The board of the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften has invited Johannes Völz, an American studies scholar from Frankfurt, to join the board of directors. His four-year term of office will begin in the winter semester 2019/2020.

Johannes Völz has been a Heisenberg Professor for American studies with a focus on »democracy and aesthetics« at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main since 2016. He received his doctoral degree from the Free University of Berlin and completed his Habilitation at Goethe University and has also carried out many research visits at the renowned American research institutions in Berkeley and Harvard. His research interests include democratic culture in American society, in particular the reciprocal relationship between literature and aesthetics, as well as the social, cultural and political phenomena of the present day. In his most recent book, Poetics of Insecurity. American Fiction and the Uses of Threat (New York 2018), he analyzes narratives of security in American literature.

Johannes Völz is a scholar from Goethe University whose research in literary studies extends beyond the boundaries of his discipline to deal with current political and cultural issues. With his membership on the board, the Kolleg will benefit from his interdisciplinary and open approach and his international networking and will be able to initiate new and socially-important research projects, emphasizes the Institute's director, the Frankfurt philosopher Matthias Lutz-Bachmann.

In addition to Director Lutz-Bachmann, the other members of the board of directors are the historian Andreas Fahrmeir, developmental psychologist Gisela Trommsdorf and religious philosopher and Jewish studies scholar Christian Wiese.