Graduate School "History of Knowledge"

The graduate school includes doctoral and postdoctoral researchers as well as a group of senior scholars from the Gotha research institutions and the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Erfurt. The members conduct joint research on questions of the history of knowledge: Knowledge in all its historical, cultural and social facets, with a close look at the processes of its formation and negotiation, the claims to validity and power constellations associated with it. Different forms of knowledge are analysed – from everyday to administrative and academic to scientific knowledge. The focus is also on its implicit and explicit manifestations as well as the media, practices and norms through which knowledge is produced, conveyed and circulated. Methodologically, the research is based on approaches such as self-testimony research, intellectual history, media, spatial and cultural technology research, material culture studies, historical epistemology, praxeology and postcolonial-inspired theories.