School III - School of Linguistics and Cultural Studies
School III - School of Linguistics and Cultural Studies
School III consists of seven Institutes, all of which are involved in teacher training in Oldenburg to varying degrees. Specialised didacticians and academics work hand in hand.
Institute of English and American Studies
Prof Dr Martin Butler
American Literary and Cultural Studies
Research focus:
- popular culture, specifically on forms and figures of cultural mobility in North- and Inter-American as well as Transatlantic contexts
- digital media cultures
- the production of future imaginaries in popular narratives
Activities (selection):
- Participation in the research cluster Futures of Care in Education
- Participation in the research cluster Language-aware subject teaching / language-sensitive teaching and learning
- Director of the Scientific Centre Genealogy of the Present (WiZeGG)
- Co-speaker of the MWK doctoral programme Shaping the Future. Transformation of the present through scenarios of digitalisation (2019 - 2024)
- Speaker of the MWK doctoral programme Migrationsgesellschaftliche Grenzformationen (MIGG) (2016 - 2020)
- Spokesperson of the MWK doctoral programme Cultures of Participation (2014 - 2018)
Prof Dr Wolfgang Gehring
Didactics
Research focus:
Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL or Fachdidaktik Englisch) is an umbrella term for the systematic investigation of a wide variety of complex processes involved in the development of language skills and their instruction. Typically, TEFL deals with the question of what needs to be taught, why it has to be taught and how it can be done. Some of the key areas of interest within the field of TEFL focus on various approaches to teaching of the language system itself, the development of transcultural skills and knowledge about different English speaking cultures, fostering the sense of aesthetics and familiarity with literary art, and classroom research. The latter addresses issues associated with planning, structuring and giving lessons, setting learning goals and outcomes, the development and assessment of competences, as well as the evaluation of teaching materials, types of content and forms of learning.
Prof Dr Marcel Schlechtweg
Linguistics and Language Science
Research focus:
I am a linguist who primarily works in the areas phonetics, phonology, morphology, and psycholinguistics.
Participation in the research cluster Language-aware subject teaching / Language-sensitive teaching and learning
Prof Dr Julia Wurr
Postcolonial Studies
Research focus:
- Procreation and the Postcolonial / Fortpflanzung und Postkolonialismus
- Surrogacy and Literature / Literature and Surrogacy
- Postcolonial Bioethics / Postcolonial Bioethics
- Biocapitalism in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts / Biocapitalism in Postcolonial Texts and Contexts
- The Postcolonial Middle East and North Africa Region / Postkolonialismus in der MENA-Region
- Orientalism and Neo-Orientalism / Orientalism and Neo-Orientalism
- Literature and Terrorism / Literatur und Terrorismus
Institute for German Studies
Prof Dr Juliana Goschler
German as a foreign language/second language
Research focus:
- Second and foreign language acquisition, dual first language acquisition
- Contrastive linguistics and transfer phenomena in language learning
- Linguistic heterogeneity in educational contexts
- Linguistic characteristics of educational language, language in specialised lessons
Participation in the research cluster Language-aware subject teaching / language-sensitive teaching and learning
Participation in the research cluster Advanced Language Acquisition
Prof Dr Katharina Schuhmann
German as a foreign language
Research focus
- Foreign and second language acquisition
- Psycholinguistics and language contact phenomena (acoustic-phonetic, phonological and morphological aspects)
- Theoretical linguistics (phonology, morphology)
Participation in the research cluster Advanced Language Acquisition
Prof Dr Katrin Kleinschmidt-Schinke
Didactics of the German language
Research focus:
- Adaptive language behaviour
- Development-sensitive writing didactics
- Teacher language, language of instruction and classroom communication
- Language in the subject
- Tension between oral and written language, operationalisation of conceptual written language
- Easy language
- German didactic teacher research
Participation in the research cluster Language-aware subject teaching / language-sensitive teaching and learning
Participation in the research cluster Advanced Language Acquisition
Prof Dr Thomas Boyken
Children's and youth literature studies
Research focus:
- Children's and youth literature
- Literature from the 18th to the 21st century
- drama theory
- narratology
- Theory of mediality
Activities (selection):
- Participation in the research cluster Children's and Young Adult Literature (KJL )
Prof Dr Albrecht Hausmann
Medieval Studies - Older German Literature and Language
Research focus:
