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.
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
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.
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,
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).
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 Klengel – Homepage
Free University of Berlin - Prof. Dr. Dr. Nicolas Langlitz – Homepage
New School for Social Research, New York - Prof. Dr. Hanne Loreck – Homepage
University of Fine Arts Hamburg - Dr. Louise Röska-Hardy – Homepage
Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities - Prof. Dr. Klaus Wiegerling – Homepage
TU Kaiserslautern - Prof. Dr. Rainer Winter – Homepage
University of Klagenfurt