Centre for Advanced Study
“Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change”

The digital transformation has fundamentally changed the possibilities and conditions of access to cultural goods — i.e. to works of art, but also to the holdings of archives, collections and museums and to such “subjects” as the results of scientific research — and will continue to require new forms and practices of production, reproduction and reception of such goods in the future.

The Centre for Advanced Study Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change (KFG 33), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) explores — especially with art as an example — both the new forms of access to cultural goods and the new forms of access restriction and access control made possible by digitalisation. In doing so, it also takes into account the fact that the digital transformation ties the production and reception of many cultural goods to technological preconditions that can be characterised as second-order access conditions.

| Events
© Natascha Unkart

Fifth Summer School Museology

A week of researching and teaching, learning and living in (the middle of) the museum: from 21 to 26 July 2025, the Institute of Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology organizes a one-week practical course on current topics and tasks of museums together with the LWL Open-Air Museum 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 Summer School is headed by Prof. Dr Lioba Keller-Drescher, In-house Fellow of the Centre for Advanced Study. Guest curator is Dr. Birgit Johler, Senior Fellow of the Centre for Advanced Study.

| Events
© Universität Münster | Michael Möller

“Is there such a thing as a just war?": Lecture at the Goethe-Institut Kyoto

On 18 April 2025, the Goethe-Institut Kyoto (Japan) hosted a lecture by Prof. Dr. Reinold Schmücker titled “Is there such a thing as a just war?” followed by a panel discussion. The event explored the question of whether there can be a just war at all. What would it look like? And how can a war be ended, even if it were completely just? Professors Satoshi Kodama (Kyoto University), Takuya Nakamura (Doshisha University) and Johannes Waßmer (Osaka University) were members of the panel. Further information can be found on the Goethe-Institut website.

| Events
© „Whose Expression? Die Künstler der Brücke im kolonialen Kontext“, Brücke-Museum, 2021. Foto: Roman März

Master class “Access to Contested Collections – Digital and Analog”

The Center for Advanced Study Access to Cultural Goods in Digital Change's master class “Access to Contested Collections – Digital and Analog” took place on 2–4 April 2025. Master’s and doctoral students, postdocs, and research trainees working at museums or art institutions who are engaged with collections with colonial backgrounds or artworks and artifacts with sensitive content were invited. The masterclass offered them the opportunity to discuss, together with colleagues from museums and art institutions in an interdisciplinary environment, which new perspectives or challenges arise from digital access to contested collections.