Established in 2021, the Department‘s Chair in Modern Cultural and Intellectual History covers European history in comparative, transnational and global perspectives. A cross-disciplinary team of international researchers investigates the period from the late 18th to the early 20th century, with special focus on the history of political ideas, the history of transfers, as well as the history of music and opera, and a regional emphasis on the Habsburg monarchy, Italy and transatlantic exchanges.
The team works closely with colleagues at the Department of Musicology, the Research Centre Global Dynamics and other institutions of Leipzig University, as well as research hubs in Britain, Austria, Italy and the Americas. Methodologically, the team combines different approaches to cultural history with an interest in Koselleckian conceptual history, the Cambridge School of Political Thought, philosophy of history and the history of historiography. One of the team’s core research projects investigates „Opera and the Politics of Empire in Habsburg Europe, 1815-1914“, financed by the European Research Council. In addition to his Chair at Leipzig’s Department of History, Axel Körner is Honorary Professor at University College London.