Major projects since 2009

2020ff.
Literature from Kassel for Kassel: online readings

On 13.10.2020, a reading project initiated by me went online: The project was created in collaboration with the Kassel City Library. Over 40 readings or 13 hours of reading time, presented by 24 readers, unfold the broad spectrum of Kassel literature from the 16th to the 21st century: Stories, autobiographical texts, poems, letters, tracts, essays, novel excerpts, travelogues, etc. The readings are available free of charge via streaming and download.

2019ff.
The Kassel List - A Database of Censored Books (with Dr. Florian Gassner)

The Kassel List is an interactive online tool that was created on the basis of the project work for "The Parthenon of Books" (documente 14). To date, the database comprises around 120,000 banned books; it integrates various historical indices, research databases on censorship and the results of individual research.

The "Kassel List" documents censorship as a global phenomenon: book bans exist on all continents, to varying degrees and at different levels depending on the political system and form of society. We are making the first experimental attempt to map censorship globally and thus put censorship research on a new footing - a systematization and expansion of the list as part of a funded research project is being planned.

2016/17
documenta project "The Parthenon of Books" by Marta Minujín (head of the cooperating scientific working group, together with guest professor Dr. Florian Gassner)

At documenta 14, a huge temple of forbidden books was created on Friedrichsplatz in Kassel: a work of art by Argentinian artist Marta Minujín, which anyone could help build by donating books. The scientific support for the project provided by Florian Gassner, myself and a project group included the scientifically supported creation of lists of banned books as well as the validation and vacuuming of the books sent in.

- long list of banned books
- short list of particularly well-known, mainly German-language titles
of banned books

2015-2017
Kleines Kasseler Literatur-Lexikon. Authors : A project for the development and preservation of Hessian literary, cultural and intellectual history (project management)

The Kasseler Literatur-Lexikon presents Kassel as a city of literature and shows literary achievements in Kassel over the past centuries. It includes around 500 personal articles by world-famous and unknown authors. The literature and culture of a region bear witness to its density and diversity of interaction. The city of Kassel proves to be the starting point or destination, stopover or climax of diverse literary and cultural manifestations from the late Middle Ages to the present day. A decisive factor in Kassel's significance as a city of literature is the continuously observed intensive interweaving of local-regional and supra-regional-general dimensions of literary, cultural and intellectual history. Around 100 contributors from various academic disciplines (philology, history, art history, musicology, theology, law, philosophy, biology, sociology, history of education) are involved, as well as other experts from museums, the city, the church, schools, academies, archives, literary offices, etc. The encyclopedia was published by Wehrhahn Verlag, Hanover, in January 2018.

The project is sponsored by the City of Kassel, the Kassel University Society, the Kassel Branch of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies 1834 e.V. and the Lions Club Kassel.

Publication: Kleines Kasseler Literatur-Lexikon. Authors and writers. Hanover: Wehrhahn 2018.

2014-
Italy Network of the University of Kassel (co-founder, since 2016 spokesperson of the network with Prof. Dr. Angela Schrott)

In 2014, a network of researchers and teachers from the disciplines of philosophy, history and art history, German and Romance literary studies was founded at the University of Kassel. After Kassel's Italian Studies department was discontinued more than five years ago, it was not only Romance scholars who missed the academic study of the language, culture, philosophy, art and literature of the neighboring country to the south.

The network's tasks include the conception and organization of an annual Italy Day as well as the introduction and organization of a certificate for interdisciplinary Italian competence (Italicum). The Italicum was launched very successfully in winter semester 2016/17 and is now funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

2011-2015
Literature in Kassel - more than just GRIMMig. Teaching project (project management)

To mark Kassel's 1100thanniversary (2013), the project presented writers from Kassel from the 18th to 20th centuries: It was about 45 literary rediscoveries and new discoveries. The city of Kassel's contribution to literary art and culture was made visible and audible in the city itself - visible in that literature was "inscribed" in the city: One excerpt from each literary work can be read on 45 signs throughout the city. Audible, in that literary voices were heard in the city - during a three-hour reading marathon (June 2013). On June 25, 2015, the last two signs were inaugurated opposite Kassel's GRIMMWELT.

The project was supported and funded by the City of Kassel, the Kassel University Society, Sparkasse Kassel and the Wesertor district office.

2011-2016
Dynamics of space and gender: discover - conquer - invent - narrate. DFG Research Training Group (project management)

The Research Training Group focuses on interdisciplinary research into the reciprocal influence of space and gender. The research training group thus addresses two of the most important developments of recent decades and places them in context: the change in the gender order on the one hand and the change in the spatial order, which is often viewed under the catchword globalization, on the other. The starting point is the finding that the more global the level of observation, the less consideration is given to the category of gender in much recent research on space. The interdisciplinary research training group therefore aims to examine the reciprocal relationships between the constitution of space and gender in current and historical societies within and outside Europe from the perspectives of sociology, ethnology, history and literary studies.

The subjects involved in the Research Training Group are English/Canadian Studies, Arabic/Islamic Studies, Ethnology, Ethics and History of Medicine, History, German Studies, Sociology and Theology.

The project was funded by the DFG.

2009-2012
World and Research on Stage. Theatrical literature of the early modern period. DFG research project (project leader)

The (world) theater is familiar as a key metaphor of the early modern period. But the books of the period were also often regarded as theater. These textual stages formed an important publishing phenomenon: between 1500 and 1800, hundreds of works appeared in Europe, with a focus on the Old Kingdom, whose titles were emblazoned with the metaphorical theatrum or vernacular equivalents(Schaubühne, Schauplatz etc.). The majority of book theaters were dedicated to the collection and representation of knowledge, forming a segment of the broad encyclopaedic literature of the early modern period.

Digitization projects on the Internet usually only make the text material available without commentary. The permanent preservation of cultural heritage in the context of mass digitization projects is largely decoupled from scholarly indexing. Our project goes beyond this through the cooperation between the library and the university. It combines classic elements of a repertory - indexing and annotated description of a text corpus - with a comprehensive database. By linking digitized source material and research results, the digital added value of the hypertext is used and made visible.

The project was funded by the DFG.

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