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Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung (ZfL)

The Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung is a humanities institute focused on studying literature in interdisciplinary contexts and from a cultural science perspective. It also connects to the changes in historical and interpretive fields over the past few decades. Unlike the more traditional national philology found in universities, the ZfL embraces a broad definition of literature and explores the development of different concepts of literature, their future potential, and the connections between literature and other arts or cultural practices.

Featured Activities

Working Group | Reading Groups (2024)

The working group Reading Groups is a collaborative initiative by the Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus (Working Group on Political Aesthetics), EXC 2020, and the ZfL. It explores the practice of collective reading, focusing on the distinct experiences of participants who come together in academic and para-academic environments, as well as in grassroots settings such as reading groups within trade unions, political organizations, and other community-based spaces.

Workshop | FINAL ISSUES: Endings in Modern Intellectual History (2024)

While manifestos and declarations have long shaped our understanding of political, intellectual, and aesthetic beginnings, their endings remain far less visible and harder to grasp. This workshop shifted the focus from origins to closures, exploring how collectives, avant-gardes, and movements narrate, perform, and make sense of their own dissolutions. Drawing on underexamined materials, the event investigated endings not as absences, but as meaningful acts – temporal, interpretive, and political.

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