Department

The Department of Literature as it is today owes its existence to a far-reaching structural decision the University of Konstanz made in 1966, the year of its foundation. At the time, the university decided to separate the traditional philological disciplines, grouping them in one Department of Literature and one Department of Linguistics respectively. For the Department of Literature, this meant above all that the traditional focus on individual national philologies was given up in favour of interdisciplinary research into literature and its supranational structures of communication and circulation.

Although the department continues to make important scientific contributions to the study of individual national literatures, its profile is dominated by shared interdisciplinary research that simultaneously considers the questions raised by general literary and cultural theory as well. Another distinctive feature is the combination of various philologies, art theory and media studies in a single organisational unit. As a result, the department benefits from various fruitful opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration in both research and teaching.