Lämmert und die Frage, wie sich Geschichte erzählen lässt

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14 Nov 2024 – 15 Nov 2024

Workshop
Dualla Misipo: “Der Junge aus Duala”. Literaturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf ein frühes Werk der Schwarzen deutschen Literatur

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10 Dec 2024

Book launch
Nach Simmel, mit Simmel

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The ZfL

The ZfL is a humanities institute for literary research in interdisciplinary contexts that draws from a cultural studies framework. Its methods also engage with the structural transformations within historical-hermeneutic subject areas that have taken place in recent decades. In contrast to the study of literature at universities, predominantly organized by nationality, the ZfL fosters a broad concept of literature, but also uses interdisciplinary tools to fundamentally question the etiology of various literary concepts, their potential for the future, and the relationship between literature and other arts or cultural practices. This is done in the three program area History of Theory, World Literature, Knowledge of Life, and in the key projects.

 

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Research

I.

History of Theory

analyzes the genealogy of theory and develops innovative forms of historicizing it.

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II.

World Literature

disusses the global interrelations of literature and its potential to shape the world.

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III.

Knowledge of Life

investigates the knowlege of life in historical and interdisciplinary respects.

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