Current Projects

The Marsilius Kolleg is currently funding three projects working on interdisciplinary topics. The proposals passed a stringent application procedure, including external reviews and a recommendation of the selection committee, and were approved by the university’s rectorate.

Project: "Early Childhood in Transition"

The interdisciplinary research project aims at a closer inspection of early childhood in the present age. The investigation will focus on the impact of structural societal changes in the vocational work, the organisation of family, and child care on the figuration of life and relations, such as the interaction of parents and pedagogical professionals with children. In a pilot study with a randomised control group design, the efficiency of a preventive intervention and counselling programme will be tested, which aims at intensifying reflexion processes with parents and thereby strengthen their security in decision-making and acting. Recent changes will be contextualised historically on the background of the history of childhood and education in both German states since the end of the Second World War. It will also illuminate familial and societal concepts and the resulting habits in their relevance for present society.

The Marsilius-project entails four subprojects:

• Developmental-psychological subproject
• Economical subproject
• Pedagogical-psychological subproject
• Historical subproject

The project homepage offers detailed information on the topic “Early Childhood in transition” and to the project progression.

Project "Embodiment as Paradigm for an Evolutionary Cultural Anthropology"

Since the 19th century, the theory of evolution has unsettled and shaken traditional and fundamental anthropological assumptions about the place of human beings in nature. The Darwinian integration of human development/evolution into the natural history was met by the philosophical and theological anthropology of the 20th century (Scheler, Plessner, Gehlen, Portmann, Pannenberg) with the attempt to constitute the special status of humans in their intrinsic open-minded, spirit-endowed nature. Today, evolutionary anthropology, as well as the more recent philosophical anthropology, emphasize the embodied cognition (Embodiment), e.g., Varela, Thompson & Rosch, Clark, Gallagher, Thompson, Deacon, Donald, Tomasell, or Jung. Building on the “embodied cognitive science”, the Marsilius Project “Embodiment as a Paradigm of an Evolutionary Cultural Anthropology” aims at answering the question, to what extent the intrinsic spirituality and cultural cognition of man is attributable to the structures of his existence, which has emerged in the course of evolution and has in turn been affected by cultural evolution. Within the paradigm of embodiment, the traditional dualistic opposition of nature and culture, body and mind, should dissolve in a process in which both elements are intertwined and mutually constituted.