The Department of Culture and Language is a broad-based department of the humanities.

We affirm that the human sciences, in all their breadth, are vital to understanding the world and helping it develop in sustainable and democratic directions. We explore thinking, actions, histories and cultures: examining peoples’ forms of communication and language as well as their diversity, faiths, and beliefs.

Our research spans multiple general research areas: history, classical studies, cultural studies, literary studies, the study of religions, language, and communication. We engage deeply with our core disciplines and seek extensive opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration – both within and beyond our department. We draw upon the Department’s academic breadth to provide perspectives on the complex challenges of society and of our times.

Our research creates value for society by generating new knowledge about our past, present and future. By analysing and interpreting cultural imprints and expressions -- both present and past – we foster deeper reflection on human history and contemporary existence. We contribute to a common future by preserving, investigating, and transmitting our cultural heritage. We also open new fields of opportunity by envisaging ways in which life and cultures can develop in the future.

In the tradition of the humanities, we strengthen societal development by engaging in critical, constructive, and creative thinking that challenges existing norms and understandings. Through our study of language, texts, signs, cognition, interactions, and technologies, we help to develop human communication and interaction. Moreover, our investigations of identity, cultural diversity, and inequality related to gender, family, ethnicity, religion, and health, contribute to an inclusive and tolerant society. Our studies of the relationships between people and institutions and their historical development are crucial to understanding the present and the future. We confront major contemporary challenges including the climate crisis, migration, global inequality and insecurity, as well as pressures on welfare societies, on the multilateral world order, and on the individual. Through our efforts, we aim to increase insight into such challenges, illustrate their complexity, and to contribute to solving them.

We strive for excellence in our research, our research dissemination, and our research management. We belong to well-established, top-level national and international research communities, and we contribute to research through the most prestigious conferences, journals and publishers in our fields. Our knowledge and output benefits students through our education programmes as well as the general public through lectures, podcasts, and expert contributions in the media.

The Department enables subject research and subject development in a wide range of humanities areas. This work forms the foundation of various bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes and master’s programmes. A brief presentation of the Department’s research areas is offered below.

These research areas are implemented in multiple focused initiatives under the auspices of research groups/programmes and research centres. These groupings can be both monodisciplinary and interdisciplinary; they can be large or small. In 2024, the Department consists of 7 research groups/programmes and 11 centres. 

1. American Studies:This area focuses on American culture, history, literature, and social conditions. The researchers examine American politics and popular culture as well as literary works and social movements.
2. Speech and Language Therapy:The field of speech and language therapy is concerned with understanding and improving peoples’ hearing and speaking skills.
3. Danish: Studies of Danish language, media, literature, and culture.
4. English: Research in English language, literature, culture, history, and society.
5. Organisational Communication: Studying language use and communication in all types of organisations from national and international (German- and English-language) perspectives.
6. History: Analysis of historical events, processes, societies, and cultures.
7. Classical Studies: Studies of ancient civilisations, languages, mythology, and literature. 
8. Cognition: Research into cognitive processes (such as perception, problem-solving, decision-making, and learning) in specific areas (such as organisations, reading, and technology).
9. Communication: This area spans digital communication, social media communication, health communication and clinical interactions, as well as political communication.
10. Culture: Critical, analytical research within current cultural issues and cultural heritage. Researchers work across disciplines with a focus on technology, health, gender, and communication. 
11. Comparative Literature: Analysis of literary works, genres, and authorships.
12. Modern Middle East and Muslim Studies: Focus on the language, culture, and history of the Middle East.
13. Religion:  Studies of religion, faith and rituals and their significance for people’s lives and society. 
14. German: Research on the structures and functions of the German language, as well as on German literature and history.

• Centre for American Studies: The Centre was founded in 1992 with the aim of promoting research in American culture, politics, literature, and history. 
• Centre for Culture and Technology: The Centre houses researchers who examine technology from a cultural perspective in close dialogue with society. 
• Centre for Human Interactivity: The Centre is dedicated to the ethnographic study of human language, cognition, and actions, focusing on the interactivity between humans and their ecological environment.
• Centre for Cold War Studies: The Centre was founded in 2006 with the aim of maintaining and strengthening research in the Cold War.
• Centre for Gender and Diversity: The Centre is a platform for research, teaching and dissemination that takes a cultural analytical approach to current issues related to gender and diversity. 
• Centre for Medieval Literature (CML): CML was previously a Centre of Excellence funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (2012–2022). CML is now continuing its research and activities under the Department of Culture and Language. CML focuses on medieval literature and culture from an international perspective. 
• Centre for Modern Middle East and Muslim Studies: The Centre conducts multidisciplinary research with a focus on the modern Middle East and Muslim majority and minority countries as well as transnational dynamics. 
• Centre for Uses of Literature: The Centre originates from a large project that was funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. The researchers are interested in how literature is used in society, for instance in relation to health, ageing, climate, gender, and education. 
• Danish Centre for Welfare Studies: The Centre was founded in 2005 as a cross-faculty research centre on the institutions, effects, and challenges of the welfare state in Denmark and internationally.
• The Hans Christian Andersen Centre: The Centre, which is based in the Odense Convent of Noble Maidens (Odense Adelige Jomfrukloster), works with literary, cultural and communication approaches to Hans Christian Andersen’s work, life, and cultural significance.
• The Henrik Pontoppidan Centre: The Centre works with the interpretation, dissemination, actualisation, teaching, and digitalisation of Henrik Pontoppidan’s writings. 

