Social justice or cancel culture? Gender-just language and academic freedom in Germanycore
GJL-AF-DE · Horizon Europe grant · 2024-09-01–2026-08-31
EC contribution
Total cost
Beneficiaries
About the data
Source: CORDIS (official EU open data), Horizon Europe. Framework HORIZON · call HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01 · scheme HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF · topic HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01-01. CORDIS record →
Objective
The research project focuses on one specific field of the current culture wars in Europe: what is framed as social justice by one side and cancel culture or woke by the other. The phenomenon will be studied in Germany, where these debates are particularly salient in politics and public discourse, and through two issues that occupy a central role in the controversies: 1. gender inclusive or (as termed in Germany) gender-just language and 2. academic freedom. The project’s main goal is to provide an account of the progressive side in the culture wars, and by that, to significantly contribute to better understanding a key conflict within contemporary politics and develop a democratic theory thereof. These debates have three specificities: First, they do not neatly map onto the culturally progressive/conservative cleavage: not only the conservative, but the culturally progressive side is divided too: postmodern, identity politics or intersectional Left (finding a suitable name is already part of the controversy), marxist Left, universalist or classical Liberals, various feminist strands are in fierce debates about the related issues among themselves, not with the right. Second, the two debates are emblematic of on-going culture war-struggles, hence studying them affords a better understanding of major developments in the politics of recognition, culture and language in the past decade. Third, academics play a major role in shaping public discourse and policies, not only through providing arguments for social movements and institutionalized politics, but also by intervening in the debates themselves, and with academia itself being a central site of conflict: through publicly discussing language use and invitation policies academia is carrying out a discussion of public relevance about what is socially acceptable and desirable.
Beneficiaries (1)
| Organisation | Country | Role | EC contribution | SME |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNIVERSITAT WIEN | AT | coordinator | €183,601 |
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