Courses on Sustainability Issues (SoSe 2025)

In June, the Archaeological Museum is offering various guided tours on the subject of “Energy and the Future”. These will focus on the sustainable reuse of shards or mummy labels as well as ancient forms of energy: Fire, for example, provided energy for food preparation and for minting coins. The guided tours, which are part of the university press office's “Energy for the Future” dossier, start at 2:15 pm on Sundays.

Everyone bears a responsibility for the energy transition – from the personal level to the political and international levels. Philosopher Prof. Dr. Michael Quante is the co-publisher of “Energy Responsibility”, a publication which appeared just recently. In this interview he talks about approaches, both large and small, to finding solutions.

The Institute of Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology is once again organising a one-week practical course on current topics and tasks of museums together with the LWL-Freilichtmuseum Detmold, Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Alltagskultur. Participants will gain in-depth insights into the museum as a field of practice, as a place of research, as a collection and educational institution and much more.

The traditional parliamentary mechanisms and well-practised rules of western liberal democracy seem to be slipping. The discourse on manifestations of a democratic crisis is almost omnipresent. There has been much talk of the “end of the people’s parties”, a “crisis of party democracy” or even a “crisis of representation” – to name just the most common buzzwords. Silke Mende outlines the challenges and necessary differentiations.

Too much and too little water – both can pose an existential threat. The idyllic view of the sanctuary of Hera at Perachora may not suggest that the temple district suffered from a permanent lack of water. However, even in ancient Greece, people experienced too much and too little water. And despite technological progress, people still experience this today – and not just in distant regions of the world.