Society & Transfer - News

78th Annual Conference of the Society for Music Research // September 29–October 2, 2026 // Westend Campus, Goethe University Frankfurt

Goethe-Unibator Competition Supports Startups That Promote Sustainability

Networking, paddling, celebrating – Invitation to the Alumni Lounge on August 28, 2026

On Tuesday, April 28, 2026, a staged reading of Christa Wolf’s “Cassandra” and the Frankfurt Poetics Lectures “Prerequisites for a Narrative: Cassandra” took place at the independent bookstore marx & co. The event was conceived, curated, and directed by a group of German studies students from Goethe University Frankfurt as part of the seminar “The Frankfurt Poetics Lectures – Talking About Writing”, taught by Anna Yeliz Schentke.

Who takes care of you – and who or what do you care for? These questions are at the heart of the WHO CARES? exhibition, on display at University Library Frankfurt’s Schopenhauer Studio. The exhibition challenges the everyday assumptions of life, science, and societal structures, while reimagining care for both human and non-human entities.

Inclusion Officer Mirjam Kreuser explains why accessibility is more than a checklist, what disability means in her work, and why an inclusive university ultimately benefits everyone.

At a widely anticipated lecture on April 24, sociologist Eva Illouz posed a provocative question: “Is Guilt Good for Democracy?” Speaking at Goethe University’s Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften Institute for Advanced Studies, she argued that guilt and shame have become central organizing principles of postwar liberal democracies.

From April 7 to 11, Goethe University welcomed the national congress of the German Association of Classical Philologists (DAV), hosted in collaboration with the Institute for Classical Philology. Held every two years, the congress brings together classical philologists from schools and universities across Germany and ranks among the world’s largest conferences devoted to classical antiquity.

Jakob Johanna Lindner, Ruth Lindner, and Paul Lindner attended Joshua Groß’s lectures for UniReport; their article discusses, among other things, the significance of “shapeshifting”—transformation—for his poetics.

The start-up Algrid won first place at the Goethe SDG Contest 2026. The team collects harmful Sargassum algae offshore and transforms them into valuable biomass for use in the pharmaceutical, energy and construction industries.

Sociologist Prof. Steffen Mau (Berlin/Göttingen) speaks on July 8 at 6 p.m. at Goethe University (IG-Farben-Haus) on the topic “Crisis-Driven Change in the Present.”

In an interview with UniReport, political scientist Julian Garritzmann discusses the election of Hungary's new prime minister, Péter Magyar.