Current events

"Our belief that science alone could deliver us from the planetary quagmire is long dead." (Sörlin 2012)

Beyond 'elegant nonsense', what do the humanities and cultural studies have to offer in the discourse around climate change? The common belief is that climate change as an environmental problem falls exclusively within the exploratory and explanatory purview of the natural sciences. These determine the subject area, explore the problems, and propose solutions. The natural scientific view alone, however, does not take into account that the sciences themselves and also the phenomenon they investigate are embedded in complex cultural and social contexts.

We see it as a task of the humanities and cultural studies to focus on these interconnections, in which climate change is talked about, told about and thought about . For this reason, we are organizing a department-wide teaching focus.

Courses from the individual institutes will use their different questions, theories, and methods to cast multifaceted perspectives on the phenomenon of 'climate change' and its discursive negotiation. The events will be interlinked and the results and findings will be presented to the (university) public. The teaching focus will be complemented by an evening lecture series, which will broaden our seminar approaches and stimulate joint discussion.

_{Source: Sörlin, Sverker: Environmental Humanities. Why Should Biologists Interested in the Environment Take the Humanities Seriously? In: BioScience, 62(9)/2012, pp. 788-789, here p. 788.}

"Rap has recently been in the headlines, especially in a negative way. Anti-Semitism, sexism and homophobia dominate media coverage, and not without reason, as the present research findings show. But this is not the end of the story for German-language rap. The music genre has long since ceased to be a niche phenomenon; instead, the rap scene is characterized by diverse forms, styles and attitudes. This anthology is dedicated to German-language rap since 2000 and for the first time focuses on individual textual analyses that approach this musical genre and its artists from multiple perspectives and disciplines."

The edited anthology by Dagobert Höllein, Nils Lehnert and Felix Woitkowski was presented on Deutschlandfunk Kultur on 27.02.2020. 

Here to the link:

https://srv.deutschlandradio.de/dlf-audiothek-audio-teilen.3265.de.html?mdm:audio_id=812056