Education and research projects

Political Science, Educational Policy and Political Education

Excursions and Internationalisation

In recent years the teaching and research department has organized numerous Cologne Summer Schools and excursions, which have contributed to the internationalisation of research and teaching. Not only have international contacts been established with students, academics and political educators, but joint education and research projects have also been developed.

2017: A Berlin excursion took place in cooperation with Prof. Dov Shinar, Universität Haifa & Ben Gurion University of the Negev. In Berlin we met a group of Israeli students from Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem, with whom we spent a week together. Lectures and discussions revolved around the topic of 'Cultural Diplomacy'.

2018: Another excursion (in cooperation with 'School is open') was themed 'Views on and of the Israeli Society' and took us to Israel.

2019: At the invitation of the 'International Youth Meeting Centre Kreisau Foundation for European Understanding' (IJBS Kreisau), we spent a week in Poland and dealt with the topics of "Hate Speech and Fake News". In addition to numerous workshops and discussions, we visited the Auschwitz memorial.

2020: Another excursion (in cooperation with Prof. Nelly Elias, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, and numerous other colleagues from the University of Cologne, including Dr. Monica van der Haagen-Wulff and Georg Gläser) focused on "(Forced) migration, racism and anti-Semitism". Unfortunately, this excursion could not take place due to theCOVID-19 pandemic. A virtual workshop together with doctoral students from Ben Gurion University of the Negev was inspiring and led to a joint German-Israeli publication (Sophia Solomon / Jakob Andrae / Felix Kirchhof: Postmodern pandemics and civic protests: The cases of Germany and Israel during COVID 19, in: Gudrun Hentges, Georg Gläser, Julia Lingenfelder (eds.), Demokratie im Zeichen von Corona, Berlin 2021).

As the teaching and research department cooperates with the UNESCO Aladdin Project, two students take part in the 'International Summer University for intercultural leadership' every year.

 

Research Training Group

In 2018, we (Prof. Dr. Oliver Decker / Prof. Dr. Gudrun Hentges) founded a research training group on the topic of "Authoritarian developments, extreme-right discourses and democratic resonances", which is based at the University of Cologne and the University of Leipzig. The topics of the doctoral students and post docs are put up for discussion in regular colloquia. A planned anthology will document the diversity of topics and debates.

 

Journal

Gudrun Hentges is actively involved in the newly founded journal for research on right-wing extremism (peer review and open access) as co-editor. The first issue of this journal was presented to the public in summer 2021. Watch the Presentaion here.

 

Research projects

"Digital Political Education in Times of Corona. Critical reflection on conspiracy ideologies and anti-Semitism in school and out-of-school (digital) political education" is the title of a third-party funded project that will start on 1 May 2022.

This project is funded by the Rheinenergie Stiftung (focus topic 2021: Society and Digital Transformation); co-financing is provided by the Federal Agency for Civic Education (BpB).

The project, which aims to make an active contribution to the democratization of school and society, is a cooperation project between the University of Cologne, the Cologne University of Applied Sciences (Prof. Dr. Birgit Jagusch) and the Cologne Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation (Dr. Marcus Meier).

 

Lischka-Process

From 2001 to 2004, the Cologne Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation commissioned a scientific research project, headed by Anne Klein, which focused on the “judicial proceedings concerning Nazi crimes (injustice) against the Jews in the Cologne region.” The Lischka trial was part of this project. A temporary exhibition on the Lischka trial, curated by Anne Klein and realized as a participating project with students of the University of Colgne (Department of History and Department of Educational and Social Sciences), was presented in the National Socialism Documentation Center of the City of Cologne in 2006, in the Dinslaken City Museum in 2008, and in the Hamm Higher Regional Court (North Rhine–Westphalia) in 2010. The title of the exhibition “Ich erinnere mich an diesen Deutschen sehr genau . . . ” (I remember this German precisely . . .) was taken from the witness account of Erna Schnarch, who had been deported from France to Auschwitz and after the war emigrated to Israel. The research project and the exhibition were sponsored by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Landeszentrale für politische Bildung NRW, EL-DE-Haus Association, Leo Baeck Institute (London). Many thanks to Beate and Serge Klarsfeld and Tamar and Harry Zvi Dreifuss (d. 2020) for their friendly and cooperative support.

For closer information see:

• NS-Unrecht vor Kölner Gerichten nach 1945, Köln: Greven Verlag 2003 (Herausgegeben von Anne Kleinund Jürgen Wilhelm)
• Mentalität-Massenmord-Moral: Rechts- und Geschichtsverständnis der bundesrepublikanischen Nachkriegsgesellschaft, in: Neubacher/Klein (Hg.), Vom Recht der Macht zur Macht des Rechts? Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zur Zukunft Internationaler Strafgerichte, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 2006, 161-186.
• „Militants de la Mémoire“. Repräsentationen jüdischen Engagements in den 1970er Jahren, in: Katharina Stengel, Fritz Bauer Institut (Hg.), Opfer als Akteure. Jahrbuch zur Geschichte und Wirkung des Holocaust 12, Frankfurt a.M., New York: Campus 2008, 126-147.
• Der „Lischka-Prozess“ in Köln 1979/80. Eine jüdisch-französisch-deutsche Erinnerungsgeschichte, Berlin: Metropol Verlag 2013 (Herausgegeben von Anne Klein)
• The /Fils et Filles des Déportés Juifs de France/ and the Lischka trial in Cologne, 1971–1980 (Anne Klein, together with Birte Klarzyk). In: Eric Le Bourhis, Irina Tscherneva, Vanessa Voisin (eds.), That Justice be Done. Society and Accountability for Nazi and War Crimes in Central and Eastern Europe, 1940-1970s (i.E. 2022)

Info-Broschüre
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