Digital History

The Centre for Transcultural Studiesn also presents itself in the digital space with various projects in order to involve the interested public in its research:

Online Exhibition "Karten Wissen Meer"

The world became one on the seas. As media of globalisation, maps created the conditions for the intensification of shipping traffic. They showed travellers, merchants and migrants routes in a world that increasingly appeared to be a spatial continuum. As nautical charts, they enabled ever more precise navigation; as maps of the world, or rather the world's oceans, they helped to raise awareness of global connections and their distortions. Above all, however, maps made it possible to view and understand the world as a whole – a whole whose parts are connected rather than separated by the seas.

The digital exhibition is based on research conducted by a consortium of scholars from the Centre for Transcultural Studies / Perthes Collection at the University of Erfurt, the University of Bremen and the German Maritime Museum Bremerhaven under the title "Karten-Meere. Für eine Geschichte der Globalisierung vom Wasser aus". It demonstrates – with digital representations of many exhibits from the Gotha Perthes Collection and the map collection of the German Maritime Museum – how sea and ocean maps became media of globalisation from the turn of the 19th century.

Visit the exhibition

More information on the original exhibition series 2020-2021

GOTHA.digital

Extraordinary collections have been preserved in their historical context at Friedenstein Castle and the Gotha Perthes Forum. They have been assembled since 1640 and are today supervised by the Gotha Research Library, which is part of the University of Erfurt, the Thuringia State Archives – Gotha State Archives and the Friedenstein Castle Gotha Foundation. The collections are outstanding in their unity, density and diversity. They form the basis for the activities of Gotha as a centre for collections and research. GOTHA.digital is the Friedenstein Gotha's integrated search, presentation and research space. The portal brings together the digital objects, collections and services from the archive, library, museum and the Centre for Transcultural Studies / Perthes Collection and the Gotha Research Centre. GOTHA.digital enables cross-collection and cross-institutional searches and curated insights into the collections for researchers and the public.

The conception and implementation was carried out in close cooperation with the Thuringian University and State Library Jena and in technical cooperation with the Göttingen Library Network Centre. As the state digitisation centre for the cultural sector in Thuringia, the Thuringian University and State Library in Jena ensures permanent system support as well as the storage and long-term archiving of the digital data. GOTHA.digital was funded by the Thuringian Ministry of Science from 2020 to 2022. The digitisation activities of the Friedenstein Castle Foundation "Gotha transdigital" accompany the project. They are funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Thuringian State Chancellery.

to the portal GOTHA.digital

Motion Comics

The motion comics project, in which new ways of remembrance work are explored, was created with the help of PD Dr Anja Werner. "MoCom: Motion Comics as Remembrance Work" sheds light on various aspects of recent (German) history from a comparative perspective, presented as short animated clips. It is a project by and for young people in West and East Germany with and without migration experience. From 2021 to 2023, four motion comics on aspects of the inner-German border were created in collaboration with pupils and students on the basis of oral history interviews. PD Dr Anja Werner designed and supervised the project together with Dr Sarah Fichtner. It was carried out at the Marienborn German Division Memorial Centre. There is a German and an English version. It was inspired by the experiences with the motion comic Ghost Trains (2020), based on the researchers' own memories.

to the MoCom website

Published "MoComs":