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Focus Themes – Department 09 German Studies and Arts

University of Marburg

  • Language – Society and Cognition

    Human language ability is based on biological foundations and is shaped as a means of communication within language communities. We study the cognitive basis of language acquisition and processing, as well as the individual, historical, and regional processes of change. We are particularly interested in the functions of everyday and poetic language in society. The orientation of the Research Center Deutscher Sprachatlas and the German Linguistics is predominantly application-oriented; we employ methods from the humanities, natural sciences, and digital humanities.

  • Data – Competence and Reflection

    Our disciplines deal with the creation, maintenance, provision, and evaluation of data. They have always engaged with the modeling of standardized descriptions of languages, sounds, manuscripts, books, and visual cultural objects such as literature, painting, photography, or moving images. With the advent of the digital age, new challenges and opportunities arise, which are actively explored and reflected upon. The faculty offers interdisciplinary courses in the fields of Digital Humanities and Cultural Data Studies and is home to the Marburg Center for Digital Culture and Infrastructure (MCDCI), which consolidates, systematizes, and develops digital resources.

  • Media – Materiality and Practice

    Media forms of expression, their distribution, and use are shaped by their inherent materiality. This is also true for digital media, whose materiality is often less visible at first glance. Our research and teaching focus on written, printed, and spoken words; on codices, books, and radio plays; and on aural, plastic, and visual artifacts, including compositions, sculptures, paintings, films, and video games from the Middle Ages, Early Modern Period, and Modernity to the present. We analyze how the development and use of media relate to their specific materiality.

  • Culture – Representation and Transfer

    Culture, as the entirety of intellectual, artistic, and creative expressions of humanity, represents and transforms our society. Literature, music, art, photography, and moving images influence the public sphere. In research and teaching, we explore media representations, how they are transferred and how actors, recipients, and institutions interact. Artistic and career-oriented degree programs, as well as established collaborations with schools and non-university cultural institutions, provide early experience with practices of media transfer and their theoretical reflection in cultural studies.

  • Epoch – Constellation and Transformation

    Our research subjects (literature, music, visual arts, and other media) are always produced and received within specific historical constellations. The critical reconstruction of epochs and their transformations is therefore an important part of our research. Our focus spans from the present, through the modern and early modern periods, back to the Middle Ages. We investigate the conditions under which linguistic, auditory, and visual objects are created, received, and transmitted, as well as the aesthetic and media transformations that epochs undergo. Research-oriented study programs provide broadly applicable skills in cultural history.