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Review and outlook at the academic ceremony for the 30th anniversary of the Faculty of Humanities – Prof. Dr. Gesine Schwan, President of the Berlin Governance Platform, gave the keynote speech and also described the profile of the faculty and the university
The highlight of the academic ceremony was the lecture by Prof. Dr. Gesine Schwan, President of the Berlin Governance Platform. Photo: Phillip Fabritius Prof. Dr. Gerd Strohmeier, Rector of Chemnitz University of Technology, congratulated the Faculty of Philosophy on its anniversary and thanked the faculty for its outstanding achievements in recent years. Photo: Phillip Fabritius Dr. Andreas Handschuh, State Secretary in the Saxon State Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism, emphasized how important it is to develop personalities at the university and, in doing so, to uncover “treasures in people’s minds”. Photo: Phillip Fabritius Ralph Burghart, Mayor of the City of Chemnitz for Human Resources, Finance and Education and Chairman of the University Council of Chemnitz University of Technology, conveyed the city’s congratulations. Photo: Phillip Fabritius Prof. Dr. Ellen Fricke, holder of the professorship for German Linguistics, Semiotics and Multimodal Communication at Chemnitz University of Technology, clearly demonstrated the application of sound laws in language acquisition and language loss. Photo: Phillip Fabritius The Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Prof. Dr. Eric Linhart, emphasized the importance of the humanities, especially in the current social situation. Photo: Phillip Fabritius The big band from Chemnitz University of Technology and the soloist Adriana Alvarez received a lot of applause from the guests at the academic ceremony for their musical contributions. Photo: Phillip Fabritius
The Faculty of Philosophy at Chemnitz University of Technology (TUC) is 30 years old. On January 24, 2024, members and relatives of Chemnitz University of Technology celebrated together with numerous guests in the central lecture hall and seminar building with an academic ceremony at which people looked back on very successful years, offered many congratulations, described current developments in teaching and research and provided some perspectives were given.
After a short opening and program presentation by the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Prof. Dr. Eric Linhartwelcomed Prof. Dr. Gerd Strohmeier, Rector of the TUC, the celebratory meeting. He emphasized that the Faculty of Humanities significantly strengthens, complements and expands the technical focus of the TUC. In this context, he mentioned, among other things, the faculty’s diverse activities to strengthen the TUC’s core competence “People and Technology” as well as the high quality and attractiveness of teaching – evidenced, for example, by the awarding of the Saxon Teaching Prize 2023 in the “Universities” category to Dr. Sylvia Jurchen, research assistant at the Professorship of German Literary and Linguistic History of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Not unmentioned were the recent successes of young scientists, such as the funding of the political scientist Arndt Leininger as part of the Emmy Noether Program of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the award of Barbara Gross, holder of the junior professorship in educational science with a focus on intercultural pedagogy, with the “Junior Research Award South Tyrol 2023”. The Rector also made it clear what an important role the Faculty of Humanities plays in the transfer of knowledge to society, including in designing the program for the Chemnitz Capital of Culture Year 2025. He also referred to the regional anchoring and international networking of the faculty.
Dr. Andrea’s gloveState Secretary in the Saxon State Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism, recalled in his welcoming speech the conscious new beginning of the humanities at the TUC after German reunification and emphasized the special connection to technical disciplines, which was particularly evident in the DFG special research center “Hybrid Societies”. have.
Ralph Burghart, Mayor of the City of Chemnitz for Human Resources, Finance and Education and Chairman of the University Council of the TUC, praised the work of the Faculty of Philosophy for the city and is looking forward to many great contributions to the Capital of Culture year, but also to answers to numerous questions that are currently being asked also arise from changes in the media, from changes in the European Union or from new developments in lifelong learning. Burghart was pleased with a portrait of a student from the Faculty of Philosophy Mirror online in this week. Angelina Wettinger from Upper Palatinate, who studies media communications in Chemnitz, described Chemnitz as follows in the article: “The city offers me a lot of freedom: freedom to live as I want. Freedom to develop myself. And freedom to realize myself.” “There can’t be better advertising phrases,” said the mayor.
