Research

Conceptual work in the Kulturwissenschaften in Konstanz has always been based on object-related research dealing with historical and contemporary phenomena. Thus, in the Center of Excellence basic and theoretical research have been intentionally combined with empirically-oriented research in humanities and social sciences. In using the term “Cultural Foundations of Integration”, we have consciously refused to fix in advance conceptual relations of integration in temporal or spatial terms.

In the Center of Excellence processes of integration and disintegration will thus be studied at all social levels. The Center ranges across the full spectrum of differing scopes of integration from “societies of presence” or the smallest groups (family) all the way to “global society”. The thematic spectrum encompasses the entire era since antiquity. Current developments – European integration, migrant streams, failing states, new (civil) wars – are the subject of renewed, special focus.

At the same time, a theory of culture will be developed in the trans-disciplinary framework created by our mutual research. This will include a research focus on the history of science, which should enrich our individual formation of concepts with historical and systematic references.