Activities & News

Today’s cascading crises the world over are increasingly prompting questions of the good life, of its very possibility and forms – questions that have always been at the heart of literature. Not only is literature a privileged medium of cultural reflection, but it also offers a test ground whereon thought experiments of the good life can be formed, aesthetically realized, and critically interrogated. In this capacity, then, it seems more important than ever to read literary texts – in their formal heterogeneity and conceptual diversity – as a stage for the enactment and critique of the dominant models and good life ‘fantasies’ specific to our current age.

This conference aims to inquire into ideas of the good life in different cultures as well as in various literary genres and text types with a focus on modernity, i.e. starting from the 19th century and its economic orientation. Its focus lies not only on themes, but expressly also on aesthetic and literary forms of representation. It is part of the specific characteristics of poetic and fictional texts that they do not offer normative knowledge and ideas, but rather plural aesthetic representations and perspectives.

The conference is organized around three central areas of concern, the first being

(1) dominant, hegemonic and culturally specific models of the good life in different cultural contexts, such as the American Dream, the welfare state, neoliberalism, identity politics, or hedonism, to name just a few.

(2) The second area deals with the role of literature vis-à-vis these models, inquiring in theoretical and conceptual terms into the function of literature as a medium of cultural reflection by which to critically assess hegemonic models of the good life.

(3) The third area will trace specific narratives and counter-narratives of the good life and its dominant cultural models in exemplary analyses and case studies of a broad spectrum of genres and text types.

Find out more about the programme here

This networking event is organized by the dean's office of faculty 05 in cooperation with faculty 04 and the RCSC as part of the latter's Open Research Forum. Focus areas are the smallest units of research collaboration beyond large ventures and the areas of potential ( https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/forschung/forschungsprofil/profilbereiche ).

This summer semester we are welcoming two inspiring visiting researchers at our centre:

Prof. Dr. Jörg Metelmann is Associate Professor at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland, specializing in Social Imaginaries and Utopian Thought. Following up on his widely-received book Imagineering: Wie Zukunft gemacht wird (2020), he will continue work on various projects during his stay, including one on aesthetics and the Anthropocene.

Sarah Bird is an artist-scholar researcher and PhD candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, focusing on relations with trees in the more-than-human world at a time of ecological crisis. She is currently collaborating with our centre on a site-specific installation for our conference "Arboreal Entanglements: Human, Nonhuman, More-than-Human" .

Kicking off their fellowship this summer semester, Jörg and Sarah will speak about their work at a "Meet Our Fellows" session on April 23, 4–5 pm in the Loggia area on the GCSC's 2nd floor. Everyone is invited to drop by for a chat, coffee, and cookies!

This two-day workshop at the Research Centre for the Study of Culture (RCSC) explores new narrative endeavours into Europe’s many competing or conflicting as much as shared histories. Specifically, it foregrounds historically marginalized and peripheral accounts, which stand to complete acts of narrating and rethinking Europe in the face of current crises by adding more plural, polyvocal accounts of ‘other Europes’ and ‘other Europeans’.

You can find the detailed program here

For more information, please contact Prof. Dr. Jan Rupp .

RCSC Workshop | Research Funding after the PhD: The DFG Grant Application (Eigene Stelle)

16.05.2023, 13:00-16:00 | GCSC (SR 109)

Dr. Alexander Scherr (postdoctoral researcher at the Department of English, JLU, and associated postdoc at GCSC) will hold a workshop on May 16th, with the aim to introduce the Eigene Stelle as a funding scheme for postdocs and to provide practical guidance for the application process. Attendees who are already working on a DFG application are welcome to join, as are postdocs and advanced PhD candidates who consider doing so as a future possibility. For more information, please contact Prof. Dr. Jan Rupp (RCSC) .

17.01.2023, 14:00-17:00

The Eigene Stelle – a DFG grant – is an attractive (albeit competitive) funding option for researchers after the PhD. It is attractive not only because it can serve to finance an individual position (for example, for a postdoctoral researcher) for at least 3 years. Its appeal is also due to the fact that successful funding applications are a major asset on the academic job market and increasingly important for researchers who consider a professorial career.

The workshop aims to introduce the Eigene Stelle as a funding scheme and provide practical guidance for the application process. Attendees who are already working on a DFG application are welcome to join, as are postdocs and advanced PhD candidates who consider doing so as a future possibility.

More information on the GGK/GCSC website

May 31, 2023, 15:30-17:30 | GCSC (MFR)

This semester’s RCSC Open Research Forum is coming up on May 31st, 3.30-5.30 p.m. Join us for a get-together and chat over coffee and tea in the GCSC’s entrance hall from 3.30 p.m. Starting from 4.00 p.m., presentations will include postmodernist fictions of the digital, vocabularies of migration, ritual landscapes at the Roman Empire’s edge, conflicting European histories, and future narratives. The RCSC Open Research Forum brings together researchers in the study of culture and offers a platform to discuss current projects and project ideas (working languages: German and English).

02.02.2023, 16:00-18:00

The RCSC’s Open Research Forum seeks to bring together researchers in the study of culture, providing a platform to discuss current projects and project ideas (working languages: German and English). Our concluding event in the winter semester, on February 2nd, 2023, 4-6 p.m. will feature collaborative research projects on sleep knowledge, on climate knowledge as cultural practice, on mythical forests in digital times.

30.11.2022, 16:00-18:00

The Research Centre for the Study of Culture (RCSC) carries on from a successful inaugural semester in the summer and continues its Open Research Forum on November 30th, 4-6 p.m. (c.t.). The event will feature presentations on a wide range of collaborative research projects, such as international cooperation on the Colombian peace process and labour migration from Greece to Germany, respectively, a conference project entitled “Memory, Affect and Narration” by the Research Areas “Cultural Memory Studies” and “Cultural Narratologies”, a research debate on ‘dangerous’ comedy and humour.

13.07.2022, 16:00-18:00

22.06.2022, 16:00-18:00

Building on a strong track record in the study of culture, the newly-devised Research Centre for the Study of Culture (RCSC) offers a space for creative thinking and work with a view to mobilizing collaborative research projects. The RCSC Opening Symposium will feature presentations and exchange around a range of current and prospective research initiatives.

As a new venture, the RCSC is an extension of the GCSC, building on the latter’s status as a research centre of national and international reknown. Now combined under one roof, the GCSC/RCSC simultaneously serves as a dynamic hub and interface for the area of potential “Culture–Conflict–Security (Focus: Eastern Europe)” within JLU’s research strategy “The Liebig Concept”.

As an inaugural event, the RCSC’s Opening Symposium will look to promote dialogue and engender further collaboration in the study of culture (working languages: English and German). Presentations will include “Konfliktgemeinschaften” ( “ Communities of Conflict ” , initiative for collaborative research centre) and “Formen guten Lebens. Literatur als Archiv, Kritik und Laboratorium” (“Forms of the Good Life: Literature as Archive, Critique and Laboratory”, projected research group).

We look forward to welcoming you!

Full programme available on the GGK/GCSC website

09.06.2022, 16:00-19:00

Most of you will have already noticed: the GGK/GCSC has moved at the turn of the year! Although the way from our previous building was not too far, the move means a quantum leap for us. Not only are all PhD students and staff under one roof for the first time; our new building also offers all kinds of new spatial possibilities for collaborative research and community interaction.

To explore these possibilities together with us and to really "warm up" our new house, we cordially invite you to the House-Warming Party, which will take place after the official inauguration ceremony, in which we will also take the opportunity for a short presentation of the newly established "Research Centre for the Study of Culture" (RCSC).

More information on the GGK/GCSC website