The »Complexity Project« invites five fellows to the Kolleg
Aljoscha Berve, William Talbott, Yael Peled, Felix Walter Steilen und Till van Rahden will all carry out research at the Kolleg during the summer semester on the topic of complexity.

After a successful pilot phase, the research project »Complexity in Science, Culture and Society«, which began in early 2017, has received a funding renewal from the Aventis Foundation for a further two years. The goal of the project is to examine various concepts of complexity and their theoretical foundations from interdisciplinary perspectives in order to not only identify new models for dealing with complexity but also to obtain new insights for academic research.

Five selected researchers, all of whom applied for a fellowship, will be guests of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften during the summer semester 2019. During their time at the Kolleg, they will work on their own individual projects and participate together in colloquia and workshops on the common thematic focus of »complexity«. Dr. Aljoscha Berve is currently a research associate in the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Düsseldorf. Here at the Kolleg he will continue to develop his philosophical project entitled »Complexity and context. Modern Theories«. The philosopher Professor William Talbott (University of Washington), whose project is entitled »Complexity in Scientific Reasoning«, approaches the topic of complexity from an epistemological perspective while Dr. Yael Peled (McGill University , Montreal), who works in the areas of philosophy, political science and linguistics, is examining complexity from a sociocultural angle (title: »Language as a Complex System. Its Sociocultural Basis and Ethical and Policy Challenges«). Felix Walter Steilen, who is currently a Minerva Fellow at Tel Aviv University, is developing an »Entwurf zur einer Begriffsgeschichte der Komplexität im sozialen Denken der Neuzeit« (Outline of a history of the concept of complexity in social thought in the modern age) on the basis of political theory and the history of ideas. Historian Professor Till von Rahden from the University of Montréal has been working for some time with the literary studies scholars Heinz Drügh, Achim Geisenhanslüke and Johannes Völz on the aesthetic, medial and cultural requirements of liberal democracy and will bring his research project »The Blessings of Complexity. On Democratic Forms as Elusive Objects« to the interdisciplinary discussion of the research group.

The project is headed up by the University of Frankfurt professors Harald Schwalbe (organic chemistry and chemical biology) and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (philosophy). Further permanent members are: Professor Amin Coja-Oghlan (mathematics), Professor Achim Geisenhanslüke (literary studies), Professor Alexander Heckel (organic chemistry and chemical biology), Professor Michael Rieger (hematology and oncology), Professor Enrico Schleiff (molecular biology), Professor Jörg Soppa (molecular biology), Professor Reinhard Stock (nuclear physics) and Professor Josef Wachtveitl (physical and theoretical chemistry).

Further Information: Iris Helene Koban, Managing Director of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften (i.koban@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de)

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