The Cluster of Excellence 2020 "Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective" aims to create a new theoretical and methodological take on literature in a global perspective that moves beyond the categories of nation and period and conceives of literature instead as a transcultural and transtemporal phenomenon in deep time. Based on the insight that literature is a fundamentally performative and intermedial phenomenon, a form of social action taking place in complex networks of human and non-human actors, the Cluster studies how literature becomes global through its temporal entanglements. Introducing the notion of 'temporal communities', the Cluster investigates the ways in which literature reaches out through space and time and establishes extensive transtemporal networks in which the notion of literature itself is constantly re-constituted as it interacts with other arts and media.

The Cluster is situated within a vibrant network of international academic partners and local collaborators including universities and libraries as well as literary and artistic institutions and museums, and it combines an international fellowship programme with a dynamic and flexible platform for projects involving early career researchers, established scholars and international fellows from all career stages.

Cluster Directors

Prof. Dr. Anne Eusterschulte, Professor of the History of Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin

Prof. Dr. Andrew James Johnston, Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English Literature, Freie Universität Berlin