German Studies Institute Partnership
German Studies Institute Partnership
„German-speaking and Jüdische Kulturen in Mitteleuropa. Cultural, literary and linguistic interactions in a regional, national and transnational context“
funded by the DAAD with funds from the Federal Foreign Office (AA)
Funding period: 2021–2023, 2024-2026 (follow-up application)
| Speaker | Prof. Dr. Kerstin Schoor (EUV) |
| Spokespersons of the foreign partner institutions |
Prof. Dr. habil. Magdalena Sitarz (JU)
Prof. Dr. András F. Balogh (BBU) |
| Partner institutions | Faculty of Social and Cultural Studies,
European University Viadrina Frankfurt/Oder (EUV) Institute of Germanic Philology, Department of German Language and Literature, |
| Contact persons at the EUV | Prof. Dr. Kerstin Schoor Prof. Dr. Ievgeniia Voloshchuk |
| Scientific coordinator |
Prof. Dr. Ievgeniia Voloshchuk (EUV) |
The German Institute Partnership (GIP) „German-speaking and Jüdische Kulturen in Mitteleuropa. Cultural, literary and linguistic interactions in a regional, national and transnational context“ assumes that the populations of Central and Central Eastern Europe have a high level of transcultural everyday competence in the sense of a differentiated knowledge of different cultures, which as a specific experience has generated the synthesis and formation of new cultural forms to a high degree. The ethnic and religious diversity of these areas, even in the old imperial structures, brought forth - in addition to regional and national characteristics - a transculturality that has shaped the development of European cultures to a great extent and whose description we want to place centrally in the context of the interactions of different regional and national spaces.
On the basis of similar and interdisciplinary activities, the following projects in the thematic area „German-speaking and Jewish Cultures in Central Europe will be carried out within the GIP between Frankfurt (Oder), Cluj-Napoca and Kraków. Cultural, literary and linguistic interactions in a regional, national and transnational context“ realized:
1. Mobility programs
The exchange between the EUV, the JU Kraków and the BBU Cluj-Napoca is promoted by awarding scholarships for MA students of all participating universities as well as mobility funds for doctoral students and academic staff of all participating universities.
2. Double Master's programs and further cooperation in teaching
As part of the „Literary Cultures of Europe“ track in the Master's in „Literary Studies: ästhetics – Literature – Philosophy“ at the EUV, a double MA with BBU Cluj-Napoca and with JU Kraków will be designed and established. Both double Master's programs can be studied from winter semester 2024/25.
In addition, it is planned to implement smaller joint teaching projects and workshops as part of the preparation and introduction of the two degree programmes and also to promote extended cooperation in teaching.
3rd didactic project „German Cultural History – digital, interactive textbook“
Under the direction of Prof. Balogh from Cluj-Napoca in Rumänien, a collection of teaching materials „German Cultural History – digital, interactive textbook“ is to be designed and developed. The interactive book or learning platform presents simple definitions of the epochs of German cultural history for students of German studies in their first semesters in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The learning platform combines images, music, short videos and sample texts to show the concepts in an intermedial way.
4. Collaboration in researchFunding will be provided for the completion and resumption of joint research by the three institutions, which will bring together the proven scientific expertise of the project partners involved.
The publication of the joint research project from the initial funding phase in an anthology on regions of memory will be completed in 2024. Space and Memory in Central Europe. Various bilateral and trilateral research projects are to be supported in 2024-2026, including the joint project „Leben im Krieg – Krieg im Leben. Literarische Aufarbeitung der Kriegserfahrungen des 20./21. Jahrhunderts“, which examines literary images of everyday war life of witnesses and war participants in the 20th and 21st centuries - from soldiers of the First World War to contemporary war refugees - and which are constructed in German-language biographies, diaries, memoirs, family stories and other genres from an individual perspective. genres from an individual perspective. In the thematic context of the GIP, further research is to be stimulated at the same time. Mobility and networking between the institutions is to be stabilized on a broad scale and, as far as possible, also facilitated in the breadth of the institutes' research activities.
5. Promotion of young talent
An important goal of the GIP is also to promote young talent (doctoral students and post-docs) at our institutes. Current habilitation projects, research projects by postdocs and research assistants as well as doctoral projects at all three institutions benefit from the specific regional historical, literary, linguistic and cultural studies expertise within the institutions as well as from the existence and use of specific sources and archives and libraries on site. In addition to the ERASMUS programs of the partner universities, the GIP is therefore intended to facilitate research stays for young academics in the individual countries. The work at the partner institutions is to be supported by expanding the scientific infrastructure.
