Focus (Eco-)Linguistic

Winter semester 2025/26

“Inter-American Environmental Studies (Representation and Narratives)”

This course will investigate the cultural and linguistic representations of environmental issues within Inter-American contexts. Focusing on the intersection of climate crisis narratives and communication, we will explore how language shapes public perception of environmental urgency and how temporal frameworks influence understandings of ecological change. Drawing from the environmental humanities, intersectional environmentalism, and eco-linguistics, the course investigates how the climate crisis and its temporalities are constructed across various media and cultural discourses, with particular attention to the intersections of gender, race, and colonial histories. Through the analysis of diverse texts and media outlets, students will engage with key concepts, methodologies, and pedagogical approaches central to understanding the climate crisis through the lens of environmental humanities.

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Sommer semester 2026

“Inter-American Environmental Studies (Representation and Narratives)”

This course will investigate the cultural and linguistic representations of environmental issues within Inter-American contexts. Focusing on the intersection of climate crisis narratives and communication, we will explore how language shapes public perception of environmental urgency and how temporal frameworks influence understandings of ecological change. Drawing from the environmental humanities, intersectional environmentalism, and eco-linguistics, the course investigates how the climate crisis and its temporalities are constructed across various media and cultural discourses, with particular attention to the intersections of gender, race, and colonial histories. Through the analysis of diverse texts and media outlets, students will engage with key concepts, methodologies, and pedagogical approaches central to understanding the climate crisis through the lens of environmental humanities.

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Focus Theories und Methods

Winter semester 2025/26

"Inter-American and Hemispheric Mapping (Methods & Theories)"

What comes to our mind when we think of America and the Western Hemisphere? How do we conceptualize “the Americas” from a European vantage point? And which literary, cultural, social, economic, and political connections are there between North, Central, and South America? Introducing the field of Western Hemispheric Studies and Inter-American Studies to participants, this class investigates various entanglements of the Americas and Europe. In doing so, it also addresses epistemological foundations of the humanities (in comparison to those of the social sciences and the natural sciences) as well as challenges and benefits of interdisciplinary research. How we see and experience research objects – in our case the Western hemisphere – strongly depends on our theoretical and methodological approaches which are based on our ideas of knowledge production and general purpose of research. This class invites participants to jointly explore different theoretical and methodological approaches to researching the Western hemisphere from a perspective inspired by the humanities and social sciences. Throughout the class, participants will be encouraged to develop their own critical research questions in the emerging fields of Western Hemispheric and Inter-American Studies.

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"Media, Culture, Society (Approaches of Social and Cultural Reproduction)"

This class explores key texts from gender studies and feminist theory to negotiate how media, culture and society intersect in social and cultural reproduction. It is the aim of this class to engage with current debates to locate possible connections within the broader field of cultural studies. To do so, intersectional cultural and social representation of gender and its intersections will be explored to problematize the terms of intergenerationality, intersectionality, and interdependencies. Thinking with post-structural, intersectional, as well as Inter-American approaches, this class invites the participants to jointly explore different theoretical and methodological approaches of social and cultural reproduction. Throughout the class, participants will be encouraged to develop their own critical research questions on the very topic. This is an interdisciplinary class welcoming students from all disciplines.

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Sommersemester 2026

“Inter-American and Hemispheric Mapping (Movements, Solidarity and Abolitionism)”

What comes to our mind when we think of America and the Western Hemisphere? How do we conceptualize “the Americas” from a European vantage point? And which literary, cultural, social, economic, and political connections are there between North, Central, and South America? Introducing the field of Western Hemispheric Studies and Inter-American Studies to participants, this class investigates various entanglements of the Americas and Europe. In doing so, it also addresses epistemological foundations of the humanities (in comparison to those of the social sciences and the natural sciences) as well as challenges and benefits of interdisciplinary research. How we see and experience research objects – in our case the Western hemisphere – strongly depends on our theoretical and methodological approaches which are based on our ideas of knowledge production and general purpose of research. This class invites participants to jointly explore different theoretical and methodological approaches to researching the Western hemisphere from a perspective inspired by the humanities and social sciences. Throughout the class, participants will be encouraged to develop their own critical research questions in the emerging fields of Western Hemispheric and Inter-American Studies.

mehr Infos hier

“Media, Culture, Society (Approaches of Social and Cultural Reproduction)”

This class explores key texts from gender studies and feminist theory to negotiate how media, culture and society intersect in social and cultural reproduction. It is the aim of this class to engage with current debates to locate possible connections within the broader field of cultural studies. To do so, intersectional cultural and social representation of gender and its intersections will be explored to problematize the terms of intergenerationality, intersectionality, and interdependencies. Thinking with post-structural, intersectional, as well as Inter-American approaches, this class invites the participants to jointly explore different theoretical and methodological approaches of social and cultural reproduction. Throughout the class, participants will be encouraged to develop their own critical research questions on the very topic. This is an interdisciplinary class welcoming students from all disciplines.

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Focus Lateinamerica

Winter semester 2025/26

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Sommer semester 2026

follows

Winter term 2025/26

"Researching Intercultural Experience in Student Exchange in Higher Education (Global Window)"

The course will provide students with a comprehensive background of theories of culture, theories of (intercultural) communication and familiarise them with the main research methods available for studying intercultural encounters: e.g. ethnography, narrative research, discourse analysis, interview and questionnaire research, action research, etc. Students will be supplied with an extensive repertoire of theories and methods in the field to be able to research their own intercultural experience during their student exchange or their mentoring activities for incoming students. Course work also requires that students are prepared to use a reflective diary throughout the course to record aspects of their linguistic and intercultural experience.

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