Teaching and Research Areas
Design and History of Knowledge
Prof. Dr. Claudia Mareis has been Professor of Design and History of Knowledge since 2021. Her research focuses on design history, theory and methodology, including knowledge cultures in design, experimental design and media practices, cultural history and techniques of creativity, design and material politics. Since 2019, she is one of the co-directors of the interdisciplinary Cluster of Excellence ›Matters of Activity. Image Space Material‹ at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The cluster focuses on a new role of design that is emerging against the backdrop of the growing diversity and continuous development of materials and forms of visualisation in all disciplines.
Historical Anthropology and Gender Studies
Prof. Dr. Claudia Bruns has been professor of Historical Anthropology and Gender Studies since 2013. Her research focuses on the cultural history of the political, the history of sexuality and the body, the history of masculinities and male societies, conservative revolution, anti-Semitism and colonial racism, on the filmic memory of the holocaust and the discourses on space and borders in Europe since antiquity.
Cultural Techniques and History of Knowledge
Prof. Dr. Christian Kassung has been Professor of Cultural Techniques and History of Knowledge since 2006. The teaching and research area combines research on cultural techniques as a kind of implicit knowledge that connects practices and objects, with the question of the historical, material and medial conditions of knowledge. In this way, the research profile is not only strictly interdisciplinary, but also marked by a focus on the fringe regions from which new knowledge emerges, where disturbances are negotiated, hegemonic claims are contested and transfers may occur. More specific focal points are on the history of knowledge and cultural history of the natural sciences (with a focus on Physics), the history and epistemology of disturbances and accidents, the cultural techniques of synchronisation, as well as the history and practice of technical media.
Cultural Theory and Cultural History and Theory of Aesthetics
Prof. Dr. Iris Därmann was professor of History of Cultural Theories since 2009 and is now professor of Cultural Theory and Cultural History and Theory of Aesthetics. Her research emphases are on image practices and theories of the image, economies of gift exchange, political zoology and philosophy in the context of colonialism. She currently works on a project on the Cultural History of the Infamous that aligns modern service society with older traditions of serving and the servile, as well as with the history of slavery since antiquity.
Cultural History of Knowledge
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schäffner has been Professor of Cultural History of Knowledge since 2009. His research emphases are on analog code, active matter, architectures of knowledge and interdisciplinary design; in addition, he is interested in the transfer of knowledge and technology between Europe and Latin America.
Culturals of Knowledge
Prof. Dr. Robert Stock has been Assistant Professor for Cultures of Knowledge since 2021. This teaching and research area focuses on the heterogeneity and diversity of cultures and the associated forms of knowledge and practices, situated in their historical, transcultural dimensions and future perspectives. His main research interests are the history and present of digital media, assistive technologies and dis/abilities, inclusion politics in museums and exhibitions, science and technology studies, the materiality of epistemic practices, Luso-African decolonisation processes and postcolonial knowledge objects, as well as human-animal-technology relations.
Transcultural Jewish History
Prof Dr. Liliana Ruth Feierstein has been Assistant Professor of Transcultural Jewish History since October 2014. Her research focuses on extraterritorial cultures (Jewish history and culture, history and culture of the Sinti and Roma, Esperanto) and the concomitant theories of diaspora, cosmopolitanism and entangled history. In addition, she is interested in philosophical questions of ethics and difference (Benjamin, Levinas, Derrida) and Jewish Enlightenment (Maimonides, Spinoza, Hermann Cohen) and intercultural and interreligious education and integration (anti-Semitism; anti-Ziganism).
History of the Human Sciences
Prof. Dr. Philipp Felsch, Assistant Professor
History and Theory of Design
Prof. Dr. Patricia Ribault, Assistant Professor
Epistemes of Acoustics
Prof. Dr. Viktoria Tkaczyk, Special Professorship, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG)
European Culture and the History of Knowledge
Prof. Dr. Eva Geulen, Special Professorship, Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL)
Cultural Research with Focus on Religion
Prof. Dr. Daniel Weidner, Special Professorship, Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL)
Industrial Ecology and Climate Change
Prof. Dr. Helga Weisz, Special Professorship, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
Cultural Research with Focus on the History of Knowledge
Prof. Dr. Stefan Willer, Special Professorship, Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL)