Projects and Activities

The CRC 1391 Different Aesthetics examines texts, images and objects from pre-modern Europe and focuses on the ways in which they determine and reflect on their own aesthetic status. It seeks to explore the contribution of 2000 years of cultural history before the eighteenth century to our understanding of the aesthetic as well as to current debates on art and society. This end is being served by the interdisciplinary collaboration of a broad field of sixteen academic subjects, ranging from archaeology, art history, musicology, classical and modern philologies to history and theology.

For further information please have a look at the CRC's homepage.

The project “Figurations of Inspiration, Authorisation, and Auratisation in English Literature” is part of the research unit “De/Sacralisation in Texts” (FOR 2828) and investigates strategies and methods of sacralisation and desacralisation in English literature that refer to the religious concept of inspiration and use (further) methods of (self-)authorisation, e.g. the use of auratic language. Sacralisation will be analysed together with processes of desacralisation, i.e. the questioning of divine origin and involvement in the human production of texts. A particular emphasis will be on the Early Modern period, in which literary processes of sacralisation are prevalent. Such processes take place despite (or because of) a double constraint, namely, on the one hand, the restriction of sacred authority to the Bible, and, on the other hand, restrictions of literature (and drama in particular) concerning religious topics.

For further information on the project, visit the homepage in English or in German.

For further information on the research unit, visit the FOR 2828 homepage.

The Research Training Group (RTG) addresses the phenomenon of ambiguity in a two-fold manner: While the phenomenon has long been the focus of research in many individual disciplines, for the first time we will approach ambiguity in its entirety from an interdisciplinary perspective. Secondly, ambiguity is identified as a point of intersection for language-oriented disciplines.

The question central to the RTG’s endeavours is why communication succeeds, in spite and in many cases because of the presence of multiple meanings. Conversely, it is equally crucial to examine the factors leading to communication failure. By employing an interdisciplinary approach, the goal of our Research Training Group is to comprehend and classify the effects of ambiguity in communication.

Please find further information at the RTG's homepage.

The Tübingen School of Education (TüSE) is a central scientific institution at the University of Tübingen. The TüSE coordinates, organizes and realizes the development and advancement of teacher education across the faculties of the university.

For further information please have a look at the project homepage. 

Connotations (E-ISSN 2626-8183) encourages scholarly communication in the field of literature in English (from the Middle English period to the present). It is an international, peer-reviewed journal which focuses on the semantic and stylistic energy of the language of literature in a historical perspective and aims to represent different approaches.

Connotations features articles, responses, and answers to responses, forming strings of peer-reviewed debates that provide an entirely new way of discussing literary texts. Related debates are linked in virtual special issues on topics of general interest such as “Sympathetic Parody,” “Textual Surprises,” and “Poetic Economy.”

For further information on both the journal and the Connotations Society for Critical Debate please have a look at www.connotations.de. You can also find a full table of contents of all published volumes including a selection of debates which are available as full texts free of charge.

Edited by Matthias Bauer and Angelika Zirker (together with Susanne Friede, Béatrice Jakobs, Klaus Ridder, Gertrud M. Rösch and Christoph Strosetzki).

The trans-disciplinary journal publishes articles on German, English and American literature, as well as literature in the Romance languages. Articles may be written in German or the languages of the respective fields. The »Literaturwissenschaftliche Jahrbuch« is not restricted to any specific method or school. It focuses on texts and developments from the Middle Ages to the present. With a view to exploring the multilingual and transcultural dimension of the literatures involved, emphasis will be given to comparative approaches.

Find more information on the series and a list of all volumes at the publisher's website.

The project has three aims: (1) to define explanatory annotation, establish its theory, and develop best practice models; (2) to investigate the use of explanatory annotations and their influence on reading comprehension; and (3) to develop explanatory annotation as a new field in the digital humanities. It furthers scholarly practice in the humanities through empirical research and advances the digital humanities by including hermeneutic theory and practice.

To this end, the project is split in two: the research project itself and a connected student peer-learning project that practises scholarly and explanatory annotation in reading literature.

Further information on the research project can be found here. Information on the peer learning project can be found here.