This year's annual GIP conference will take place at BBU Cluj-Napoca from July 9 to 12, 2024.Ievgeniia Voloshchuk
Scientific coordinator
- Room: GS 507
- voloshchuk@europa-uni.de
Office hours
by arrangement
GIP projects
Annual Conference of the German Institute Partnership German-speaking and Jüdische Kulturen in Mitteleuropa. Cultural, literary and linguistic interactions in a regional, national and transnational context
10.– 13.07.2024
Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca
Organized within the framework of the DAAD-funded programme „German Institute Partnerships worldwide“ (GIP)
| Doctoral School „Intercultural Encounters in Regional, National and Transnational Space: Literary and Media History in Central Europe“ funded by the DAAD with funds from the Federal Foreign Office (AA) |
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| Speaker | Prof. Dr. Kerstin Schoor (EUV) |
| Spokesperson of the foreign universities | Assoc. Prof. Doc. Mgr. Jozef Tancer, PhD. (CU) |
| Representatives of the participating institutes | Assoc. Prof. Doc. Mgr. Jozef Tancer, PhD. (CU) Prof. Dr. habil. Jadwiga Kita-Huber (JU) Prof. Dr. András F. Balogh (ELTE/BBU) |
| Collaborating institutions | European University Viadrina Frankfurt/Oder (EUV) Comenius University Bratislava (CU) Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest (ELTE) Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca (BBU) Jagiellonian University in Kraków (JU) |
| Supervisors / involved scientists |
Assoc. Prof. Doc. Mgr. Jozef Tancer, PhD. (Bratislava) Doc. Mgr. Miloslav Szabó, PhD. (Bratislava) Dr. habil Peter Varga (Budapest) Prof. Dr. András F. Balogh (Budapest/Cluj-Napoca) Univ.-Doz. Dr. Gabriella-Nóra Tar (Cluj-Napoca) Prof. Dr. habil. Jadwiga Kita-Huber (Kraków) Prof. Dr. habil. Magdalena Sitarz (Kraków) Prof. Dr. habil. Katarzyna Jaśtal (Kraków) Prof. Dr. Kerstin Schoor (Frankfurt/Oder) Prof. Dr. Ievgeniia Voloshchuk (Frankfurt/Oder) |
| Contact persons at the EUV | Prof. Dr. Kerstin Schoor Prof. Dr. Ievgeniia Voloshchuk |
| Scientific coordinator | Prof. Dr. Ievgeniia Voloshchuk (EUV) Contact: voloshchuk@europa-uni.de |
| The doctoral school „Intercultural German Studies in Regional, National and Transnational Space: Literary and Media History in Central Europe“ was founded in 2015 as part of the DAAD-funded Vladimir Admoni Program and has been funded by the DAAD as part of a German Studies Institute Partnership (GIP) since 2021. It currently links the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) with universities in four Central European cities that represent important urban historical regions. Since the end of the 18th century, these cities have been home to a number of universities. Since the late 18th century (in Kraków already since the Middle Ages), an independent and traditional German-language regional literary and media landscape has developed, which was characterized by close connections to the German-speaking neighbouring countries: Bratislava, Budapest, Cluj-Napoca (the former Klausenburg) and last but not least Kraków, which received the Magdeburg city charter as early as 1257 and had 36 % German-speaking citizens around 1480. The aims of the doctoral school are to impart expert knowledge of literary and media history, to promote the intercultural skills of all participants and to consolidate the foundations for a transnational research network. Currently, 8 doctoral students from the participating partner institutes are being funded. They receive sur-place scholarships at their respective home universities and take part in regular research stays at the EUV. Annual colloquia at the participating universities contribute to the networking of the doctoral students and the exchange between the participating academics. At the Viadrina, the foreign doctoral students are supported by the Chiellino Research Center for Literature and Migration, which has established one of its research focuses in the thematic area of Central and Eastern European studies. | |
| Regions of Memory. Space and memory in Central Europe | |
| Project period | 2021-2023 |
| Institutions involved |
Faculty of Social and Cultural Studies, Institute of Germanic Philology, Department of German Language and Literature, |
| Contact persons at the EUV | Prof. Dr. Kerstin Schoor Prof. Dr. Ievgeniia Voloshchuk (voloshchuk@europa-uni.de) |
| Contact person at the JU | Dr. Michael Sobczak (michael.sobczak@uj.edu.pl) Dr. Piotr Owsiński (piotr.owsinski@uj.edu.pl) |
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Space and memory are central concepts in Social and Cultural Studies. Since the 1980s, terms such as cultural and collective memory, cultures of remembrance, etc. have been booming. They reflect social developments that deal with questions of individual and collective memory, particularly against the backdrop of the violent history of the 20th century, the Shoah, genocide and world wars. At the same time, the concept of space has become very popular: not least in view of the political developments in Central and Southeastern Europe, concepts of space have shaped academic research in a wide range of disciplines since the late 1980s. In these concepts, both space and memory have a material as well as an immaterial dimension. They are no longer (only) storage facilities, containers, etc., but also practices, relationships, etc. Their relationship can be found in the influential concept of „places of memory“ or that of „memory spaces“[1] or that of „memoryscapes"[2]. Even though Social and Cultural Studies research on space and memory has already spanned more than three decades, thinking about space and memory together from a historical and contemporary perspective still opens up new starting points at a time when the commonalities and perspectives in Central Europe are once again threatening to diverge more strongly. The project brings together literary and linguistic case studies from a Germanic and comparative perspective on Central Europe, on (historical) regions of Europe between the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic or Black Sea, between the Elbe and the Sbrutsch. Christian Giordano has described „Europe as a system of strongly (inter)dependent, but at the same time structurally very different historical regions, in which simultaneities and non-simultaneities as well as differences and constants exist side by side“[3]. He defined the Central Eastern European region, as he called it, as a historically characterized region, which should also be understood here as a space that simultaneously consists of different regional spaces in their interdependencies and conflicts. Martin Sabrow has discussed the connection between space and memory using the example of object, place and region, whereby he attested to the region „the most diffuse spatial connection to memory“[4] and at the same time to its connection to nationally and supranationally shaped cultures of memory. The connection between local, regional, national and supranational cultures of remembrance will also be of interest here. In particular, the project examines the interdependencies between collective memories and local and regional spaces.
[1] See, for example, Janina Fuge, Rainer Hering, Harald Schmid (eds.): Gedächtnisräume. Images of history and cultures of remembrance in northern Germany. Göttingen 2014.
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