Fellows and researchers at the University of Tübingen can participate in Events and research collaborations of our Focus Groups. We welcome ideas for new Focus Groups and occasionally announce calls for participation. If you would like to join a Focus Group, please feel free to contact us. In our Focus Groups Archive and Mediathek you can find conducted Focus Groups, projects and events.
Belonging
Belonging is an increasingly questionable concept in the 21st century, in which human society is becoming more and more global. Societies are becoming more diverse, national allegiances are being challenged by modern labor migration as well as by flight and poverty migration, and traditional ties seem to be generally dissolving. At the same time, a new need for belonging is emerging. Do the phenomena of globalization and belonging contradict each other? Or are we challenged today to rethink belonging at all?
“Making peace with Nature is the defining task of the 21st century”, said UN General Secretary António Guterres in his State of the Planet speech in 2020. This mission statement has informed UN agenda Setting and has become the motto for the 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP16) in Cali, Colombia. The focus group “Global Encounters: Making Peace with Nature” addresses research questions such as how we can understand ‘peace’ between humans and nature, what the implications of not living “at peace” with nature are, and what role ontological, epistemological, religious, and political conceptions of humans and Nature play in making peace with Nature.
The Focus Group Intercultural Studies takes as its starting point the global diversity of intellectual-historical traditions and human understandings of the world and of the self. The research projects aim, on the one hand, to raise awareness of the richness of non-Western ideas and, on the other hand, to develop a fundamental understanding of interculturality and a critical reflection on the European-Western tradition. The focus is on questions of awareness of the coexistence of different cultures in the global world: How can the coexistence of different cultural worlds be thought of without subsuming them under a general form? How can hidden power structures and identity ascriptions be uncovered? What can cultural belonging mean today at all and what influence does globalization have on the cultural belonging of the individual? Do we need to re-evaluate the European-Western history of ideas? How does intercultural encounter change our relationship to nature? And what does it mean for the sciences?
The famous Kantian question "What is man?" can no longer be asked today without grasping man in his situatedness and belonging to the world. It therefore fundamentally concerns human existence as a whole and brings various disciplines into conversation with one another. Above all, however, the question of man always concerns the questioner himself, so that the answers to this question are also historically and culturally situated. Thus, beyond the existential and social dimensions, the question of the human being also gains a global socio-political relevance. We take up these themes ("One World Anthropology", "The Comparative Anthropology of Worlding") in individual events and try to build bridges between different disciplines.
The Focus Group investigates issues at the interface between neuroscience and the humanities. It explores the relevance of neuroscientific research for the humanities and social sciences and vice versa. The Focus Group aims to promote an exchange between neurosciences and cognitive sciences, psychiatry and the humanities and social sciences such as philosophy and literary studies. It intends to provide a place for interdisciplinary dialogue and cross-disciplinary collaboration at the University of Tübingen, where internationally renowned neuroscience meets strong humanities and social sciences.
As part of its Excellence Strategy, the university wants to open up new, pioneering horizons for research. The New Horizons program aims to attract personalities to Tübingen who have the potential to provide innovative impetus.
The Focus Group ‘Proximity in the Future Humanities’ is organizing its activities in autumn 2026 (from September until November) around the research work of Prof. Stephen Muecke.
New Horizons: Islamic and Interreligious Hermeneutics of Religion
As part of its Excellence Strategy, the university wants to open up new, pioneering horizons for research. The New Horizons program aims to attract personalities to Tübingen who have the potential to provide innovative impetus.
The Focus Group ‘Islamic and Interreligious Hermeneutics of Religion’ is organizing its activities in summer 2026 (from April until July) around the research work of Prof. Maria Dakake.
The rise of far-right parties, which can be observed in parallel with the global advance of autocratic and authoritarian currents and the rise of the self-proclaimed 'New Right' in Europe, is symptomatic of social division processes that threaten democracy and human rights, social cohesion and intercultural coexistence. The College of Fellows, as an institution that promotes academic exchange across borders and is committed to the principles of human rights, the recognition and support for diversity and respectful treatment of one another, is creating a Focus Group dedicated to this topic. The Focus Group is organized in collaboration with the Tübingen Institute for Research on Far Right Extremism (IRex) and the Connecticut / Baden-Württemberg Human Rights Research Consortium (HRRC).
