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

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The members of the RTG

The Research Training Group is run by twelve 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.

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ideal of a contradiction-free world

“Science has long been animated by the ideal of a contradiction-free world in which logical orders could merge with society, politics, culture and language. In the GRC Contradiction Studies we are working on ways of describing the multiplicity and complexity, the danger and beauty of our worlds that clearly go beyond concepts of freedom from contradiction.”

Michi Knecht
coherence in thought

“The imperative of non-contradiction generally produces a coherence in thought that is often at odds with social complexities.”

Yan Suarsana
Is contradiction eurocentric?

“Is contradiction a eurocentric concept, operational phenomenon, and instrument of power?”

Kerstin Knopf
problem to be solved

“Contradiction is not primarily a problem to be solved but a motor we cannot do without.”

Martin Nonhoff
sustained engagement

“The history of Western philosophy can be understood as a sustained engagement with contradiction.”

Norman Sieroka