Research Groups
Funding Source: DFG
Principal Investiator: Matthis Krischel (Departmet of Theory and Ethics in Medicine), Stefanie Michels (Department of Cultural Studies, Global History), Jürgen Wiener (Department of Art History)
Duration: 11/2024 - 12/2027
In 1926, the largest exhibition of the Weimar Republic took place in Düsseldorf, attracting 7.5 million visitors to a 400,000 square meter site: “The Great Exhibition for Health Care, Social Welfare, and Physical Exercise.” Even at the time, it was abbreviated to GeSoLei. GeSoLei offered numerous presentations on science, industry, and art, as well as an extensive entertainment and consumer area. The “healthy body of the German people” was the main theme of the exhibition. Under the heading of “health and hygiene,” central social and political issues of this first German democracy were discussed and staged. Against this backdrop, the research group is examining GeSoLei as a microcosm of the Weimar Republic with regard to the concepts of democracy discussed here. In doing so, the research project considers democracy both as a concrete constitutional form of government with expanded and specific forms of participation and as an interpretive concept linked to diverse and varying expectations and hopes, for example, for equality, participation, and solidarity.
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Funding Source: Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR)
Principal Investiator: Sarah Czirr and Jürgen Wiener (Department of Art History)
Duration: 01/2026 - 03/2027
Cooperating partners: Düsseldorf City Museum, City Archives of the state capital Düsseldorf, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
The withdrawal of the Allied occupation forces in 1925 was a major step toward greater sovereignty for Düsseldorf. Important measures were implemented, and in May 1926, GeSoLei (Exhibition for Health Care, Social Welfare, and Physical Exercise) opened, attracting 7.6 million visitors from Germany and abroad and becoming the largest exhibition of the Weimar Republic. This set new standards for Düsseldorf's cultural and architectural identity and also provided an economic and tourist boost. Its thematic focal points (e.g., “economic welfare,” “colonial hygiene,” “women,” “Jewish hygiene,” “racial hygiene”), the integrated “Great Düsseldorf Art Exhibition,” and the amusement park can be seen as a seismograph of social discourse and challenges. To mark the 100th anniversary, an interdisciplinary research group at HHU Düsseldorf, in cooperation with the Düsseldorf City Museum, is designing an exhibition that sheds light on this major supra-regional event, drawing on global, scientific-historical, and image-scientific theories. The exhibition will present research findings from the DFG-funded project “Democratic Society on Display? The GeSoLei as a Microcosm of the Weimar Republic,” which are based on an examination of the holdings of the City Museum, the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, the Museum Kunstpalast, and regional and national archives. The selection of exhibits and their presentation in a manner that is as appropriate as possible for the target audience are part of the ongoing research process. The aim is to present key social issues of this first German democracy, which were negotiated and staged here.
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Funding Source: DFG
Spokesperson: Gerhard Schurz (Department of Philosophy)
Duration: 2017 -2026
The overall purpose of the research unit is to articulate and elaborate a new understanding of the nature and methodology of metaphysics. Borrowing a term from late 19th century philosophy, the resulting conception of metaphysics is called Inductive Metaphysics. We argue that, in general, metaphysical beliefs should not and cannot be adequately justified solely on a conceptual and a priori basis. Empirical sources and inductive or abductive forms of inference should and in fact do play a much more prominent role in metaphysics than is typically acknowledged. An important share of metaphysical beliefs should be justified a posteriori, based on inductive or abductive inferences from empirical data, embedded in a methodology that resembles that of science, except that metaphysical concepts and theories are transdisciplinary and more general than concepts and theories in science. The research unit aims at developing a systematic account of the methodology and the empirical sources of Inductive Metaphysics.
Funding Source: DFG
Spokesperson: Valeska von Rosen (Department of Art History)
Duration: 06/2026 -05/2030 (1. term)
Cooperating partner: Reinhild Kreis (Universität Siegen)
The Research project titled “The Makeability of the Self: Diachronic Perspectives on Self-Forming Processes in Media” brings together scholars from various humanities disciplines to examine how the processes of self-forming have been represented and contested across historical contexts.
The research group investigates practices of self-forming from Greek antiquity to the present. Its point of departure is the observation that conceptions of a sovereign, stable, and self-originating subject continue to exert influence to this day – a paradigm shaped particularly by the eighteenth and nineteenth century discourse of genius, which implicitly conceived of the subject as white and male. In contrast, the research group posits the paradigm of a “made” or “constructed” self: the ways in which individuals construct and represent themselves – in texts, images, or digital formats – are always contingent upon historically and culturally variable conditions, as well as upon the affordances and constraints of the respective media.
The group examines diverse forms of medial production: Stoic texts on self-cultivation (PI Prof. Dr. Anna Schriefl), early modern self-portraits by female artists (PI Prof. Dr. Valeska von Rosen), and Hindu pictorial compendia in colonial contexts (PI Prof. Dr. Eva-Maria Troelenberg). These case studies illuminate how individuals shape their character through practice and self-discipline, how female artists negotiate their social role through pictorial representation, and how new conceptions of selfhood emerge from the exchange between European patrons and Indian visual traditions. Further areas of inquiry include the nineteenth-century conceptual figure of “self-made individual” (PI Prof. Dr. Reinhild Kreis) – social advancement through one's own efforts as both a social ideal and a model for individual life – as well as algorithmic self-forming in social media and their literary negotiation in the contemporary American novel (PI Prof. Dr. Regina Schober).
With its historically grounded and transcultural perspective, the research group contributes to refining the conceptual framework of contemporary debates on self-optimization and human malleability, situating these discussions within broader historical contexts.
The preparation of the proposal was generously supported by the Haubrich Foundation.
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