University of Heidelberg

Since our Research Area assembles scholars from so many different disciplinary backgrounds, there is no single methodological framework to be used by all projects. Our methodological pluralism ranges from the quantitative analysis of contemporary statistics and their interpretation with modern statistical methods via the visualization of findings with HisGIS methods to content analysis, from postcolonial and gender theories, via queer studies and historical anthropology, to frame and network analyzes and performance theory, from thick description to visual, musical and literary analysis, from multi-sited ethnography to participatory observation and more. The Research Area draws on concepts and methodologies developed in Asia and Europe. Our aim is to build upon and further elaborate these. Our research is “pluri-local”, demanding scholarly expertise in several disciplines and a reworking of “classical” methods and concepts developed for them. The Heidelberg Research Architecture, with its translingual and transvisual databases is a crucial tool in this endeavour which hinges on a new level of scholarly collaboration and involvement hitherto untapped.

Related Readings:

Arjun Appadurai, Bachman-Medic, Roland Barthes, Rajeev Bhargava, David Benford, Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Dipesh Chakrabarty.John Clark, James Clifford, Sudeep Dasgupta Steven Epstein, Michel Foucault, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Clifford Geertz, Erving Goffman, Jürgen Habermas, Ulf Hannerz, Suzuki Hiroyuki, Molly Kaushal, Lars Koch, Krims, Jacques Lacan, Bruno Latour, Nicholas Mirzoeff, Meenakshipuram Deivakumar Muthukumaraswamy, Linda Nochlin, Kitazawa Noriaki, Aihwa Ong, Pries, Robert Pütz, Helmut Reifeld, Ferdinand de Saussure, David A. Snow, Robert Snow, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Joseph J. Tobin, Charles Taylor, Michael Warner, Aida Yuen Wong.