Projects
A large number of projects are carried out at the Gotha collection and research centre. These range from collection-related and source-based cataloguing, preservation and research projects to digitisation and digital humanities projects. The collections are thus made usable for science and the public. The individual institutions work closely with various national and international co-operation partners. Explore a selection of current projects.
- Current
- Transcultural Studies / Gotha Perthes Collection
Transcontinental Co-Productions
If the connection between the European exploration of Africa and colonialism seems unequivocal in retrospect, it may be surprising that in the 1860s, African travelers, scholars, and politicians…
- Current
- Transcultural Studies / Gotha Perthes Collection
Researching Swahili
Africanist linguistics is closely connected to missionary and colonial claims to authority over the political upheavals of the 19th and 20th centuries. In my work, I therefore inquire into the…
- Current
- Transcultural Studies / Gotha Perthes Collection
Bruno Hassenstein's Cartography of Japan
The project examines the influence of cartography on German-language Japanology in the late 19th century. So far, the historical development of German-language Japanology has been interpreted with a…
- Current
- Transcultural Studies / Gotha Perthes Collection
The Scientific Age in the Province
With the first assembly of the Society of German Naturalists and Physicians in 1822, according to Werner von Siemens (1886), a 'scientific age' began, in which the natural sciences opened up to…
- Current
- Transcultural Studies / Gotha Perthes Collection
Trading Animals / Animals that act
Living elephants, giraffes, ostriches, and camels, baboons, and donkeys unknown in Europe – the list of animals traded globally in the 19th century was extensive. Besides the numerous animals, various…
- Current
- Transcultural Studies / Gotha Perthes Collection
Collecting Knowledge in the Province
The project aims to analyze, through objects, places, institutions such as publishing houses, associations, societies, or universities, as well as individuals and other actors, how collections…
- Current
- Gotha Research Centre
Digging, collecting, knowledge - archaeology in its beginnings
Even before the institutional establishment of archaeological disciplines and museum presentations in the modern sense, material relics of the past were unearthed from the ground both accidentally and…
- Current
- Gotha Research Centre
The aristocratic self at the end of the Ancien Régime
The project uses the diaries of the Gotha guard commander and chamberlain Christian Georg von Helmolt (1728-1805) from 1783 to 1788 and the journals of the court junketer and publicist Karl Heinrich…
- Current
- Gotha Research Centre
Ways and works of Michael Kosmeli (1773-1844)
Michael Kosmeli (1773-1844), lawyer, writer, translator, botanist and Jew's harp player, travelled throughout his life as an itinerant scholar and musician through half of Europe to Asia, preferably…
- Current
- Gotha Research Library
Initial Cataloguing of the Perthes Publishing House Archive (1785–1945/53)
In its efforts to catalogue the Perthes Publishing House Archive, the Gotha Research Library is currently focusing on the historical archive of the Justus Perthes Publishing House up until 1945/1953.…
- Current
- Gotha Research Library
Cataloguing the music manuscripts of the Gotha Research Library
The main focus of the historically grown music collection at the Research Library is Thuringian music history. The collection contains writings on music theory (8,000 notes, including 1,400…
- Current
- Gotha Research Library
- Transcultural Studies / Gotha Perthes Collection
- Gotha Research Centre
- Friedenstein Castle Foundation
Gotha around 1800: Nature – Science – History
Around 1800, Gotha was a court interconnected throughout Europe. Since the founding of the duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1640), the dukes’ collecting interests gave rise to extensive collections of…
- Current
- Gotha Research Library
Mediating Islam in the Digital Age
The Marie Curie Initial Training Network “Mediating Islam in the Digital Age” (MIDA) assumes that digitalisation and technological progress have a significant impact on Islam, with diverse and…
- Current
- Gotha Research Library
Cultural Heritage in Cyberspace
The project “Cultural Heritage in Cyberspace: Education, Preservation, Access”, which is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), aims to create a comprehensive bi-national academic…
- Current
- Gotha Research Library
Books, Parks, and Gardens
The cooperation project involves the digitization of rare and difficult-to-access prints and manuscripts pertaining to horticulture and landscape parks in the Gotha Research Library, the Duchess Anna…
- Transcultural Studies / Gotha Perthes Collection
Plants, Maps, Amuletts
The Middle East has been a focal point of colonial projects and theological research since the 19th century. What conceptions regarding environment, space, and cultural history underpinned the…
- Friedenstein Castle Foundation
Provenance and history of the Friedenstein Foundation Gotha's collection of Indonesian skulls
An international team led by Adrian Linder, ethnologist and associated researcher at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Bern, investigated the provenance of a total of 41 human…
- Gotha Research Library
Orient Digital
The project “Orient Digital” is a collaborative initiative between the Berlin State Library, the Gotha Research Library, the IT department of the University Computer Centre in Leipzig and the Bavarian…
- Gotha Research Library
The Gotha Daily Newspaper Digital (1850-1918)
As the historical state library of the territories of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the Gotha Research Library collects the regional print production as completely as possible, makes…
- Gotha Research Library
- Transcultural Studies / Gotha Perthes Collection
Cartographic Sources and Territorial Transformations in the Horn of Africa since the Late 18th Century (ETHIOMAP)
The research project comprises two partner projects being carried out simultaneously in France (funded by French National Research Agency) and Germany (funded by German Research Foundation). The…