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 2023, the members of the Board of Directors are:
Dr. Jens Kertscher
1st Spokesperson
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, Sociology, Political Science, and History (esp. of Technology) at the University of Karlsruhe (today: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT) and Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main. Interdisciplinary PhD thesis at the Technical University of Darmstadt, 2017-2018 Senior Researcher at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) of the KIT, 2019-2022 Science Policy Advisor of the German Council for Scientific Information Infrastructures (RfII). | 
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0844-571X
Working and research areas:
- Technology Assessment (ELSI/ELSA), Integrated Technology Governance
- Neuroscience and Neurotechnology between (Applied) Ethics and Philosophical Anthropology
- Information and Data Ethics, normative issues of "Open Science"
Fields of interest:
- Philosophical problems of Neuroscience and Cognitive Science
- Cross Media and visuality in Scholarly and Science Communication
- Political and Social 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 get support by further members of the Directorate, these are/were:
Dr. Valerie Schoenenberg
Studies of archaeology and European ethnology, PhD in early historical archaeology at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany. 2007 to 2016 scientific work and freelancer for, among others, the State Office for Monument Preservation, the Archaeology and Building and Art Monument Preservation of Baden-Württemberg, the Federal Archives (Freiburg Dept.), the Regional Council Stuttgart, 2016 Head of the City Archaeology Constance, 2016 to 2022 Academic Councillor at the Institute for Archaeological Sciences at the University of Freiburg, since 2022 Head of the Museum im Ritterhaus, City of Offenburg.
Research areas: Settlement and landscape development in antiquity, early and high Middle Ages, pottery research (as material culture and for chronology), and source-ktitical analysis methods in both early historical archaeology and archaeology of the Middle Ages.
Areas of interest: Jewish everyday culture in the Middle Ages, research on mikvahs, changes in agrarian culture and rural lifeworlds in a diachronic perspective up to modern times.
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. Nicolas Langlitz – Homepage
New School for Social Research, New York - 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