Scales:
Central developments in the humanities in recent decades have involved changing standards and criteria with respect to both the objects of analysis as well as the perspectives taken and methods applied. These include, for example, “deep reading” in the field of literature studies, which applies digital humanities methods to analyze previously insurmountable volumes of texts, and global history, which frees the study of history from the framework of individual national histories. Microscopically precise examinations of works of visual art have also instigated a paradigm shift.
The Research Focus “Scales” aims to gather together these developments under the question of the standards applied along with their rigorousness and fairness, explicitly including the normative implications thereof. The term “scaling” will be used to discuss current questions relating to magnitude in the humanities, which originate from the fields of natural science, mathematics and economics. Extending the focus to include the aspect of normativity, the first task will be to define the relevant terms more precisely and to create a toolbox for analysis. The second step will be to apply these tools to various case studies.