Welcome to the new website of the Department of History and Cultural Studies. Here, you will find a portrait of the department with information on the profile, an organigram and a summary of the disciplines and institutes as well as a summary of the administration and services of the department, such as the Dean’s office, department administration, and committees and boards.

History and Cultural Studies

Structure of the Department

The Department of History and Cultural Studies is concerned with researching and analysing past events, developments and cultural phenomena. Students in this field examine historical contexts, cultural practices, social structures and political developments in order to gain a deeper understanding of the past and its impact on the present. By engaging with different methods of historiography and cultural analysis, students can gain important insights into the diversity of human experiences and identities.

With 18 institutes and around 5,500 students, the Department of History and Cultural Studies is one of the three major departments at Freie Universität Berlin. It offers a spectrum of subjects that is unique in the German university landscape, ranging from antiquity to the present and geographically from Europe and Africa to the Middle East and East Asia to North and South America. In addition to the two "major" subjects of History and Art History, the Department of Ancient Studies (Ancient Near Eastern Studies,Egyptology, Archaeoinformatics, Classical Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, History of Religions, Near Eastern Archaeology, History of Knowledge of the Ancient World) subjects from West Asia and North Africa/Diaspora (Jewish Studies, Iranian Studies, Islamic Studies, Semitic and Arabic Studies, Ottoman Studies and Turcology) and East Asia (Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies) are also part of the department. The disciplines represented are dedicated to historical, art-historical, archaeological, philological, literary, social, political and cultural studies. Their particular strength lies in their ability to combine systematic and historical questions with material-related research and to examine and develop theoretical models diachronically and transregionally through their methodological expertise. The department is characterised by a differentiated subject structure, a wide variety of German and English-language study programmes and an extraordinary research strength. The Department of History and Cultural Studies was the most successful department at Freie Universität Berlin and the most successful humanities and cultural studies department in Germany in the second round of the Excellence Initiative. The department was unable to succeed in the last round of applications due to the current generational change. The very internationally positioned graduate schools (BGSMCS; GEAS, BerGSAS) at the department have continued to exist beyond the temporary funding of the initial phase (e.g., EXC Topoi) and are constantly attracting funding from various sources (e.g. DAAD, Einstein Doctoral Programme, Einstein Center Chronoi, Gerda Henkel Foundation, Elsa Neumann Scholarships).

In addition, the structured doctoral programme "History and Cultural Studies" (HCS) was launched in the winter semester 2020/2021 in order to meet the numerous enquiries from abroad to the department. Even beyond the Excellence Initiative, the department's research achievements are reflected in the establishment of and participation in interdisciplinary collaborative projects: many of the department's professorships were involved in the SFB 980 "Episteme in Motion. Knowledge Transfer from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Era" and are currently involved in the CRC 1512 "Intervening Arts". There is also an extensive network in the form of numerous collaborations with non-university research institutions (including the Staatliche Museen Berlin, German Archaeological Institute, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Selma Stern Centre for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg, Forum Transregionale Studien, Centre for Literary and Cultural Research, Leibniz Centre for the Modern Orient).

A considerable number of very prestigious ERC projects were acquired from the European Research Council, particularly in the so-called "small disciplines": "AnonymClassic - The Arabic Anonymous in a World Classic", "Country of Words" (palREAD) "Emotional Machines: The Technological Transformation of Intimacy in Japan" (EMTECH), "Digital Governance in China", "Art Academies in China: Global Histories and Institutional Practices" (CHINACADEMY), "Law without Mercy: Japanese Courts-Martial and Military Courts During the Asia-Pacific War, 1937-1945", "ZODIAC - Ancient Astral Science in Transformation" and ""Democratising the Family? Gender Equality, Parental Rights, and Child Welfare in Contemporary Global History" (DEMFAM).

Further ERC project applications are in the preparation or application phase, and a good half dozen ERC grant applications have had to be rejected in recent years.