A special, musical greeting was delivered Prof. Dr. Ellen Fricke, holder of the professorship for German Linguistics, Semiotics and Multimodal Communication. With a convincingly performed solo excerpt from “Babel 1 (1998) – language composition for three female voices” she focused her attention on a quote from the philologist, linguist and semiotician Roman Jakobson, co-founder of the Cercle linguistique de Prague. In doing so, she applied the phonetic laws of language acquisition and loss recognized by Jakobson to this quote.
The highlight of the academic ceremony was the keynote speech by Prof. Dr. Gesine Schwan, President of the Berlin Governance Platform. She spoke about “cross-border understanding” and its innovative development at the university and also took an excursion into the history of the TUC, particularly its humanities. “What is special in Chemnitz is the cross-fertilization in cooperation with technology and engineering sciences, because the border between technology and the human world is much more pronounced,” says Schwan. At the end of her lecture, she described the profile of the Faculty of Philosophy and the TUC as follows: “The profile that I think I recognize in Chemnitz University of Technology and its Faculty of Philosophy is hopefully not an arbitrary, deliberate attribution, but rather speaks from their scientific practice ‘Cross-border understanding’, both in the more abstract scientific-theoretical sense and in its concrete communication work on the Czech border, for intercultural communication, for Europe. It combines the crossing of borders and the dissolution of borders on the one hand, and the combination of the different intra-university and extra-university knowledge and insight perspectives on the other hand, and not only offers creativity and innovation, but also cares about social cohesion, here also specifically across borders. It is a profile that promises further innovation and raises hopes for a creative future.”
The two political science students then presented Franz Haase and Daniela Weber, who are heavily involved in the student council of the Faculty of Humanities, present this student body in a multi-faceted manner. They invited the members and relatives of the faculty to continue to design the annual festival program together. They also appealed to their faculty to continue to take a stand – in Chemnitz and beyond, especially in the current social situation.
Also the dean Prof. Linhart underlined in his final outlook – also with a view to the results published the day before “Saxony Monitors 2023” – how important it is to counter many of the opinions of people in our society. This is where the subjects of the Faculty of Philosophy are also in demand, especially when it comes to political, historical and media-related education. That is why it is important for the Faculty of Humanities to offer broad-based courses of study that enable a holistic approach to many topics in teaching. Linhart made it clear that the scientists in his faculty work in a highly interdisciplinary manner, both within the faculty and in cooperation with other faculties. In this way, research in the humanities and social sciences can also be used for findings in technical and scientific disciplines. However, it is important that at the same time research is carried out at an internationally visible level within the individual subjects in order to be perceived as independent and of full value in their specialist environment.
The academic ceremony was accompanied musically by the Big Band der TUC and the soloist Adriana Alvarez under the direction of Marc Hartmann. After the event, many guests took the opportunity to exchange ideas in the foyer of the lecture hall building.
Keyword: Profile of the Faculty of Humanities
With its six institutes, the Faculty of Philosophy is today, as it was 30 years ago, the largest and most heterogeneous faculty at Chemnitz University of Technology. 35 professors and junior professors as well as numerous research assistants offer teaching in nine bachelor’s and ten master’s degree programs. The Faculty of Philosophy combines subjects from various humanities and social science disciplines, from education and European history to European studies and political science to English studies, German studies, intercultural communication and media research. The disciplines located at the faculty are characterized by a combination of cultural, social, political, historical and scientific-theoretical fundamentals with modern methods and fields of application, which also build bridges to the subjects of other faculties, especially to the technical subjects. The Faculty of Philosophy is the place where historically informed research and teaching takes place on issues of social, political and cultural relevance in connection with a globalizing world.
Outlook on the anniversary year of the Faculty of Humanities
Throughout the entire anniversary year of 2024, the Faculty of Philosophy would like to use various events to show how it has developed, how it is now anchored as an important part of the complex system of a technical university, how it radiates into the city of Chemnitz and the region, and how it reflects itself understands what each of its institutes is capable of achieving and how, together with the other TUC faculties, it addresses the social issues of the future at the interface between people and technology. The faculty will provide further information on this on its homepage over the course of the year.
Mario Steinebach
25.01.2024