Current research projects

Research focus on the history of (social) psychology

The research focus combines various projects on the history of (social) psychology. Nora Binder completed her doctorate on Kurt Lewin's field psychology and is currently working on the topic of social competence. Towards an epistemology of the interpersonal in the 20th century. Yves Hänggi completed his doctorate in Basel/Erfurt on psychological longitudinal studies in the 20th century. Sandra Janßen completed her doctorate on the history of knowledge of imagination phenomena and subject concepts in 19th and early 20th century psychology and literature and is currently finalising her habilitation thesis on the totalitarian subject in psychology, political theory and literature of the 1930s and 1940s. Bernhard Kleeberg is researching balance, dissonance and conformity in mid-20th century social psychology and the early history of consumer psychology. Verena Lehmbrock works on East German social psychology and its transnational interdependence as well as the polyvalence of its interventions between the individual and society. Ricardo Neuner completed his doctorate in Konstanz/Erfurt on the influence of American consumer psychology on economic thinking. Carolin Piotrowski is completing her doctorate with the thesis Wanyamwezi. Biography of a Song, 1900-1914 on the interweaving of psychology and (music) ethnography. Carola Oßmer is doing her doctorate on the invention of the normal child through research into developmental norms since the beginning of the 20th century.

Since 2017, an annual workshop for experts and young researchers on the history of the sciences of the psyche has been organised in cooperation with the Forum Geschichte der Humanwissenschaften. More information

In January 2024, the DFG-funded academic network Wissensgeschichten des unverfügbaren Selbst. Individual and Collective Subject Figures in Psychology, Sociology, Ethnology and Cultural Studies 1850-1980swill begin itswork.