Since October 1, 2026, Prof. Dr. Guido Kirsten has held a Heisenberg Professorship in Media Studies in the Department of Language, Literature, and Media I.

Every year, numerous new researchers join the University of Hamburg. In this series, we introduce them and their fields of research. This time: film and media scholar Prof. Dr. Guido Kirsten.

The University of Hamburg (UHH) is home to more than 6,200 researchers. Every two weeks, in the “Research and Understanding” series in the Hamburger Abendblatt, we provide insight into their work. In this installment, Professor Kaja Harter-Uibopuu explores what inscriptions can tell us beyond the words they preserve.

A total of 929 Quran manuscripts dating from the 7th to the 11th centuries A.D. were discovered in 1973 in the Great Mosque of Sanaa (Yemen). Researchers from the University of Hamburg and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin can now examine the manuscripts for insights into their origins and production as part of a long-term...

In the 1670s, the Swedish polymath Olof Rudbeck the Elder attempted to prove that the utopian places described in classical mythology were located in Scandinavia. Dr. Bernhard Schirg of the University of Hamburg followed in Rudbeck’s footsteps and traces his imaginary geography in his film “Frozen Atlantis – Seeking Wonder...

Dr. Sophia Dege-Müller of the University of Hamburg has been awarded a Starting Grant from the European Research Council. The expert on Ethiopian manuscripts will receive €2.5 million—one million more than previous grant recipients.