We are the Cluster of Excellence Cross-Cultural Philology (3061). Our aim is to conduct transcultural and interdisciplinary research into cultural and philological practices from a global perspective and from a wide variety of viewpoints. We analyse material from the last 5000 years.
The Cross-Cultural Philology Cluster of Excellence, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), is an interdisciplinary research network comprising 25 departments at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (speaker institution) and Julius-Maximilian Universität in Würzburg, in cooperation with a wide range of national and international institutions, universities and research organisations.
Together, they are exploring 5,000 years of cultural history – from multiple perspectives, across cultures, and with a solid historical foundation, all while showing the enormous relevance of philology to the present day. Across a total of five Research Areas with three Transversal Perspectives, the project investigates how and by whom knowledge has been transmitted globally and transculturally over the millennia. Specific projects inverstigate how and by whom philological knowledge has been passed down over millennia and across the globe, with ongoing projects devoted to topics such as editorial practice, questions of canon formation and censorship, as well as the annotation, archiving, movement, and translation of texts.
In addition to the 25 philologically oriented disciplines from seven faculties at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (LMU) and a chair at Julius-Maximilians-Universität in Würzburg (JMU), the Cluster of Excellence in the field of Digital Humanities also collaborates with the IT Group for the Humanities and Cultural Studies at LMU.
The programme began on 1 January 2026 and has been approved for an initial funding phase of seven years. The spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence is Prof. Dr. Beate Kellner. The deputy spokespersons are Prof. Dr Holger Gzella and Prof. Dr. Susanne Reichlin.