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Faculty of Philology |
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Research Activities at the Faculty |
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Reports of the Institutes and Departments |
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Research Activities at the Faculty |
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Research at the Faculty of Philology covers a wide spectrum that reflects the range of its different disciplines. Individual research and individual projects account for a considerable share of research in the Faculty. This form of research is the result of specific structures and traditions that are inherent in the disciplines of philology and the humanities and that will continue to be indispensable in the future. Until now the research situation has been characterized to a remarkable extent by the fact that the individual institutes found themselves in different phases of restructuring in terms of both staff capacity and organization. For all the variety of individual research, there is, however, also cross-disciplinary project research which, particularly in linguistics, in the framework of a cognitive science approach, is bringing in results and raising profile. In literary studies, the planning of cooperative projects has advanced. Research in the Faculty is organized according to languages and respective cultural spheres. Within the individual institutes, the subject organization into linguistics, literary studies, cultural studies and didactics has been achieved in various degrees. The potential this system provides for coordinated research networking across different institutes, faculties and universities as well as the development of the individualized research traditions into larger, externally-funded projects was realized to a varying extent in 1999. It will thus continue to be the Faculty's task to develop its resources and potential in this respect. While maintaining a high regard for the indispensable individual research done in the humanities, the following introductory remarks to the Research Report stress externally-funded cooperative research projects now being carried out across different institutes, faculties or universities. An overall picture of research at the Faculty can be gained from the details provided by the individual institutes, including their lists of publications. |
Linguistics |
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Linguistics In terms of funded research, linguistics has already consolidated its base. Coordinated research networking has - at various levels - made the most progress here. Project-based research is essentially supported by the integrative activities of the Institute of Linguistics in the following contexts:
Two interdisciplinary postgraduate programs established at the ZHS (Centre for Advanced Studies) provide the next generation of linguistic scholars with the opportunity of taking doctoral degrees. These programs involve research into linguistic questions, partly encompassing different universities (carried out in cooperation with, inter alia, the Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Leipzig):
Other externally-funded linguistics projects are in the following areas:
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Literary studies and cultural studies |
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Literary studies and cultural studies In the fields of literary studies and cultural studies, 1999 saw further progress in project-oriented collaboration. In this context, cooperation with the GWZO (Humanities Centre for the History and Culture of Eastern-Central Europe, Leipzig) bore its first fruit (the book "Historical Myths in the Literatures and Cultures of Eastern-Central and South-Eastern Europe", a joint publication with the Institute of Slavonic Studies/Western Slavonic Studies). Publications from a series of lectures on themes and problems in literary studies which are of relevance across institutes, continued in 1999 with "Rhetorical See-Voyages. Case Studies on Forms of Perception in Literature, Art and Culture", a collection of papers to which colleagues from several institutes contributed. In the field of Latin-American studies the DFG project started the previous year at the Research Centre for Iberoamerican Studies, "Discourse Variety. Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Communication", made further progress, as did the international project, "J. L. Borges's Literature in a Cross-disciplinary Context" (both Institute of Romance Studies). In addition, research cooperation on the following topics is taking shape:
Cross-faculty collaboration in the field of literary and cultural studies was continued in the framework of a postgraduate program on "Ambivalence of Occidentalisation" (at the ZHS), underpinned by joint postgraduate colloquia on literary theory (Western Slavonic Studies and Romance Studies). In 1999, no further progress could be made on integrating cultural studies into research programs as the professorships allocated for this in English Studies and Romance Studies were not yet taken up. The plan for a Latin-American Centre in the future is likely to provide considerable impetus in the interdisciplinary cultural studies field. |
Didactics |
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Didactics As a more long-term externally-funded project in the field of didactics, the "Distance-learning Course in German as a Foreign Language for Economic Experts with Polish Mother-tongue (IMPULSE)" was established (Herder Institute, funded by the Federal Foreign Office, Bonn). |
Book series |
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Book series Interdisciplinarity is also served by joint publications from colleagues of several institutes in the Faculty, viz. the series "Leipzig Papers on Cultural Studies, Literary Studies and Linguistics", which, in 1999, two years after it was launched, had already ten volumes to its credit. The publication of the series is overseen by an editorial board from the Institutes of Applied Linguistics and Translatology, English Studies, American Studies, German Studies, Linguistics, Romance Studies and Slavonic Studies. Information about other series of publications by faculty members can be found in
the details provided by the individual institutes. |
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Research Report 1999 | |||||
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