Welcome
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on the homepage of the Department of "Modern German Literature" at the Institute of German Studies at the University of Kassel.
Literature is a world on trial in a linguistic space of possibility. It stages social action and non-action, shapes different views of life and the world, reflects knowledge and ignorance. It is particularly sensitive to the excluded and questionable, the 'other' of valid knowledge.
The Department of Modern German Literature in Kassel researches and teaches literary texts from the 15th to the 21st century. This is based on a broad concept of literature that integrates semi-fictional and factual texts, including baroque encyclopaedias, enlightened travel literature and literature and its media.
The subject is committed to a broad cultural-scientific understanding of literary studies that integrates approaches from the history of knowledge, mentality and gender. Interdisciplinary cooperation with other philologies, the social sciences and art history characterize research and teaching.
Current areas of specialization include early modern knowledge cultures and narrative literatures, knowledge and gender 1500-1900, literature and philosophy from the Enlightenment to the Classical period (e.g. Georg Forster, Johann Gottfried Herder), Kassel literary history (18th-20th centuries), contemporary pop literature, intercultural constructions of knowledge (images of Italy 16th-20th centuries), literature and the arts.