The DFG (German Research Foundation) Research Training Group “Self-Making: Practices of Subjectivation in Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspective” had been in existence at Oldenburg University since October 1, 2010 and came to an end in September 2019. Through the participation of scholars from the fields of German Studies, Education, Protestant Theology, History, Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Sociology, and Sport Science, the group brought together a diverse range of perspectives from the humanities and social sciences.

The “Self-Making” Research Training Group was created to conduct a praxeological analysis of how individuals become identifiable and acknowledged as subjects in different historical and social contexts. Our analytical focus is twofold: First, we intend to shed light on how language, images, material artifacts, and (human) bodies are involved in practices of subjectivation. Second, we conceive of subjectivation not only as subjugation to particular norms of recognizability, but also as an active and reflective process of self-making, which contributes both to the reproduction as well as to the critique and change of the social and cultural worlds in which it takes place.