Publications

Unsere Welt steht an einem Wendepunkt. Die Plastikfluten verschmutzen unsere Ozeane, die Klimakrise bedroht unser Leben, und das Artensterben reißt tiefe Lücken in unsere Natur. In der Graphic Novel Welt im Wandel begleiten wir fünf Jugendliche aus verschiedenen Teilen der Welt, die sich den großen Herausforderungen unserer Zeit stellen.

In kraftvollen Bildern und bewegenden Geschichten werden die historischen Wurzeln der globalen Probleme beleuchtet. Die Jugendlichen zeigen mögliche Wege, wie wir gemeinsam eine bessere, nachhaltigere Welt schaffen können. (Verlagstext)

Die Graphic Novel ist ein kollaboratives Projekt von Mitgliedern der am FRIAS angesiedelten Young Academy for Sustainability Research

Gefährdet Identitätspolitik Freiheit und Demokratie? Diese in immer neuen Varianten wiederholte Kernbotschaft in politischen Debatten richtet sich gegen einen Politikstil, der sich gegen Diskriminierung wendet, aber angeblich in der Sackgasse des Stammesdenkens landet. Karsten Schubert die Identitätspolitik. Mit sachlicher Gelassenheit und ohne jede Polemik setzt er sich mit den wichtigsten Einwänden auseinander und entwickelt einen neuen Blick auf den politischen Kampf um Identitäten. (Verlagstext)

Karsten Schubert war 2022/23 FRIAS Junior Fellow: Aktuell ist Assoziierter Forscher für Politische Theorie und Philosophie an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Stand Oktober 2024).

To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause is a compelling account of the Soviet dissident movement that defied the Kremlin and hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union. Benjamin Nathans chronicles the dramatic stories of individuals—from renowned figures like Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to lesser-known activists—who used Soviet law to challenge state power. Drawing on personal diaries, memoirs, letters, and KGB records, Nathans reveals how these dissidents, acting like free people in an unfree society, became symbols of resistance. This vivid narrative not only illuminates their impact on the 20th century but also resonates with ongoing struggles for freedom today.

Benjamin Nathans was FRIAS Marie S. Curie FCFP Fellow 2022/23. As for October 2024, he is Professor of History at the University of Pennsyvania

Henrike Lähnemann and Eva Schlotheuber offer readers a vivid insight into the largely unknown lives and work of religious women in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Using previously inaccessible personal diaries and letters, as well as tapestries, painting, architecture and music, the authors show that the nuns were, in fact, an active, even influential part of medieval society. They functioned as role models and engaged in spirited dialogue with other convents, with the citizens of their home towns and with the local nobility. Full of self-confidence, they organised their demanding daily lives; ran their complex convent economies as successful businesses; offered girls a comprehensive theological, musical and practical education; produced magnificent manuscripts; ministered to the convent sick and dying with homemade medicines and to family and friends with advice. Initially—and fiercely—they resisted the Reformation, only for some of the convents to survive as Protestant women’s foundations to this day. (publisher’s description)

Henrike Lähnemann was a Senior Research Fellow at FRIAS annually for two months from 2015 to 2024.

The book semiotically delves into the multifaceted realm of the digital face, exploring its biological and social functions, the concept of masks, the impact of COVID-19, AI systems, digital portraiture, symbolic faces in films, viral communication, alien depictions, personhood in video games, online intimacy, and digital memorials. The human face is increasingly living a life that is not only that of the biological body but also that of its digital avatar, spread through a myriad of new channels and transformable through filters, post-productions, digital cosmetics, all the way to the creation of deepfakes. The digital face expresses new and largely unknown meanings, which this book explores and analyzes through an interdisciplinary but systematic approach. (publishers description)

Massimo Leone was FRIAS Marie S. Curie FCFP Fellow 2023/24. As for October 2024, he has been Fellow at the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Studies.