Our Profile
The close collaboration between Egyptology and African Studies in Cologne explicitly challenges the Eurocentric separation of Egypt in the north from the rest of Africa and the notion that the sub-Saharan continent should be viewed in isolation, as well as the idea of cultures and languages as distinct entities. On the contrary, research and teaching at our institute demonstrate how cultural knowledge and cultural skills emerge and evolve through contact and exchange across time and space. The collaboration between archaeology, cultural anthropology, and linguistics also challenges the tendency to separate material aspects of culture from its historical, social, or linguistic dimensions. At our institute, students learn about cultural practices and cultural dynamics across these specializations.
The focus of our work is foundational research. We engage in active exchange with relevant disciplines such as archaeology, cultural and global history, ethnology and comparative cultural anthropology, comparative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Staff members at the institute are involved in major linguistic projects (SFB 1252 „Prominence in Language“) as well as in regional and social science consortia (e.g. the Global South Studies Center), the Research Training Group on the Archaeology of Pre-Modern Economic Spaces Archäologie vormoderner Wirtschaftsäume and various other research consortia (such as the SFBs „Our way to Europe“ and „Future Rural Africa“).
From day one, our students learn what interdisciplinary work entails: The institute is affiliated with many externally funded projects, and many of our courses are also open to interested students from geography, ethnology, queer and gender studies, intercultural communication, and classical studies.
