Research Activities at the Faculty

Reports of the Institutes and Departments

Research Activities at the Faculty

The main long-term interdisciplinary research projects are listed below. The research topics and projects of the individual institutes are then described in more detail.

• Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 417 "Processes of Regional Identification. The Case of Saxony" (Cultural Studies, Political Science and Sociology; Theology, Philology, Education, and History, Art and Oriental Studies, ZHS/Centre for Advanced Studies)
• Graduate College "Knowledge Representation" (Logic and Philosophy of Science; Mathematics and Computer Science, Economics and Business Management, Medicine)
• Project "Art Communication" (Philosophy; Ethnology, Art Education, History)
• Doctoral Programme "Property, the Individual, and Social Integration" (Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Political Science; Faculty of History, Art and Oriental Studies, Law, History, Art and Oriental Studies, ZHS/Centre for Advanced Studies, Max Plank Institute of Anthropology in Halle)
• Postgraduate Course in European Studies (Political Science, Cultural Studies, Sociology, Law, Economics and Business Management, History, Theology)

Areas of Research

Institute of Communication and Media Studies

• Key aspects of journalism and communication studies; the ethics of mass communication
• Studies of the history of the subject
• Studies of media reception and research parallel to programming
• Research into professional aspects of PR/theoretical fundamentals of PR
• Online media; press distribution in Western Europe

Institute of Cultural Studies

• Comparative analysis of the culture of modern societies from the late 18th century to the present
• Research into Georg Simmel and Ernst Cassirer

Institute of Logic and Philosophy of Science

• Non-classical logics and applications
• History of logic and logical hermeneutics
• Theory of scientific explanation

Institute of Philosophy

• Theories of intentionality and common action
• Action, communication and language theory
• Justification of ethics
• Philosophy of the 17th and 18th centuries

Institute of Political Science

• Development of international networks
• Consequences of globalisation
• Comparison of dictatorships and democracies
• Modernisation of the state
• Political culture in the welfare state
• Transformation processes

Institute of Sociology

• Social transformation processes in Eastern Germany (family, occupation, subjective attitudes)
• Poverty, poverty trap, social exclusion
• Social movements and political commitment
• Social networks and economic transactions
• Social factors and dependency (alcohol and drugs)
• Regional identification

International Research Co-operation

• the exchange of students and lecturers with universities in Ohio, Penn State, Rutgers (all USA), Jyväskylä (Finland), Klagenfurt (Austria), Lugano (Italy), Grenoble (France), New Delhi (India), Amsterdam (Netherlands), and the CEBRAP Sao Paulo (Brazil)
• research contacts with the universities in Torun and Wroclaw, (Poland), Bloomington, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, New York State (all USA), Amsterdam and Utrecht (Netherlands), Moscow (Russia), Helsinki (Finland), Swansea (Wales), and the Russell Sage Foundation (USA)
• exchange of visiting lecturers in the summer semester 2000, the winter semester 2000/01 and the summer semester 2001 with Japan and the USA via the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Agency)
• interdisciplinary study programme of the Ohio–Leipzig European Centres (assistance by the Institutes of Political Science and Media and Communications Studies, as well as History, Geography, Economics and Management)