Directorate and Advisory Board

The Institute for the Study of Culture Heidelberg is lead by a Directorate which receives support by a Scientific Advisory Board.

Directorate

The Board of Directors manages the Institute's activities and is elected by the Institute's member's meeting for a term of three years. Since 2020, the members of the Board of Directors are:

Dr. Jens Kertscher

1st Spokesperson – Finance


Studies of Philosophy and Romance Studies at the Universities of Cologne, Florence, Tübingen and Heidelberg. Doctorate in Heidelberg. Lecturer of the Department of Philosophy at the TU Darmstadt.

Fields of work and research:

  • Philosophy of language, esp. meaning and rule sequences, semantics and pragmatics, speech act theories; Frege, Wittgenstein
  • Theory of action, esp. practical knowledge, practical and theoretical rationality; Anscombe, Davidson
  • Philosophy of pragmatism, esp. Dewey's logic of research in the context of pragmatist philosophies.

Areas of interest:

  • Philosophy of the 17th and 18th centuries, with emphasis on Descartes, Hume, Kant
  • Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein

Last publication:

(Together with Jan Müller) Praxis und 'zweite Natur' - Begründungsfiguren normativer Wirklichkeit in der Diskussion, mentis, Münster 2017.

Dr. Dirk Hommrich

2nd Spokesperson – Communication


Studies of Philosophy, History (esp. of Technology), Sociology and Political Science at the University of Karlsruhe (today: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT) and Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main. Interdisciplinary PhD at the TU Darmstadt, 2017-2018 Senior Researcher at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) of the KIT. Since 2019 Science Policy Advisor of the German Council for Scientific Information Infrastructures.

Working and research areas:

  • (Post-Analytical) Philosophy of Science, Technology and Media
  • Technology reflection, Vision Assessment (esp. protentions of mass media images)
  • Technology Assessment, integrated technology policy and long-term governance
  • Normative aspects of international (digital) "open science commons"
  • Convergent media, convergent infrastructures and the digital transformation of scholarly and science communication

Fields of interest:

  • Philosophical problems of the neurosciences, esp. implications for civil policy of naturalism and reductionism
  • Information ethics as well as data ethics, and critical data studies
  • Coupling of the ecological i.e. sustainable and the digital transition
  • Social, cultural and political philosophy

Last publication:

Iconophilia of the Brain, Stage 3: An Epistemic Regime, the Popular Science Magazine Gehirn & Geist, and Visual Culture, in Jesús Muñoz Morcillo, Caroline Y. Robertson-von Trotha (eds.): Genealogy of Popular Science. From Ancient Ecphrasis to Virtual Reality, transcript, Bielefeld 2020, p. 477-496.

Board of Directors

The 1st and 2nd speaker are supported by further members of the Directorate, these are/were:

Uwe Brähler

Uwe Brähler studied communications engineering, theoretical electrical engineering, theoretical physics, mathematics and philosophy at TH Darmstadt and economics at FU Hagen. Since 1986 he worked as a development/application engineer for Thomson/Grass Valley in the field of film scanning/film post-production/digital intermediate since 1986. Prime Time Emmy Award 1998. Since 2017 Uwe is employee at EVS Broadcast Equipment, Darmstadt.

Dr. Matthias Kroß,

* May 28, 1953 – † July 2, 2018 


Matthias Kroß studied history, political science, philosophy and art history at the universities of Marburg, Bremen and Berlin. 1993 he received his PhD at the Free University of Berlin with the thesis “Klarheit als Selbstzweck. Wittgenstein on Philosophy, Ethics, Religion and Certainty. Since 1995 Matthias was scientific advisor at the Einstein Forum Potsdam. Since 1998 he moreover gave lectures lectures at the University of Potsdam in the field of General Sociology. In 2008 Matthia Kroß was Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan/West Bengal and in 2010 he became Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna. Matthias was a vivid Board member of the literaturWERKstatt Berlin. He published numerous books and articles, especially on the work and life of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Together with Jens Kertscher he was editor of the book series Wittgensteiniana (formerly published by Parerga Verlag). He last book publication was: Wittgenstein übersetzen, Berlin 2012 (ed. with Esther Ramharter).

Scientific Advisory Board

Our Scientific Advisory Board is composed of academics who are (or have been) involved in our activities and thus forms a group that supports the Institute for the Study of Cultue in an epistemic and organizational capacity:

  • Prof. Dr. Kurt Bayertz – Homepage
    University of Münster
  • Prof. Dr. Domenico Giulini – Homepage
    Leibniz University Hannover
  • Prof. Dr. Susanne KlengelHomepage
    Free University of Berlin
  • Prof. Dr. Dr. Nicolas LanglitzHomepage
    New School for Social Research, New York
  • Prof. Dr. Hanne LoreckHomepage
    University of Fine Arts Hamburg
  • Dr. Louise Röska-HardyHomepage
    Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities
  • Prof. Dr. Klaus Wiegerling – Homepage
    TU Kaiserslautern
  • Prof. Dr. Rainer WinterHomepage
    University of Klagenfurt