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.