The highly prestigious Leibniz Prize was awarded to Prof. Dr. Beatrice Gründler from the Institute of Arabic Studies in the Department of History and Cultural Studies at the beginning of 2016. The Federal President appointed Prof. Dr. Gudrun Krämer to the German Council of Science and Humanities in 2018. In Ancient Near Eastern Studies, the DFG Research Training Group "Rethinking Oriental Despotism - Strategies of Governance and Modes of Participation in the Ancient Near East" was newly approved in 2017 and has since been extended for a second period. In 2023, the DFG Research Unit 5323 "Aitiologies: Figures and Functions of Justifying Narratives in Science and Literature" was established.

As part of the current Excellence Strategy of the federal and state governments, the department is significantly involved in two clusters. These include the political and social science-orientated cluster "Contestations of the Liberal Script" (SCRIPTS) and the humanities cluster "Temporal Communities. Literature as Practice in a Global Perspective". The results of the diverse initiatives and funding were impressively confirmed by the outstanding position of the Humanities subject group in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking of 2024 (https://www.topuniversities.com/universities/freie-universitaet-berlin).

Research Priorities and Cooperations

In the third funding line of the Excellence Initiative, Freie Universität Berlin has successfully utilised its great potential in the area of internationalisation. In terms of content, this structural positioning and opening up corresponds with the strengthening of the "minor disciplines" and a programmatic focus on transregional, transcultural and historical approaches, which can only take place within the framework of international contacts. The Department of History and Cultural Studies contributes significantly to the development of this research profile. It includes a number of subjects that are partly regional studies subjects (such as Chinese Studies, Korean Studies and Japanese Studies) and is involved in interdisciplinary institutions for research into transregional and transcultural contexts and corresponding cultural-theoretical models. The "Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS)" and the "Graduate School of East Asian Studies (GEAS)" will continue to provide significant impetus for the "small subjects" at Freie Universität Berlin and far beyond. Moreover, the subjects represented in these centres have excellent international networks in research and teaching. As part of the "Dahlem Humanities Centre" (DHC), the institutes and seminars of the department have been successfully linked with the other humanities departments at Freie Universität Berlin. The "Area Histories" network, an association of professors and staff in Eastern European and non-European history at Freie Universität Berlin, forms a specific historical platform. It documents the regional diversity of research and teaching in history at Freie Universität Berlin, as represented and systematically reflected by the "Global History" department (including the degree programme). The Institute of Art History also has an important role to play in these developments, as it has been working for several years on linking the content of regional art histories and on the methodological positioning of art history in a global context. The research-oriented Master's degree programme "Art History in a Global Context" has been offered since 2008.

In addition, on the basis of the contractual ties between Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the department is further expanding its expertise in the field of the history of knowledge and science (new foundation of the Institute for the History of Knowledge of Antiquity), which can be researched here in a rarely found historical and regional breadth thanks to the disciplinary potential of the subjects represented. The institute is intended to bring together the various research initiatives based in the department and make them accessible for teaching in a focussed form. This will build on the good connectionswith the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, among others. Members of the department are represented on the advisory board of the Centre for the History of Knowledge in Berlin.

The department also has particular research potential with regard to object-related research, which has recently been summarised under the catchword "material turn", which systematically integrates current discourses and thus reorients itself by expanding its questions and fields of investigation. An ideal basis for this is provided by the Berliner Antike-Kolleg (BAK), which was founded in 2011 by Berlin’s Ancient Studies as a further development of the excellence cluster "Topoi" with significant participation from FU’s Departmentof History and Cultural Studiesand its outstanding ancient studies faculty. On the one hand, this institution stands in the important tradition of ancient studies in Berlin and, on the other hand, opens up numerous perspectives for future research on ancient cultures. Seven major Berlin institutions with different traditions and social missions work together in the Berliner Antike-Kolleg. In addition to the Freie Universität Berlin, these include the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW), the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU), the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIW), the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) and the Staatliche Museen Berlin) (SMB).

The cooperation between neighbouring disciplines and between the natural sciences and humanities follows on from the inter-institutional cooperation in German classical studies in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the extraordinary concentration of scientific expertise and the rich collection of objects made Berlin a global centre of ancientstudies. Specialists for almost all regions, periods and research methods still work here today; the Berlin collections are unique worldwide. Against this background, cooperation with the SPK will also be gradually expanded in all areas. The growing importance of digital humanities is reflected in numerous digital projects at the department and in the steadily increasing use of digital tools and methods in research and teaching. This important area was further strengthened in ancient studies in 2024 with the establishment of a separate Institute for Archaeoinformatics, in which archaeoinformatics, computational linguistics and explorative visual archaeology are represented.

