Society & Transfer - News

The 2026 Rolf Sammet Foundation Guest Professorship will be awarded to structural biologist Elena Conti, Director of the Department of Cellular Structural Biology at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry – lectures for students and researchers.

Joshua Groß, Frankfurt’s new poetry professor, on his writing practice, the languages of change, and his influences in contemporary German-language literature.

Author Joshua Groß is taking over the prestigious poetry professorship at Goethe University. Starting on June 9, 2026, he will explore the literary self in our digital age under the title “Thinking in Avatars” at the Westend Campus.

To mark Anne Frank’s 97th birthday on June 12, Goethe University’s Westend Campus will become a place of living remembrance and critical dialogue. As part of this year’s “Anne Frank Days Frankfurt 2026”—an event organized by the Anne Frank Educational Center and the City of Frankfurt—Goethe University is participating with two educational events.

New annual lecture series by the Buber-Rosenzweig Institute, Cornelia Goethe Center for Gender Studies, and Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem

International Colloquium at Goethe University Frankfurt Explores Social Mobility in the Roman Empire – Evening Lecture by Henner von Hesberg

On May 27, 2026, at 6:00 p.m., climate researcher Friederike Otto will give a lecture as part of the Wednesday Conference series hosted by the Research Center for Historical Humanities.

An interdisciplinary series by the Frankfurt Humanities Research Centre and Frankfurt University Library

Literature is a miniature reflection of society – both of the fundamental upheavals that are occurring at an ever-faster pace and of the very crises that define our social, political, economic, and aesthetic present. In 1989, writers were once again thrust onto the grand stage of history. During the demonstrations on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz, many looked to East German author Christa Wolf for political and moral orientation. But the years after reunification fundamentally reshaped Germany’s literary public sphere. Fierce debates erupted as part of the so-called “German-German literary dispute” (deutsch-deutscher Literaturstreit) surrounding figures such as Botho Strauß, Peter Handke, Martin Walser, and Günter Grass, reflecting broader conflicts over memory, identity, and political responsibility. By the late 1990s, Popliteratur had reduced authors to brands among many others, while Amazon quietly began testing the mechanisms of digital capitalism through the book market. Literature had entered a new era – though not the one many had once hoped for.

On April 21, 2026, the Goethe University hosted the kickoff event for the new workshop series “Rethinking Education and Training.” With nearly 50 registrations, the event for training staff received an enthusiastic response. 

Last week, Germany’s Federal Council approved the Retirement Plan Reform Act, overhauling the previously state-subsidized Riester pension scheme. Prof. Raimond Maurer from Goethe University Frankfurt’s Faculty of Economics and Business was a member of the federal government’s focus group on private retirement provisions, which developed many of the reform proposals. Maurer welcomed the government’s decision to follow the experts’ recommendations and expressed hope that this approach will continue in future reform efforts.

Religions look beyond the visible world. However, most believers also look to them for help with everyday problems. In Christian Europe, these hopes were long realized in “spiritual home remedies”: Compiled without fixed rules, they contained—well into the 20th century—religious and religion-inspired objects that were believed to provide relief from both physical and emotional suffering.