Research Training Group ?Explorations in Practices and Dynamics of Social Imagining”

Since 2025, six doctoral students in the Research Training Group research at the intersection of cultural studies, social sciences, arts and humanities. The Research Training Group is embedded in the Cluster of Excellence initiative “Imaginamics”.

Lupe Buch Fachliteratur

Image: Nicole Nerger (Universit?t Jena)

The Research Training Group focuses its activities on researching practices and dynamics of social imagination (shared social concepts, narratives and images). With its interdisciplinary approach, the Research Training Group provides a high contribution to a better understanding of social debates on topics such as??? climate change, political crises and the coronavirus pandemic.

Funded by the Thuringian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, the Research Training Group has six scholarships holders whose research topics are of high socio-political relevance. The scholarship holders are supervised by teams of Principal Investigators (participating scientists) from the Cluster of Excellence initiative “Imaginamics”. In addition, the scholarship holders will have access to the non-university cooperation facilities of the planned Cluster of Excellence and the LIBERTY profile of the University of Jena.

PhD students

Francesca Casciotta

PhD project:
"Intersubjectivity and imagination. A phenomeno-logical investigation of individual and social identity" (working titel)

supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Lambert Wiesing

Image: Nicole Nerger
Azia Lafleur

PhD project:
"Patients Perspectives in Medical Museums. Towards a Pluralist History of Health, the Body and Medicine" (working titel)

supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Anja Lauk?tter

Image: Nicole Nerger
Jenny Merker

PhD project:
"‘Colonial zoology’ in the early modern period:
animals between science, power and imagination" (working titel)

supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Kim Siebenhüner
Prof. Dr. Christina Brandt

Image: Nicole Nerger
John Norrman

PhD project:
"Kairos, Caricature and Crises: Crisis-Imagining in
Illustrated Press during the European revolutions of 1848-1849" (working titel)

supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Johannes Grave

Image: Nicole Nerger
Carmen Pereyra

PhD project:
"Narrating Crises, Contemporary Central European and Latin American Dystopian Fiction" (working titel)

supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Christoph Vatter
Prof. Dr. Claudia Hammerschmidt

Image: Nicole Nerger

Activities of the Research Training Group

Opening event, April 10th 2025

On April, 10th 2025, the opening event for the Research Training Group took place at the TrafoExternal link, followed by the student congress Imagine! (April, 10th and 11th 2025). Click here for the news announcement.
Organisation of own workshops/conferences
In dialogue with Imaginamics members, own conference and congress ideas will be developed. Details will follow.

planned for summer 2026: working title "Crises and Temporalities as Social Imagining: Materialization, Mediation and Perception of Critical Time in Culture and Literature"

planned for October, 7th until 9th 2026: working title “Fragile Visions - Imaginations as spaces for negotiating history, power and belonging”
Participation in workshops/conferences/further training
participation (selection):

conference "Disturbances and Promises of Imagination", 23.02-26.02.2025, Wuppertal

panel discussion and conference "Die AfD nach den Wahlen in Ostdeutschland. Sachsen im interregionalen Vergleich", 25.02-26.02.2025, HAIT, Dresden

summer school "Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy: Narrative and Narrativity", Venice, 30.06.-04.07.2025

conference Science Fiction Research Association, 30.07-03.08.2025

colloquium Dystopian literature in Spain, 11.09-12.09.2025

annual conference, Gesellschaft für die Geschichte der Wissenschaften, der Medizin und der Technik, Dresden, 24.09.-26.09.2025

45th congress, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Empirische Kulturwissenschaften, 01.10.-04.10.2025

workshops at the Graduate-Academy Jena

participation planned (selection):

congress "Imagining the Revolution: Cultural Transfers and Reinterpretations of the 19th-Century Revolutionary Experience in Europe", Budapest (Hungary), 07.11.-08.11.2025

congress "Archives Unbound: Negotiating Time and Memory in Romantic Visual Culture", Florenz (Italy), 02.02.-04.02.2026

further museum visits in Germany and abroad

Impressions of the Opening event, April 10th 2025

Mr Grave at the speaker?s desk
Image: Nicole Nerger
Mr Grave at the speaker?s desk
Image: Nicole Nerger
Mrs Brandt at the speaker?s desk
Image: Nicole Nerger
Mr Matuschek at the speaker?s desk
Image: Nicole Nerger
panel discussion
Image: Nicole Nerger
panel discussion
Image: Nicole Nerger
conversation during opening event
Image: Nicole Nerger
Research Training Group PhD students with Spokesperson (right) and coordination (left)
Image: Nicole Nerger
programm flyer student congress and opening event
Image: Nicole Nerger