Kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschrift (KWZ)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Lars Koch
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies ; German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 495216256

The Kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschrift (KWZ) is published since 2016 by the Kulturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft (KWG), founded in 2015. Since the founding issue, eight further issues, including two thematic special issues, have been published. The journal's tasks are to promote research in cultural studies and to connect the transdisciplinary and international professional community by publishing high-quality German- and English-language contributions from all areas of cultural studies. Paradigmatic analyses of historical and contemporary phenomena and the reconstruction and initiation of theoretical debates form the thematic focus. In addition to essays as well as reviews and reports, each issue features a programmatic guest article by a renowned cultural studies scholar on current topics and controversies in his or her field of study.As the publication organ of the KWG, the KWZ aims to profile debates on cultural studies issues, theoretical approaches and methodological concepts in exchange with international academic discourses, and to critically and self-reflexively examine its own theoretical traditions in relation to theory imports. With this program, the KWZ has succeeded in establishing itself as a forum for interdisciplinary exchange and as a central publication venue for cultural studies discussions after the end of the first funding phase (2018-2020). The KWZ is published twice a year in an open-access online edition. The articles in the publication languages German or English are double-blind peer-reviewed. All articles are permanently available for download from the publisher's website (https://sciendo.com/journal/KWG) as well as from the KWZ's own homepage (https://kulturwissenschaftlichezeitschrift.de/).At the beginning of 2022, there will be a 'relaunch' of the KWZ with the relocation of the journal from the publishing house De Gruyter/Sciendo to Felix Meiner Verlag. As this publisher’s first purely OA journal it will take on a pioneering role for digitization processes in publishing. The synergy effects expected from the collaboration with Meiner should strengthen the visibility of the KWZ as a central publication venue for cultural studies research and contribute to the long-term sustainability of the discipline. The generation of an even broader impact is also served by the intensification of marketing, social media, and internationalization strategies planned for the second funding phase (2021-2023), as well as the increased provision of alternative digital and multimedia content via the KWZ homepage. By the end of the second funding phase (2021-2023), the increase in KWG's membership numbers suggests that the journal will be able to secure funding from its own resources.

• DFG Programme: Science Communication, Research Data, eResearch (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)