• Computational & Organisational Cognition: This research group focuses on cognitive science, including how people think, learn, and make decisions, as well as how organisations and technology affect cognition. 
• DaWS-History: The DaWS group examines the relationship between state and society with a focus on the welfare state, gender and family, marginalisation, state-market relations, etc.
• Empires, States and Imperialism: This group focuses on empires, states, and imperialism in historical and contemporary contexts. The group examines power structures, colonialism, and global politics. 
• Culture, Gender and Technology: The group explores the relationship between culture, gender, and technology. They analyse how technology affects gender identity, social norms, and cultural practices. 
• Heritage: This programme works with cultural heritage, natural heritage, and sustainability. The researchers investigate how cultural and natural resources can be preserved and disseminated. 
• Multimodality, Language and Organisation: The group examines linguistic and multimodal meaning-making in organisational contexts, including health, sustainability, and management communication as well as the role of technologies in organisational communication.
• Language, Interaction and Social Equality: This programme studies language use and interaction in social contexts. The researchers analyse the role of language in creating and maintaining social equality and inequality. 

The Department also hosts more than 40 major externally funded projects and multiple research networks. In addition, many of the Department’s researchers participate in projects and collaborate with external researchers and stakeholders nationally and internationally. 

The Department’s implementation of SDU’s strategy issues from a dialogue between the Department management, the Department Council, and the Department’s heads of research. All practices will be based on the goals formulated by the Faculty of Humanities for its research efforts during the strategy period. The implementation consists of a concretisation of the Department’s efforts on the following strategic focus points:

1. We will retain and recruit top international talent.
2. We will retain and develop outstanding research environments that foster the next generation of excellent researchers.
3. We will be world leaders in selected research areas.
4. We will develop research quality based on international collaboration and feedback.

In addition, SDU’s strategy for the provision of external research funding also plays a significant role.

We safeguard freedom of research at our department. The individual researcher defines their research topic and chooses their material and method (independently or in interaction with colleagues). Research quality and originality is ensured through collegial discussions, critical dialogue, and collaboration in the working communities of which the researcher is a part, both within and outside the Department. We believe that the mutual relationship between an individual’s self-determination and community-based, binding collaborations is a prerequisite for the development of excellent research and the retention of talent.

We believe that the strongest research environments arise when the researchers themselves have a significant influence on the establishment of the Department’s research groups and programmes, and when the groups are both stable and dynamic. The units must be of a size that enables the researchers involved to motivate, challenge, and refine each other’s work. Equally, researchers must remain outward-looking and open to collaboration with other units and researchers, within and outside the Department and the University, with a view to knowledge sharing, project development, and possible partnerships.

Several departmental researchers and research units are international field leaders. This is evident in the volume of collegial citations achieved as well as in the long list of distinctions, honorary awards, research grants, collaborations, and conference invitations that constitute our common history.

The Department’s aim is to ensure that the work of the research groups/programmes and centres nourishes a growing body of excellent research. Targeted, long-term, and ambitious plans for the development of our research must be recognised and supported – both by management and by colleagues. As part of ensuring the quality of our research and strengthening its impact, each research unit must continually discuss quality criteria within their research area – preferably with the involvement of external partners from the unit’s network – and conduct publication and funding strategy discussions. The unit must also be the natural starting point for developing projects and funding applications, so that the community supports the individual in unfolding their potential.

Concerning diversity and outreach: an academically diverse department such as the Department of Language and Culture requires a broad-spectrum concept of excellence. We must therefore work to clarify what characterises excellent research. One aspect of excellence is national and international academic recognition, for instance, through peer reviews of publications and citations. Another aspect is the recognition ensuing from having secured competitive research funding. Excellence can also be expressed through strong collaborations with leading international researchers and research environments.

At the same time, we must strengthen the importance and impact of our research in society. Therefore, we must co-operate with our surrounding society (both public and private actors) when the opportunity arises. Contributing to the development of society and the qualification of political dialogue through surveys and knowledge dissemination is also an important aspect of our work.

