Welcome to the DFG Research Training Group Contradiction Studies

The international and interdisciplinary Research Training Group (RTG) “Contradiction Studies” at the University of Bremen, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG),  has been exploring the formation, negotiation, and explanatory limitations of contradiction. We start from the assumption that the ordering figure of contradiction which includes the imperative of resolving contradiction often stands in a relationship of tension to experiences of the contradictory in everyday life. read more

News

  • Dissertation published

    We warmly congratulate Nelson Sindze Wembe, a Bridge-Postdoc at the RTG 2686, on the publication of his dissertation, titled Longing, Belonging and the Other: Black African Diasporic Literatures across French and Spanish Contexts, by transcript-Verlag.

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  • Dissertation published

    We warmly congratulate Jan Bartsch, a former guest at the RTG 2686, on the publication of his dissertation, titled »Politische Ökologie der Aquaponik – Praktiken der Arbeit, Sorge und Macht in Stoffwechselprozessen des Anthropozäns«, with transcript-Verlag.

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  • Fellow Yash Gupta Awarded GAPS Graduate Award

    We congratulate RTG 2686 Fellow Yash Gupta on receiving the Graduate Award of the Society for Anglophone Postcolonial Studies (GAPS). The award will be presented in May 2026 as part of this year’s Annual Conference at Osnabrück University. He receives this award for his outstanding Master’s thesis titled “ऐसा कैसा प्यार? / Asexual Intimacies and…

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Publications

  • Longing, Belonging and the Other

    Monograph

    Nelson Sindze Wembe

    2026

    Longing and the concept of ›the Other‹: How Black African diasporic identities and belonging are shaped in transnational literary narratives.

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  • Politische Ökologie der Aquaponik

    Monograph

    Jan Bartsch

    2026

    Die Lebensmittelproduktion treibt ökologische Krisen voran: Sie ist energieintensiv, schadstoffreich und eng mit gesellschaftlichen Konflikten verbunden. Technologien wie die Aquaponik versprechen Abhilfe durch geschlossene, nachhaltige Kreisläufe. Doch was, wenn diese Vorstellungen trügerisch sind? Jan Bartsch interpretiert Aquaponik als Stoffwechselapparatur, in der Pflanzen, Fische, Technik und menschliche Arbeit symbiotisch verflochten sind. Dabei nimmt er die Praktiken…

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  • Reconciliation in the Liminal Space between the Secular and the Divine

    Article / Paper

    Bär, Christian, Christian Bär, Lara Herford & Jonas Trochemowitz

    2026

    In this paper, we analyze the term reconciliation as well as Versöhnung in political and religious communication. Against this background, we are interested in how far political as well as religious dimensions of the terms come together, which we describe as a process of conceptual blending. To illustrate our argument, we apply corpus analytic methods…

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Events

  • Workspace #14 – Project Presentation

    Internal

    Clara Müllenmeister (GRK 2686 – Contradiction Studies)

    10/20/2026
    2:15 pm – 3:00 pm

    U Bremen GRA 2 – 0030 & online

    2:15–3:00 PM | Clara Müllenmeister — Wider die Norm. Zweifelsfälle referenzieller Geschlechtszuschreibung | Cases of Doubt in Referential Gender Assignment Discussant: Dr. Lesley-Ann Kern (Köln)

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  • So wie wir sind. Plurale Gegenwarten. Wer erzählt den Osten?

    Panel Discussion

    GRK 2686 in Kooperation mit globale°, Weserburg. Museum für moderne Kunst, Syker Vorwerk, Arbeitnehmerkammer Bremen, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Bremen & Rosa-Luxemburg-Initiative Bremen

    10/27/2026
    5:00 pm

    Weserburg. Museum für moderne Kunst | Hans Otte. Klanghaus

    Wer erzählt den Osten – und wessen Perspektiven prägen bis heute unser Bild von Ostdeutschland? Die Geschichte der deutschen Einheit wurde lange vor allem als Ost-West-Erzählung verhandelt. Andere Machtverhältnisse wie Rassismus, Antisemitismus oder Sexismus blieben dabei oft ausgeblendet. Die Erfahrungen von Menschen mit Migrationsgeschichte, Schwarzen Ostdeutschen, den Kindern ehemaliger Vertragsarbeiter*innen und anderen marginalisierten Gruppen fanden…

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  • Workspace #15 – Writing Workshop—pt. 1

    Internal

    Dr. Birgit Schreiber & Uwe Buse (Schreiber Coaching Bremen)

    10/27/2026
    10:00 am – 5:00 pm

    U Bremen GRA 2 – 0030

    Writing an academic thesis is a complex process that presents its own challenges. Dr. Birgit Schreiber, a social researcher, journalist, and coach from Bremen, together with journalist Uwe Buse, will teach how to reliably navigate this process in this two-day workshop, which provides guidance on effective self-coaching. The workshop is offered bilingually (English, German).

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The members of the RTG

The Research Training Group is run by thirteen faculty members of the University of Bremen and is a place of interdisciplinary exchange of empirical cultural studies, social and cultural anthropology, German and interdisciplinary linguistics, literary studies (Romance literary and cultural studies, North American and postcolonial literary and cultural studies, Medieval and Early Modern German literary studies), law, human geography, political science, history of Eastern Europe, philosophy, and religious studies.