Literature and literary history store and convey cultural knowledge, from which they generate collective self-narratives. These shape the past and the present and have an impact on the future. The selection of what finds its way into the cultural archive, for example as part of the literary canon or mediated by other cultural media, is therefore decisive for a society's perception of itself and the world, the attribution of belonging and identity as well as for exclusion processes. These selection principles change in a world characterized by migration, globality and diversity, and they must do so if social self-descriptions and the cultural archive are to be inclusive.  
In German literary studies, such questions have so far mainly found their way into research on contemporary literature and the literature of the second half of the 20th century. This is why the Momentum project aims to investigate the knowledge of the world and diversity in 18th and 19th century literature and to research its methods of representation and mediation in order to reveal the genealogies that lead to the social debates and questions of today.  

Over the course of the four-year funding phase, sustainable forms of mediation for global and diversity-oriented literary studies in research and teaching will be developed. In order to realize global and diverse research, teaching and learning spaces, the project cooperates with German studies departments in Togo, Namibia, South Africa and the USA, among others. - The aim of the Momentum project is to contribute to the development of a literary historiography and methodology of modern German literary studies that is oriented towards a global and diversity perspective.