Our world is characterised by religious, cultural and linguistic diversity. Both historically and in the present, this diversity has given rise to conflicts of interest and tensions, but also to opportunities and innovation. The profile area “Universality and Diversity” places the study of such dynamics at its centre. By connecting research that examines causes of conflict and explores possible solutions, it enables interdisciplinary reflections on untapped potential as well as the formulation of responses to societal challenges. The profile area unites a wide range of disciplinary perspectives from the humanities, cultural studies and the social sciences. By linking different regional research focuses, it also allows us to broaden our perspective beyond the European context.
Anja Middelbeck-Varwick
|Profile Area Spokesperson
“The dynamics of social and cultural transformation processes require interdisciplinary collaboration — in the ‚Universality & Diversity‘ profile area, we bring together expertise from various disciplines to find new solutions to the challenges of our time.”
Sita Steckel
|Spokespersons
“To understand the conflicts and identify the potentials inherent in diverse societies, we need the key tools offered by the Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Studies. Our goal is to make their contribution more visible.”
André Stephan
Key Research Areas
Dynamics of Religion
The interdisciplinary and interreligious LOEWE Centre “Dynamics of Religion. Ambivalent Neighborhoods between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in Historical and Contemporary Constellations (2026-2032)” investigates the dialogical and conflictual interactions and mutual perceptions between the three internally diverse religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, both in the past and in the present. Other centres and research networks are devoted to more specific questions concerning individual religious traditions. What they share is an interest in understanding religious traditions within multireligious and secular constellations, and specifically in interreligious processes of cultural transfer, translation, appropriation, and the transformation of religious–cultural systems of knowledge.
Diversity of languages
This research area focuses on how language is changing in a globalized world—through migration, multilingualism, and digital communication. It centers on questions of identity, culture, and social coexistence in multilingual societies. We explore both specific language practices and the fundamental principles underlying all languages. Multimodality in language also plays a special role here. We therefore investigate linguistic features in all modalities, looking particularly at visual means of communication such as gestures and their interaction with spoken language, as well as visual languages such as sign languages. We aim to gain a better understanding of the structure of human language and multimodal communication and to reveal their role in social, cultural, and cognitive processes.
Aesthetics: Materiality, Mediality, Potentiality
Research on aesthetics, and its dimensions of materiality, mediality and potentiality, has long been a central focus of scholarship at the Goethe University Frankfurt, leading to the university’s international reputation in this area. The arts today move far beyond any isolated realm of aesthetic pleasure and beauty, emerging as key sites for symbolizing, articulating, and negotiating the complex concerns and conflicts of the present. Beyond the more narrow sphere of the arts, architecture and design are also central to understanding the material conditions of living together and how they shape historical and contemporary forms of life and political orders. Since 2015, research in the field of aesthetics at the Goethe University Frankfurt has contributed to establishing Germany’s first and only Master’s program devoted to the study of Aesthetics, in which seven disciplines from three faculties participate.
Memory, Collections, Knowledge
While Goethe University has long examined the cultural role of knowledge, a current focus lies on studying practices and concepts of cultural memory, collecting, and circulation. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this involves not only the currently controversial political dimensions of memory, but also individual and local cultures of memory as a framework for negotiating belonging. Another common interest among various disciplines is research into the mobility, preservation, translation, and appropriation of diverse cultural and material archives and collections, which are subject to global movements and operate as material bearers of dynamic knowledge.
Universality & Diversity in the media
In the issue of our science magazine “Forschung Frankfurt,” entitled “Language. The key to understanding”, we took a look at the work of researchers in the research area “Universality & Diversity”.
Frank Roeth/FAZ
Collaborations, initiatives, funding
The Universality & Diversity profile area connects top-level research. Learn more about our current projects - from DFG and EU-funded initiatives to prestigious individual research projects such as ERC Grants or LOEWE professorships. You can find an overview here.