In February 2023 Angela Dorn, the Hessian minister for science and the arts, visited the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, where she participated in a panel discussion focusing on the relationship between research in the humanities and society at large. The evening began with Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, the head of the Forschungskolleg, and Iris Koban, its managing director, outlining the special tasks of the Forschungskolleg as an »Institute for Advanced Studies« of Goethe University in association with the leading research institutes of the FrankfurtRheinMain science region.

From the left: Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, Gunther Hellmann, Angela Dorn (photo: private)

Three examples of the research projects being pursued at the Forschungskolleg
Three Goethe Fellows presented their research projects in this conversation with Ms Dorn. The political scientist Gunther Hellmann presented the project »Democratic Vistas«, which he heads together with the Americanist Johannes Voelz and which deals with democracy as an (endangered) way of life. With the recently founded John McCloy Transtatlantic Forum, the project has set up a discussion platform that invites the public to talk about current political issues.

The Sinologist Zhiyi Yang works on contemporary the Chinese-language cultural space, which, remarkably, deliberately adapts motifs from the classical period. She would like to contribute to a better understanding between »Chinese« and »Western« cultural areas—not least with regard to the question of whether and how they can learn from each other. For Yang, collaboration with colleagues from Asia and America is particularly important; she brings them together, for example, in the lecture series »Sinophone Classisicm« at the Forschungskolleg.

The philosopher Darrel Moellendorf works on the problem of climate change, taking his cue from the scientific consensus that climate change and its effects on our planet are due to human activity. Therefore, according to Moellendorf, climate change is also about philosophical-normative questions: What can we do to stop climate change? Who takes responsibility, who bears the costs, what does »climate justice« mean? On what grounds may we hope that the planet can be »saved«?

A small conclusion
In the ensuing discussion between the minister and the audience, it became clear that the topics outlined in the examples and researched at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften are highly relevant to society and of fundamental importance for politics. This is an important task of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften. Often, however, researchers do not succeed in communicating their results and insights to the public in a way that results in learning processes for all those involved. For this reason, it must also be a matter of ensuring that the dialogue between academia, politics, and society is placed on a permanent footing in places such as the Forschungskolleg. Thus, it is the wish of those responsible at the Forschungskolleg that its commitment to this dialogue will be encouraged and financially supported by the state government in the future.

Contact
Iris Helene Koban (Managing director of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften)
i.koban@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de

Prof. Dr. Dr. Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Director of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften)
lutz-bachmann@em.uni-frankfurt.de