Research Activities at the Faculty

Reports of the Institutes and Departments

Research Activities at the Faculty

However, the research conditions continue to be somewhat hampered by the fact that the institutes are currently undergoing different phases of restructuring in terms of both staff capacity and organisation. The variety of individual research is being increasingly augmented by interdisciplinary project research. This is especially evident in linguistics orientated towards cognitive science, for example, where in conjunction with Leipzig's Max Planck Institutes it is contributing to a new profile at the interface of science and the humanities, achieving a considerable international response.

In literary studies, a faculty research group has been set up entitled "Literary Topography – Real and Imaginary Spaces". After an initial symposium based on preliminary research by participants, an externally funded collaborative research project was formulated. One key goal of this research is a hitherto lacking semiotic and epistemologically founded general theory of fictional spaces, supported by illustrative analyses of literary space semantics and space functionality in temporal, historical and cultural contexts of the subjects involved.

Research at the Faculty is largely organised according to languages and their associated cultural spheres. Within the individual institutes, each field is organised into linguistics (including translatology), literary studies, cultural studies and didactics, albeit to a differing degree. The potential this structure provides for co-ordinated research networking across different institutes, faculties and universities as well as the development of traditional individualised research into externally funded projects was realised to a varying extent in 2000. It will thus continue to be an important task of the Faculty to build up its resources and potential in this respect.

Without detracting from the indispensable individual research performed in the humanities, the following remarks focus on externally funded co-operative research projects already being carried out with other institutes, faculties or universities. An overall picture of research at the Faculty can be gleaned from the details provided by the individual institutes, including their lists of publications.

Linguistics

• DFG Research Group at the University of Leipzig: Linguistic Foundations of Cognitive Science, Phase 1 (participants: English Studies, Linguistics, Slavonic Studies)
• DFG research initiative on "Language Production", Phase 3 (participants: English Studies, Linguistics)
• DFG Research Group on "Working memory" (participant: Linguistics)
• DFG project "Particle Verbs in German and English", Phase 3 (English Studies, Slavonic Studies)
• Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 417: "Regionally-oriented Identification Processes: The Case of Saxony" (participant: German Studies)

Two interdisciplinary postgraduate programmes established at the Centre for Advanced Studies (ZHS) enable junior linguistics researchers to take doctoral degrees. These programmes comprise research into linguistic questions and partly involve different universities as well as co-operation with bodies such as the Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Leipzig:

• Graduate College on "Universality and Diversity. Linguistic Structures and Processes", Phase 2 (Linguistics, English Studies, Slavonic Studies, Applied Linguistics and Translatology)
• Doctoral Programme on "Cognitive Science" (Linguistics)
• The Institute of Applied Linguistics and Translatology has set up collaboration with the postgraduate doctoral programme "Applied Linguistics" at the University of Havana, Cuba (DAAD/BMBF)

Other externally funded linguistics projects are being conducted in the following areas:

• "German–Polish Contrastive Grammar", 2 volumes published (Slavonic Studies; DAAD)
• Yiddish Language and Culture for Self-study on the Internet (Slavonic Studies; EU; Krupp Foundation)
• "Bulgarian" (Slavonic Studies; DFG)
• "Spoken Romanian in Historical Moldova" and "Spoken Romanian in Ukraine" (Romance Studies; Volkswagen Foundation)
• German–Finnish lexicography (German Studies, with other universities; DAAD)
• Media-assisted Linguistics and Translation Science (project based partly at the Institute of Applied Linguistics and Translatology)

Literary studies

• "Discourse Variety. Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Communication" (DFG), as well as the international project
• "J. L. Borges's Literature in an Interdisciplinary context" (Volkswagen Foundation, DFG).
• Publications are shortly to appear in advance of the project "Hybridity and Mediality in Latin-American Theatre" (with other universities)

Two new projects have been set up:

• "FraGes", the Centre for Women and Gender Research (German Studies, American Studies; Senate approval), from which considerable research networking among different faculties at the University is expected
• A faculty research group on the topic "Literary Topographies – Real and Imaginary Spaces" (Romance Studies, German Studies, Slavonic Studies, Classical Philology)

In addition there are a number of collaborations with universities abroad:

• "Language where Languages End", in conjunction with the research group "Les poétiques modernes comparées 1800–2000" (German Studies; University of Paris XII)
• The evolution of Czech and Polish Narrative and Literary Construction of Fictional Worlds (Slavonic Studies; Charles University, Prague; Jagiellonen University, Krakow)

The cross-faculty collaboration in the field of literary and cultural studies within the postgraduate programme "Ambivalences of Westernisation" (collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Studies; Hans Böckler Foundation) was underpinned by joint postgraduate colloquia on literary theory (Slavonic Studies and Romance Studies). The programme is scheduled to run until the end of 2001.

Cultural Studies

Externally-funded projects:

• Cultural Studies of Eastern Central Europe: "Intermediary Organisation and Democratic Stability in Eastern-Central and South-eastern Europe during the Inter-war Period" (Collaboration between Slavonic Studies and GWZO/ Humanities Centre – History and Culture of Eastern-Central Europe; Martin Luther University of Halle; DFG)
• Gramsci Project (Romance Studies, with other universities; Hans Böckler Foundation)
• Working Group on Cultural Studies in Eastern Germany (English Studies, with other universities; British Council)
• Biennial Conference: Theory and Practice of Cultural Studies (German Studies; Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Culture of the Free State of Saxony)

Didactics

• "IMPULSE" (the "Distance-learning Course in German as a Foreign Language for Economic Experts with Polish Mother-tongue") was continued as a long-term externally funded project in the field of didactics (Herder Institute; German Foreign Office).
• The Leipzig component of the "International Tandem Network", an innovative language-learning project, was set up (Herder Institute; EU programme).

Book series

Information about other series of publications by Faculty members can be found in the details provided by the individual institutes.