The Senate of the Leibniz Association has decided to continue funding the Leibniz Research Alliance “Value of the Past” until September 2029. In addition to the partner institutes’ own funds, the network will receive an additional 1.2 million euros for research and knowledge transfer. Within the research network, the HBI is part of the Research Lab “Practices of Appropriation”, which also focuses on historical memes and TikTok videos as well as historical Instagram and Twitter accounts.
Reasons for Continued Funding
In its statement, the Senate Committee on Strategic Planning (SAS) of the Leibniz Association praised the alliance for having achieved the main goals of the first funding phase in an “impressive way”. These include the development of an interdisciplinary working structure and the heuristic and conceptual clarification of the fundamentals. It has succeeded in building an internationally and publicly visible research network and establishing a new field of research, the topic of which is highly topical and relevant. “The network has achieved a convincing interdisciplinary approach to a central topic in the humanities and cultural studies, which has no equivalent in terms of scope and ambition in international comparison,” said the SAS.
Tasks of the Research Alliance
The Leibniz Research Alliance “The Value of the Past”, led by the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF), brings together 21 Leibniz institutes and cooperates with numerous international partners. Together, they are exploring processes of value formation and value competition in societal debates about the past. The research alliance investigates the value of the past for past and present societies. This includes current debates on colonial art, reinterpretations of National Socialism and historically legitimized wars.
The First Funding Phase
The first funding phase saw numerous publications, particularly in the series “Wert der Vergangenheit” [Value of the Past] (Wallstein-Verlag). Outstanding publications include the handbook “Historische Authentizität” [Historical Authenticity] and studies on the demolition of historical monuments in contemporary history and the question of how musealization generates cultural values. Most recently, Henning Trüper’s book “,Unsterbliche Werte’. Über Historizität und Historisierung” [Immortal Values’ On Historicity and Historicisation] has received widespread attention. In addition, an online exhibition was created on the loss of historical architectural heritage in Ukraine as a result of the Russian war of aggression. The blog ‘Value of the Past’ provides insights into the ongoing research.
The Second Funding Phase
In the new funding phase, the network is addressing the value of the past in the context of current debates on climate change and biodiversity, the post-colonial responsibilities of the Western world, and the use of the past by resurgent right-wing populism and radicalism. The research network also addresses very practical issues, including the importance of concepts of space and time for understanding history, and questions of documentary evidence, for example in the field of digital history.
HBI Participation in the Research Alliance: Research Lab 3.2 “Practices of Appropriation”
The Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut is a full member of the Leibniz Research Alliance “Value of the Past”. Together with Dr. habil. Barbara Christophe from the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute (GEI), Dr. Hans-Ulrich Wagner heads the Research Lab 3.2 “Practices of Appropriation” in the research network. This lab is dedicated to new communicative practices of appropriating the past, which can be observed against the background of media change. The projects and networking activities examine the processes of negotiating history and the past in the public sphere and in sub-publics with regard to which historical events and topics are declared relevant to the present by different actors.
The research examines the extent to which the multiplication of communicative spaces in which the past is contested challenges previously valid monopolies of interpretation and creates new ones. At a time when people co-produce their historical knowledge through a wide range of media, from the arts sections of transnational newspapers to TikTok videos and Hitler and Holocaust memes, consensus in the culture of memory is becoming increasingly difficult. The global availability of communication services and media representations is leading to a surge in heterogenization, especially in nation-state societies.
The work in the Lab takes these dynamics into account in various fields of action. Among other things, it analyzes historical-political interventions and media strategies of populist and new right-wing actors. It also focuses on practices of remembrance in the history classroom, where members of different generations come together with different media repertoires; the debate about rituals of remembrance in memorials and on anniversaries; and new forms of historical narrative in interactive digital media.
The Past in Social Media
As a small-scale study for a current social media memory project, Daria Chepurko, Ken Phan, Kira Thiel and Dr. Hans-Ulrich Wagner examined the Instagram account “@ichbinsophiescholl” of the public broadcasters Südwestrundfunk (SWR) and Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR). This account promises an “honest” and “intimate perspective” on the young resistance fighter Sophie Scholl in the “Third Reich” by presenting her as a contemporary social media user. The results of the study have been published in the blog dossier “Sophie Scholl on Instagram: A Communication and Historical Analysis” on the HBI Media Research Blog.
Other Institutes Participating in the Leibniz Research Alliance “The Value of the Past”
Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF), Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum – Leibniz Research Museum for Georesources (DBM), Deutsches Museum (DM), German Maritime Museum – Leibniz Institute for Maritime History (DSM), Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute (GEI), Germanisches Nationalmuseum – Leibniz Research Museum for Cultural History (GNM), Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association (HI), Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin (IfZ), Leibniz Institute for the German Language (IDS), Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Leibniz Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow (DI), Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS), Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM), Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB), Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA), Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL), Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient(ZMO), Senckenberg – Leibniz Institution for Biodiversity and Earth System Research (SGN).
Further information
Press release in German on the “Leibniz Research Alliance ‘Value of the Past’ Receives Four More Years of Funding”, ZZF, March 26, 2025.
Website of the alliance with results and participating institutes