1. Research

Dep. V: Globalizations in a Divided World

Head of Department: Prof. Dr. Isabella Löhr

One of the central challenges in the twenty-first century is to understand the globality of our present time in all of its complexity and inconsistency. Department V researches the tensions, conflicts, and ostensible contradictions in international contemporary history, which has been shaped by processes of decolonization, (unequal) internationalization and the global Cold War as well as by nationalistic isolationism, and anti-global campaigns. Starting from German and European history, the department’s projects analyze the logics, contingencies, and effects of contemporary historical globalization processes. On the basis of topics such as migration and mobility, criminality, the regulation of international problems, transnational (illiberal) movements, and the unequal distribution of knowledge and technology, our projects examine the motives and dynamics, as well as the making, rearrangement, and abandonment, of global connections. Our research reconstructs forgotten contexts and traces the contingency of globalization processes. Department V creates a profound understanding of how our global present has become and thus contributes to the conscious shaping of social agency.

Department V was founded in June 2023 and is in development.

Forschung

Knowledge and Technology as Contested Resources

This field of research examines the decolonial transformation of knowledge and technology, which shaped the unequal distribution of these crucial resources in global competition in the second half of the twentieth century.

Forschung

Globality and Social (Dis-)Integration in Contemporary History

The projects deal with the transnational history of political movements and ideological confrontations in Europe. We examine which notions of democracy, liberalism and constitutionalism have guided political and social action, and to what extent populism and (il-)liberal movements are also the...

Forschung

Migration and Mobility

This field of research asks which parameters have shaped how societies and politicians deal with, understand, and practice migration in contemporary history.

Forschung

New Globalizations: Transformations of the International Order After 1945

Taking the two German states as its starting point, this field of research addresses the question of how the international order changed in the post-war period under the aegis of competition, cooperation and conflict, and what new, specifically contemporary historical forms of globalization this...

Forschung