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
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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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Workshop contribution by Kim Wagener at FernUniversität Hagen
On 25 June 2026, Kim Wagener will present parts of their doctoral project at the workshop “Phenomenology of Situation and Situated Readings” at FernUniversität in Hagen. Their contribution, titled “Speaking-‘With’”, draws on Nancy to contribute to a phenomenology of situation: Practices of critically situating one’s knowledge draw on 1980s’ feminist epistemologies and their critique of the…
Publications
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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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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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When debating academic freedom in Germany, the term cancel culture, originating from North-American contexts, is commonly used to express concerns about a threat to academic freedom as posed by a narrowing of boundaries of discourse. In the semantic battels regarding Wissenschaftsfreiheit (academic freedom), this perspective is opposed – often with reference to the German constitution…
Events
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Der Dokumentarfilm The Tree of Authenticity (2025) des kongolesischen Filmemachers, Fotografen und Videokünstlers Sammy Baloji beleuchtet die Verbindung von Kolonialismus und Klimakrise – aus der Perspektive des Baumes der Authentizität. Ausgehend von den Überresten eines ehemaligen Forschungszentrums für tropische Landwirtschaft in Yangambi, Demokratische Republik Kongo, untersucht Baloji die Verbindungen zwischen kolonialer Ausbeutung, wissenschaftlicher Forschung und…
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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.