An inventory of the projects in the field of digital humanities based at the department revealed a broad spectrum of different applications, interests and initiatives, ranging from research data management and the virtual research environment to e-learning/blended learning and science communication 2.0 through to online exhibitions. The main focus is on object databases, digital editions and online publications, e-learning/blended learning and retro-digitisation. A range of digital tools and methods are used: from visualisation and text mining processes to geographical information systems (GIS), 3D digitisation and semantic navigation. Projects of this kind are to be systematically expanded and further developed in the new Institute of Archaeoinformatics, among others. As part of these projects, considerable digital expertise has been built up in the department. With the aforementioned success factors, the department has successfully and sustainably supported and helped shape the internationalisation, research and equality strategies of Freie Universität Berlin in recent years on the basis of its strong internal cohesion and interdisciplinary exchange. The subject and methodological diversity as well as the regional and epochal range of the subjects integrated into the department are programmatic for its content profile. Against the background of its disciplinary heterogeneity, the specific structure of the department has been the basis of its success in recent years and will continue to prove to be a solid foundation for development in the future.

Study programmes

The Department of History and Cultural Studies offers prospective students a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes that correspond to its academic profile: from art history in a global context, history and ancient studies to the regions of West Asia, North Africa and East Asia. In addition, the department fulfils its obligation to the state with regard to the required increase in teaching staff by continuously expanding the number of teaching subjects. The department meets the internationalisation of teaching and the resulting increase in demand for English-language Master's courses with its predominantly interdisciplinary and various English-language courses.

This diversity of content and the many opportunities to create synergies and use polyvalent offerings within and beyond the individual academic institutions also characterise the broad spectrum of courses and degree programmes.

Students can specialise in art from East Asia, South Asia or Africa. Ancient studies include the disciplines of Egyptology, Classical Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, Near Eastern Studies,Institute for the History of Knowledge in the Ancient World

and Religious Studies. The fields of East Asia and West Asia and North Africa take an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary look at Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies, Arabic Studies, Iranian Studies, Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, Semitic Studies and Turcology.

 

The department currently offers 24 Bachelor's degree programmes and three "integrated" Bachelor's degree programmes (Korean Studies, Japanese Studies and Chinese Studies with an integrated one-year stay abroad). These are predominantly mono Bachelor's degree programmes and four combined Bachelor's degree programmes, three of which are offered with a teaching degree option (Turkish starts in winter semester 24/25). In addition, the department also offers 60 and 30 modules for almost all of its subjects so that these are available to students on the combined Bachelor's programmes.

The EinS@FU orientation programme, which is designed to enable students to better orientate themselves and make an informed choice of subject, has been offered since the 2017/2018 winter semester. The Department of History and Cultural Studies is involved in the "Culture" specialisation with all of its Bachelor's degree programmes.

The department offers 28 Master's degree programmes, two Master's degree programmes for teachers (History and Chinese) and three Master's degree programmes in cooperation with other universities: Global History with the Humboldt University of Berlin, Modern Judaism and Holocaust Studies with Touro College and Applied Landscape and Field Archaeology with the University of Applied Sciences. Of the 28 Master's degree programmes, one is application-oriented, seven are interdisciplinary and five are in English.

The Bachelor's degree programme with a teaching option for Turkish (see above) and the English-language Master's degree programme Science, Technology and Medicine in the Ancient World will start in the winter semester 2024/2025. The latter represents an initial programme in the field of Ancient History of Knowledge, which could be expanded to include further epochs in cooperation with other Berlin universities and in possible further cooperation with the Max Planck Society's Graduate School.

For the winter semester 2025/2026, the capacity for the History teaching degree programme will be increased to meet the necessary increase in teaching staff; a further Master's degree programme in the field of Digital Humanities (Archaeoinformatics) is to be promoted. The Master of Education in Turkish is to be established by the winter semester 2026/2027 at the latest and will complete the range of courses on offer. There are also plans to switch existing Master's programmes to English.

The department offers three graduate schools and a structured doctoral programme (see above) and cooperates with the graduate school of the Max Planck Society.