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
Mainresearch focuses:
- popular culture, with a specific focus on forms and figures of cultural mobility in North American, Inter-American and Transatlantic contexts
- digital media cultures
- the production of future imaginaries in popular narratives
Activities (selection):
- Participation in the research cluster Futures of Care in Bildung
- Involvement in the research cluster ‘Language-Aware Subject Teaching / Language-Sensitive Teaching and Learning’
- Director of the Scientific Centre for the Genealogy of the Present (WiZeGG)
- Co-co-convenor of the MWK doctoral programme ‘Shaping the Future: Transforming the Present through Digitalisation Scenarios’ (2019–2024)
- Co-coordinator of the MWK doctoral programme ‘Border Formations in a Society of Migration ’ (MIGG) (2016–2020)
- Co-coordinator 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 (Spokesperson)
German as a Foreign Language/German as a Second Language
Professorship for German as a Foreign Language/German as a Second Language, Institute for German Studies, School III
Main research focuses:
- Second and foreign language acquisition, dual first language acquisition
- Contrastive linguistics and transfer phenomena in language learning
- Linguistic heterogeneity in educational contexts
- Linguistic features of the language of education, language in subject teaching
Activities (selection):
- Spokesperson for the research cluster ‘Language-Aware Subject Teaching / Language-Sensitive Teaching and Learning’ together with Prof. Dr Katrin Kleinschmidt-Schinke
- Participation in the Advanced Language Acquisition Research Cluster
Prof. Dr Katrin Kleinschmidt-Schinke
Teaching German
Professorship for German Language Teaching, Institute for German Studies, School III
Main research focuses:
- Main research focuses:
- Adaptive language use
- Teachers’ language, language of instruction and classroom communication
- Developmentally sensitive writing pedagogy
- Language in subject teaching
- Areas of tension Oral/written communication, operationalisation of conceptual writing
- Plain language
- German language teaching research
- Linguistic participation/involvement in (digital) higher education
Activities (selection):
- Spokesperson for the research cluster ‘Language-Aware Subject Teaching / Language-Sensitive Teaching and Learning’ together with Prof. Dr Juliane Goschler
- Member of the Advanced Language Acquisition Research Cluster
- Member of the interdisciplinary dieS research network (didactic-empirical writing research)
- Member of the editorial team for the peer-reviewed, open-access German language teaching publication series SLLD-B (Linguistic and Literary Learning and German Language Teaching – Volumes) (since May 2024)
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 Thomas Boyken
Children's and youth literature studies
Main research focuses:
- Children’s and young adult literature
- Literature from the 18th to the 21st century
- Drama theory
- Narratology
- Theory of mediality
Activities (selection):
- Spokesperson for the Research Cluster on 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
link
Participation in the research cluster Advanced Language Acquisition
Institute of Art and Visual Culture
Prof Dr Michaela Kaiser
Art education and mediation
Mainresearch focuses:
- Inclusion and exclusion from a difference-theoretical perspective
- Standards of competence and assessment frameworks in art education
- Art education and art outreach in a culture of digitality
- Praxeological research into professionalisation in art education and art outreach
- Collaborative relationships between practitioners in art education and art outreach
- Intersectional sensitivity
Current projects:
- Poetries of Resistance and Hope. Hegemony-critical poetry as an educational opportunity in marginalised communities (2026–2027), Prof. Dr Michaela Kaiser and Prof. Dr Alisha Heinemann (University of Bremen), research funding under the Northwest Alliance, Now Advanced funding programme
- Achievement: A Social Practice in Primary School Classrooms (2025–2028), Prof. Dr Michaela Kaiser and Prof. Dr Simone Seitz, German Research Foundation (DFG)
- Digitalisation-related and digitally supported professional development for sports, music and art teachers (DigiProSMK) (2023–2026), a project under the BMBFSFJ funding scheme ‘Centres of Excellence for Digital and Digitally Supported Teaching in Schools’. Centre of Excellence for Creative and Artistic Subjects and Sport
- CoP 4: Environmental Anxiety (2023–2026), VR learning space as part of DigiProSMK
- CoP 5: From Image to Platform (2023–2026) as part of DigiProSMK
Activities (selection):
- Deputy 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 Bildung ’ research cluster, together with Prof. Dr Till-Sebastian Idel
- Participation in the ‘Intersectional Sensitivity’ research cluster
Assistant Professor Dr Friederike Nastold
Art History with a focus on Gender Studies
Main research focuses:
- Gender studies in art and cultural studies
- Art history and art theories from the 19th to the 21st centuries
- Visual culture studies, gardens, 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 Bildung
- Co-lead of the DFG network‘Interdisciplinary Pornography Research’(2026–2028, led by 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
Mainresearch focuses:
- Music education,
- transcultural music education,
- links between music and politics,
- cultural and musicological research on jazz and popular music
Current projects:
- Recomposing the Black Box: Critical Digital Education through AI-Powered Music Generation (RECOMPOSE) (2026–2029), a Booster Unit under the MWK funding scheme ‘Strategically Unlocking Potential’
- 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), a joint project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation under the ‘Change! Fellowships’ funding programme
- Digitality – Diversity – Producing: Popular Music Practices in Schools and further education (DiDiPro) (2023–2026), a joint project under the BMBFSFJ funding scheme ‘Centres of Excellence for Digital and Digitally Supported Teaching in Schools’. Centre of Excellence for Artistic and Creative Subjects and Sport
Activities (selection):
- Participation in the research cluster Futures of Care in Bildung
- Co-convenor of the ‘Intersectional Sensitivity’ research cluster together with Prof. Dr Ulla Licandro
- Participation in the Graduate College ‘Teacher Education 2040’ (2020–2024)
Institute of Dutch Studies
Prof Dr Esther Ruigendijk (Spokesperson)
Dutch linguistics
Institute of Dutch Studies, School III
Research focus:
- Psycholinguistics
- Language acquisition
- Language processing
- Language disorders
- Speech and hearing
- Code Switching
Activities (selection):
- Spokesperson of the research cluster Advanced Language Acquisition