Field of Focus III Research Focus Areas

In the face of major social upheavals, research into transformation processes is highly rele-vant. Based on the research at the Center for Apocalyptic and Postapocalyptic Studies (CA-PAS), the Thematic Research Network “Environments - Upheavals - Rethinking” in coopera-tion with the HCE, but also the RTG “Ambivalent Enmity”, the FoF 3 investigates moments of transformation and the emergence of disorder with every definition of order. All deviations within the order or the edges and the outside of the order are to be understood as disor-dered. Possible further projects can deal with deviations/dissolution of existing orders and (cultural) spaces as well as processes of transition and reinvention. Research on sustainabil-ity in the sense of preserving order is also relevant in this focus area. Imaginaries of cultural futures can also be addressed in this focus area. Together with the other Research Councils, the Research Council also supports the project position on carbon footprinting and is active-ly involved in Heidelberg University's Sustainability Think Tank.

Several groups involving scientists from Field of Focus 3 are researching linguistic interactions and the aspect of their physicality (TRN “Language - Body - Interaction”) and their cognitive foundations (MRA “Cognitive Science”). Linguistics, psychology and cognitive sciences also work together with philosophers who ask how human interactions change when AI-supported machines act like subjects (TRN “Digital Animism”). The cross-field focus group “Knowledge in Context”, which researches the linguistic transfer of knowledge from and between specialist communities (particularly in the life and natural sciences), is located between the linguistic interaction focus area and the knowledge research focus area. Further interdisciplinary measures that focus on the physicality of cognition, expression and interaction can be funded in this focus area, in particular research on change through AI-supported systems and the associated ethical and practical challenges.

Research into friendly and hostile relationships, trust as their basis, and their ambivalences are the subject of several projects and initiatives at the Field of Focus 3. The groups are interdisciplinary and generally work together with researchers from Fields of Focus 2 and 4. The university's regional science centres have a particular influence on the approach. The RTG ‘Ambivalent Enmity’ analyses the dynamics of antagonisms from a historical perspective up to the present day. The historical project ‘The Aggressor’, funded by the Daimler Benz Foundation, deals with the functioning and change of enemy images. The RTG ‘Authority and Trust’ examines the conditions of the emergence and destruction of trust, while the group ‘Enacting Trust’ looks at the re-emergence of destroyed trust. The CRC ‘Homeland(s)’ approved in 2024 also strengthens this focus in overlap with Intangible and Material Cultural Heritage. New measures can be established in the focus area that enable the further networking of existing groups or their expansion.

The humanities at Heidelberg University shape knowledge research with a special focus on historical global-transcultural dimensions and narrative aspects. Institutions of traditional knowledge production are particularly challenged in the face of growing disinformation campaigns/fake facts. In Field of Focus 3, knowledge research is bundled in the TRN “Knowledge Validity” (2020-2023), which focuses on validity resources and knowledge philologies, the BMBF-funded project “Moralizations in Science Communication”, which uses methods of corpus linguistics to investigate how science-related discourses are morally charged, and the TRN “Knowledge in Context” (2024-2026), which deals with the conditions of knowledge transfer in interdisciplinary cooperation between linguistics and natural/life sciences. Research at the RTG “Authority and Trust” is just as much a part of the focus as the project “Artistic Alternatives to the Antigypsy Gaze” (2020-2022), which is based at the Antigypsyism Research Unit and focuses on the analysis of toxic knowledge and media-historical aspects. The research focus is to be supplemented by further historical, but also systematic projects, in particular the crisis of conventional knowledge production through fake news etc. can be addressed.

Research into cultural heritage has been an internationally recognised research focus at Heidelberg University since the establishment of the CRC 933 ‘Material Text Cultures’ and its subsequent institution, the Heidelberg Center for Cultural Heritage - HCCH, founded in 2012. In cooperation with the Flagship Initiative ‘Transforming Cultural Heritage’ and building on the activities of the groups ‘Endowments in the Longue Durée’, ‘Homeland(s)’ and the university collections, the concept and discourses of cultural heritage will continue to be developed as a research profile. Future projects will focus in particular on the concept of cultural heritage, its criticism and further development, but also on the significance of the digital revolution for the preservation of cultural heritage or intangible cultural heritage and “dark heritage”. A further focus is on the reflection and methodological development of digital heritage in cooperation with the Heidelberg Center for Digital Humanities as well as on the connection to edition-theoretical and practical expertise at Heidelberg University and the University Library as well as the HEDIT research unit. The various projects of Heidelberg University researchers based at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities also shape the focus.