Cross-Cultural Studies (CCS)

The core research area of Cross-Cultural Studies is the study of language, culture, society, and religion from a comparative and global perspective.

The research is rooted in the latest international scholarship in fields related to the study of cultural encounters, religious and political conflicts, intercultural communication, minority/majority processes, multilingualism, innovation, urbanization, and globalization. These are fields in which asymmetric power and normative relations are often prevalent, and where complex patterns of human behavior, self-understanding, and dynamic negotiations of meaning play a central role.

The research addresses these issues from the perspective of a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology of religion, philosophy, literary studies, materiality studies, sociology, regional studies, humanities-based cultural studies, and history.

The research focuses on how people experience and organize themselves around the world in different ways, and on how cultural meaning is created, maintained, and challenged. It often takes its point of departure in the conditions of specific regions, with particular attention to phenomena and processes that occur across cultural, social, and religious boundaries within regions as well as between regions.