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Research
Research Design
The Cluster's thematical focus is on Asia and Europe in a global context. The aim is to analyse shifting asymmetries in cultural flows. The non-geographical use of both Asia and Europe and the concept of cultural flows are key elements of innovative theoretical debates on cultural exchange from the Bronze Age up to the present. Transcultural flows are carried out by mediators, namely media, objects, or human beings of both continents. The modern "globalisation" is only the quickening of a process that has been going on since prehistoric times by ways of exchange and migration. Given the long history of such flows, the Cluster provides a framework for a close interaction between scholars working on earlier developments in Asia and Europe and those dealing with the present modern period. To understand new configurations, a thorough understanding of historical conditions is essential; the work of the Cluster thus has an important historical dimension.
The Cluster supports well-connected individual as well as joint research projects. The Research Areas are closely linked, which is also reflected in the shared institutional and educational organisation of the Cluster. Although dealing with a wide array of different topics, the same structural questions provide a common basis for all Research Areas. Results are stored in two key databases about core concepts, constructed and used by all Research Areas (Translingual Concepts and Transcultural Images).
Interdisciplinary Approach
The Cluster intends to develop innovative, as well as sustainable concepts of research by combining different skills and approaches. More than 250 people are working on approximately 50 subprojects. According to the requirements of the respective research endeavours, perspectives from following areas are aspired: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art History, Chinese Studies, Egyptology, Historical Studies, Indology, Islam Studies, Japanese Studies, Media and Communication Studies, Musicology, Public Health, Political Sciences, Religious Studies, Social Sciences and many more.
Research Areas
Our research is organised in four areas. These are closely connected both in research and in their institutional environment.
Research Area A: Governance & Administration
Research Area A deals with the cultural flows through which concepts, institutions and practices concerning governance and administration are transferred across cultures and are reconfigured in a continuous but non-linear historical process.
Research Area B: Public Spheres
Research Area B deals with the production and conceptualization of various types of public spheres (from art exhibition to blog, to rock concerto to satire magazine) as constituted by flows of many different kinds (cultural, economic, political, social, artistic) in the dynamic settings of Asia and Europe in a global context.
Research Area C: Health & Environment
Research Area C focuses on the transfer between Asia and Europe of practices concerning, institutions for, ideas about, and perceptions of health and environment.
Research Area D: Historicities & Heritage
The Research Area "Historicities and Heritage" analyses different concepts of histories as competing interpretations of time and space.