- Historical narrative research
- Poetry of the High Middle Ages
- History of media change from medieval manuscript culture to book printing
Prof Dr Jörg Peters
Low German and Sater Frisian
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Participation in the research cluster Advanced Language Acquisition
Institute of Art and Visual Culture
Prof Dr Michaela Kaiser
Art education and mediation
Research focus:
- Inclusion and exclusion from a difference-theoretical perspective
- Art pedagogical ability norms and performance regulations
- Art education and art mediation in a culture of digitality
- Practical professionalisation research in art education and art mediation
- Cooperative relationships between art education and art mediation actors
- Intersectional sensitivity
Ongoing projects:
- Poetries of Resistance and Hope. Hegemony-critical poetry as an educational moment in marginalised communities (2026-2027), Prof. Dr Michaela Kaiser and Prof. Dr Alisha Heinemann (University of Bremen), research funding within the framework of the Northwest Alliance, funding line Now Advanced
- Achievement: A Social Practice in Primary School Classroom (2025-2028), Prof. Dr Michaela Kaiser and Prof. Dr Simone Seitz, German Research Foundation (DFG)
- Digitisation-related and digitally supported professionalisation of sports, music and art teachers (DigiProSMK) (2023-2026), project as part of the BMBFSFJ funding measure Competence Centres for Digital and Digitally Supported Teaching in Schools. Centre of Excellence for artistic-creative subjects and sport
- CoP 4: Ecological concern (2023-2026), VR learning space as part of DigiProSMK
- CoP 5: From image to platform (2023-2026) within the framework of DigiProSMK
Activities (selection):
- Vice Director for Research at the Centre for Teacher Education - Didactic Centre (DiZ) together with Prof. Dr Till-Sebastian Idel
- Spokesperson for the Futures of Care in Education research cluster together with Prof Dr Till-Sebastian Idel
- Participation in the research cluster Intersectional Sensitivity
(Jun.) Prof. Dr Friederike Nastold
Art History with a focus on Gender Studies
Research focus:
- Gender studies in art and cultural studies
- Art history and art theories of the 19th to 21st centuries
- Visual culture studies, garden, queer ecologies, new materialism
- Class issues in art and visual culture, theories of affect
- Queer theory, porn studies, film theory
- Artistic-educational and curatorial project work
Activities (selection):
- Participation in the research cluster Futures of Care in Education
- Co-direction of the DFG network "Interdisciplinary Pornography Research" (2026-2028, Head: Leonie Zilch)
Institute of Material Culture
Prof Dr Karen Ellwanger
Material culture in modernity and late modernity (focus on clothing and body images); everyday objects and how they shape us, museum, cultural studies of gender studies
Research focus:
- Theory and History of Material Culture
- Museum and exhibition
- Clothing and body images in modernity / counter-modernity; traditional costume
- Vestimentary representations of the political
- Memory and gender
Institute of Music
Prof Dr Lars Oberhaus
Music education
Research focus:
- Music pedagogical teaching and learning research,
- Music and the body
- New music
- Philosophy of music education
- Early childhood music education.
Prof Dr Mario Dunkel
Music education with a focus on transcultural music education
Research focus:
- Music education,
- transcultural music education,
- connections between music and politics,
- cultural and musicological research on jazz and popular music
Ongoing projects:
- Recomposing the Black Box: Critical Digital Education through AI-Powered Music Generation (RECOMPOSE) (2026-2029), Booster Unit as part of the MWK funding programme Strategically Developing Potentials
- Digital Cultural Heritage of Our Time. Developing a Circulatory System for User Generated Content between the Web Archive of the German National Library and Music Education (DiCHOT) (2025-2030), joint project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, funding line "Change! Fellowships"
- Digitality - Diversity - Producing: Practices of popular music in schools and further education(DiDiPro) (2023-2026), joint project as part of the BMBFSFJ funding measure Competence Centres for Digital and Digitally Supported Teaching in Schools. Centre of Excellence for artistic-creative subjects and sport
Activities (selection):
- Participation in the research cluster Futures of Care in Education
- Spokesperson for the Intersectional Sensitivity research cluster together with Prof Dr Ulla Licandro
- Participation in the Research Training Group Teacher Education 2040 (2020 - 2024)
Institute of Dutch Studies
Prof. Dr Esther Ruigendijk
Dutch linguistics
Research focus:
- Psycholinguistics
- Language acquisition
- Language processing
- Language disorders
- Speech and hearing
- Code Switching
Participation in the research cluster Advanced Language Acquisition