The course offers an overview of Kafka's texts while revealing a twofold perspective. On the one hand, the text as a literary composition occupies central stage; at the same time, however, the aim is to understand the interrelatedness of these texts with cultural, political, economical and literary discourse of Kafka's time.

This joint colloquium of the Knowledge Section faculty consist of guest lectures by invited scholars on diverse current research topics in the history, philosophy, literature, and social studies of science and technology.

This joint colloquium of the Knowledge Section faculty consist of guest lectures by invited scholars on diverse current research topics in the history, philosophy, literature, and social studies of science and technology.

Hypersensitivity – pathological reactions to otherwise harmless antigens – is on the rise. Autoimmune diseases and allergies impact our present and future societies. How did literature shape the sensitive and hypersensitive body and its illnesses? And how do culture and the arts react to a society of increasingly “intolerant” bodies?

Mann's texts are obsessed with illness. These appear not only negatively, but also positively, as heightened aesthetic sensitivity. We will also examine this shift in the context of medical and philosophical theories of illness.

Knowledge is objectified as an object in practice. At the same time one can know, but also understand it as a function of relation: as relationship and occupation, or with a metaphorical and at the same time model-like concept: as "texture". We will analyze approaches from the premodern to post-structuralist, character and (context) text theory designs.

Law and literature are in many ways connected. The law employs literary genres and partly embodies its humanistic potential, while literature addresses the connections between laws, norms and justice on many levels, including their enactment, philosophical justification, and societal critique. The course will explore this complex connection between law and literature both practically and theoretic

Not only the specific genre of "Science Fiction", but fictitious (literary) texts in general are fundamentally about the forms and functions of knowledge and science. In the lecture, these are developed theoretically and discussed using examples.

Literature and mathematics may seem to be far apart. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that they are analogous in essential respects: both formalize and condense language; both develop narrative processes. In short: mathematics and writing, counting and storytelling (Zählen und Erzählen) are closely related processes.

Literature and natural science, as different as they seem, touch each other in many ways. In the seminar, we will explore these contacts using Goethe as an example, who for his part wrote scientific studies, linking empiricism and speculation. At the same time, he also reflected on these subjects in literary form, e.g. in the novel "Die Wahlverwandtschaften".

There are many references between literature and technology. This is already shown by terms such as "technology", "apparatus" and "automaton", which address procedures in art. Particularly since industrialisation, literature has been negotiating the mechanisation of the world. The seminar will discuss the history of technology in literature and the critical literary negotiation.

Metamorphosis shapes both organic life and human imagination. This seminar explores its manifestations across biology, philosophy, aesthetics and literature, highlighting the ways in which processes of metamorphosis transform across disciplines and cultural practices.

This seminar provides an insight into the poetic and narrative procedures of Max Frisch's prose writing. Frisch's writing can be essentially understood as experimenting with a new mode of narration which takes on epistemological functions and treats themes of existential philosophy.

This course explores how media shape our experience of space, time, and futurity across historical and contemporary contexts. Combining media-theoretical and post-phenomenological approaches with close analyses of literary and artistic works, we examine how different media imagine future technologies and structure our orientation toward what is to come.

The course focuses on the complex relation between the Fantastic and Occultism, which is understood as part of the history of knowledge of the imaginary after the 18th century.

Literary texts are in no way detached from knowledge. In fact, they are fundamentally about forms and functions of knowledge and science. In this course, these ideas are developed theoretically and discussed using examples from early modern literature up to science fiction.

Mysticism and science appear to be the greatest possible opposites: mysticism is based on the abandonment of knowledge, science on the overcoming of mysticism. Yet in fact, there are far-reaching connections between the two: skepticism, language criticism, experience, subjectivity, ecstasy, anarchy. We want to examine these using texts from medieval as well as modern neo-mysticism.

This lecture provides a general introduction to literary theory and presents the important theories dealing with knowledge and its role in and as literature.

The Left and antisemitism, can this go together? In the seminar, we will explore the cultural, epistemic, biological, medial and political foundations of this complicated constellation since the 19th century. Together with guests, we will analyse antisemitism on the left historically, critically and culturally.