The Centre for Area Studies (CAS), founded in 2009, is an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental research institute at the University of Leipzig that places a special emphasis on the academic collaboration between area studies and other disciplines in social sciences and humanities. The central research focus of CAS concentrates on the questions of how global flows of people, ideas, goods and capital affect the existence and perception of different world regions, as well as to what extent the world is both deterritorialized and reterritorialized through the interwoven processes of globalization. With these inquiries, the current research programme for the study period 2010-2013 promotes projects under the theme “Cultural Encounters and Political Orders in a Global Age”.