Dynamics of (De-)Industrialisation: Linguistic and Cultural Studies Perspectives
29–30 October 2026, University of Münster
Organised by: Prof. Dr Ulrike Freywald | Department of German Studies
The workshop forms part of the Department of German Studies Partnership (GIP) ‘Multilingualism in (post-)industrial metropolitan regions’ between the University of Münster, the Università di Genova (Italy) and Shenzhen Technology University (PR China). The GIP has been funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) since 2024, with funding from the Federal Foreign Office.
Within the GIP, we examine multilingualism in the context of urbanisation, industrialisation and deindustrialisation processes from the perspectives of linguistics, literary studies, cultural studies and media studies, as well as from the standpoint of foreign language teaching. To this end, we conduct a comparative analysis of two European metropolitan regions (the Ruhr area and Genoa), which are currently undergoing deindustrialisation and structural change, and the city of Shenzhen, which has been industrialising rapidly for only a few decades. Key thematic areas include, amongst others, language biographies, individual linguistic repertoires, processes of language change, urban linguistic landscapes, language policy, multilingualism in literary and artistic reflection, and processes of negotiating belonging and identity.