Membership of projects, groups, programmes and centres supports researchers in developing their work: from idea generation and networking, to visits by guest lecturers, to critical reading of manuscripts. Our heads of research (whether they head project groups, research groups/programmes or centres) are key players in this respect, and they ensure that researchers’ ideas are developed and challenged. They must pay special attention to junior researchers for whom mentorship will be most valuable. As such, we must also support the managerial development of the heads of research and ensure that they have room for manoeuvre to practice the academic management of the group’s researchers in co-ordination with the personnel manager. The heads of research must collaborate across their units and reach out in relation to external partners.

We are an academically strong and therefore attractive department, and we value the development of interdisciplinary collaboration. We are therefore also a department with many entrances and interfaces. We must strengthen the communication of our professional skills and qualities, so that the outside world knows about our strengths and job applicants know about the opportunities we offer our employees.

Our efforts to recruit new colleagues must be broad and targeted, nationally as well as internationally, so that job advertisements are circulated through networks and among peers, and so that particularly attractive candidates are approached directly. If we are to achieve excellence and ensure good collegiality, it is important that we are careful and ambitious in the recruitment of new colleagues.

The Department must have a well-planned onboarding process for all new employees, both Danish and international, in fixed-term as well as permanent employment. New employees must be offered mentors, and international employees must be supported in learning Danish. In the same way, the Department must continue to support non-Danish-speaking colleagues’ understanding of the Department’s practices, initiatives, and development, and we must help our international colleagues feel at home in Denmark. The experiences of our international colleagues are valuable in this context.

The research groups, programmes, and centres are the cornerstones of the Department's strategic development of research. Retaining and attracting talent requires that the units are ambitious, well-functioning, inspiring, and safe environments. Units and heads of research must be curious, inclusive, and challenging in their encounters with existing collegial research and new project ideas. This is particularly true in relation to new colleagues. It is the responsibility of the units, the heads of research, and the Department’s management to help ensure that new ideas are realised and that we have a dynamic and supportive culture of collaboration.

Individual employees must have an ambitious and realistic development plan for their career based on performance development reviews and other employee development activities. This applies to both permanent employees and employees in fixed-term positions.

For junior researchers, current employment should serve as a worthy preparation for future work, for instance by being included in the project development of senior researchers, or by being supported in formulating and leading projects themselves. Researchers must also be supported in translating their skills to fit the labour market outside the university sector. An intrinsic part of creating an attractive working environment is the will and capacity to help people toward their next job we can no longer house them.

Permanent employees must, together with their personnel manager, set goals based on personal ambitions and the Department’s needs and continually make plans for their realisation. This can be either with a view to development in the current job category or with a view to possible advancement.

Research units must initiate academic educational activities for the unit’s PhD students, and they must seek collaboration with related research units in this regard. By letting our research units handle part of the research education, PhD students are directly included in the latest research in their research area, gaining a network that can help them clarify their careers and secure their next job.

We must develop good practices for the inclusion of talented students in the research units – preferably through educational activities in collaboration with the heads of studies, but also via relevant student jobs in the projects.

Collaborating with diverse sectors of society remains high on our agenda, and we are happy to enter binding collaborations groups such as municipalities, the health sector, museums, and private businesses.

It is a special characteristic of humanities research that the wider public has a great interest in our findings, and we deem it vital to foster dialogue with our surrounding society and to disseminate knowledge – through lectures, media contributions, and collaborations with libraries, museums, schools, or other organisations. However, we recognise that the interest is often greater than our resources, and we must work on guidelines for prioritisation and remuneration. At the same time, we must work to build a portfolio of further and continuing education activities. We support lifelong learning and see it as valuable that the latest knowledge can be communicated to and incorporated by the many stakeholders in the surrounding society.

Every semester, a large volume of junior and senior researchers visit us. We want to strengthen these visits so that we ensure good administrative support in the planning and visiting phases. We also want to improve opportunities for our own researchers to visit other universities for shorter or longer periods of time for the purpose of knowledge exchange and collaboration. We will incorporate this type of visit into the 4-year plans for teaching staff, and we will strive to support such trips financially – either by helping the researcher with funding applications or by making a financial contribution to the trip.

In addition, we must begin more strategic collaborations with relevant research environments in order to strengthen our positions in the EU and the rest of the world.

External funding is essential if we are to realise our full research potential and raise our work to the highest level. This necessitates working strategically to realise both the individual researcher’s and the research units’ plans for funding applications. We aim to ensure that researchers have the necessary time to write applications. In collaboration with the Faculty’s research support unit, the Department management team and secretariat support the development and quality assurance of the applications, and the Department’s researchers are expected to support the Faculty’s joint peer review model, according to which the research support unit orchestrates quality assurance of the project applications. When possible, we want to collaborate with the foundations on the realisation of our projects, and we will continue to be an attractive partner in other researchers’ projects.