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• Cultural and Social Transformations: Mobility/Cultural Differences/Dynamics of Identity Constructions

  The traditional forms of cultural identity formation have, without doubt, seen fundamental changes: Approaches to gender are being reconsidered, and social solidarity, political participation and collective trust capitals are being reappraised. Relationships that have traditionally been abstract are becoming concrete experiences that lead to new forms of individual behaviour. Here, the pace is determined not only by social processes such as globalisation or migration, but also by ecological and biopolitical challenges as well as by the consequences of digitalisation, which form a new basis for the modification or even revolution of cultural practices. The Faculty examines the cultural logics of these processes in order to make them comprehensible and also to enable a social discussion of these phenomena against the background of cultural studies.  Questions of gender equality and intersectional disadvantages thus form an integral part of research and teaching. This includes the study of manifestations and consequences of racism, situations of diaspora and situations of cultural conflict.
• Mediality and Digitality of Aesthetic Communication

  At the Faculty, aesthetic forms of communication such as literature, f ilm or music are understood as media of reflection that respond to the challenges of intercultural constellations – and are also studied with regard to their inherent structural laws. In this way, current phenomena such as challenges regarding democracy, education and ecology (climate crisis, COVID and post-COVID situations, experience of forced migration and expulsion, etc.) can be investigated in the context of projects on these media. 

  To specify the profile of the methodological thematic area of digitality in the area of aesthetic communication, digital practices are studied – in addition to other media forms. In the corresponding research projects, specific attention is paid to the impact of digital reception and production, newly emerging dimensions of digital perception and the related social processes. For instance, the mediatised lifeworlds of young people are studied in this key research area. To be able to implement this with empirical data, the Faculty supports the establishment and expansion of the corresponding infrastructure. 
• Language Development, Language Contact, Multilingualism

  Global social developments are also reflected in changes in language use, which in turn influences these processes. The Faculty examines language teaching and language learning at an interdisciplinary level and uses systematic linguistics operating with digital corpora and experimental methods to study the way in which phenomena of language contact and multilingualism are gaining social relevance. It examines language as a means of identity formation and social participation in situations of diaspora, exile, cultural conf lict and migration, as well as in minority situations. Over the next few years, the historical region of Eurasia, as a zone of cultural impact in this sense, will be the focus of intensive research. However, the activities in this key research area are not limited to research across different languages but also include phenomena within individual languages (linguistic variation) such as German in Austria or language attitudes towards dialects from the perspective of the standard language. In addition, the Faculty also takes part in basic research projects of linguistic systems – for instance, on language between redundancy and deficiency. 
• Environmental und Medical/Health Humanities

  At the global level, the topics of sustainability (ecology) and health (global health) are predominant in the discussion on the future of humankind but are all too often regarded as solely technological challenges, whereas the willingness or reluctance to change sociocultural processes represents one of the major challenges in this context. Against the background of these ideologies and paradigms that are forming dynamically, traditional questions of ethics, progress or shared v. individual responsibility need to be critically reexamined. The Faculty has undertaken research initiatives on the Anthropocene and in the area of health humanities to contribute input on this fundamental topic. Research in this field is also conducted from a historical perspective – for instance, regarding the medical tradition (Ayurveda) of pre-modern South Asia. Finally, empirical research projects in the area of cognitive perception research are run at the Faculty, for instance on the perception and effect of language and sound (including among infants), or the effect of noise levels in incubators on language development and musical development.