School I - Humanities

© TU Berlin/ Böck

After the National Socialist era and following the end of World War II, Berlin’s Technische Hochschule was restructured and reopened as the "Technische Universität" in 1946, at which time a School of the Humanities was also established. The aim was to direct technological knowledge towards a new horizon in humanistic values. Today, the humanities are also charged with the task of building bridges between the culture of knowledge in the humanities and that of the technical and natural sciences. Since 2004, School course content has been restructured in order to meet this challenge and to strengthen links between the humanities and social sciences on the one hand, and the engineering, natural, planning and economic sciences on the other hand.

Compelling new Masters programs and an interdisciplinary Bachelors program "Culture and Technology" mark this new beginning. This Bachelors program offers a fresh profile of cultural studies that is specifically tailored to meet the needs of TU Berlin students. On the basis of its excellent core curriculum this program offers new opportunities in the form of research-oriented Masters programs such as "Philosophy of Knowledge and of the Sciences".

The cognitive and normative role of the sciences in human life-worlds is explored here. The Masters program "History and Culture of Science and Technology" inquires into the historical genesis of our modern technico-scientific world.

The Masters program "Art History and Art Technology" focuses on researching, preserving and passing on Europe’s artistic and architectural legacy. The Masters Program "Historical Urban Studies" investigates how the spaces of urban life have become the locus of the modern history of civilization. Both these Master of Arts programs exist in close cooperation with the School of Architecture, which is also a part of the TU Berlin.

The Master of Arts programs "Media Communication and Media Technology" and "Communication and Language", which focus on linguistics, communication, media sciences and German as a Second Language, are integrally linked with the natural and technical sciences, as well as with the exchange of this knowledge at a global level. The new practically oriented Masters Program "Educational Management" is taught within the framework of educational sciences, in order to impart teaching methods and organization techniques that promote knowledge and learning.

© TU-Pressestelle/Dahl

With these internationally networked, cross-disciplinary and praxis-oriented course offerings, the TU Berlin is focusing on the broad and increasingly important research and vocational fields relating to the social mediation and integration of values, sciences and cultural forms of knowledge.

With its "Center of Teacher Education" the School offers new Bachelor and Master programs for Technical Teacher Education (TTE), as well as for secondary and vocational schools. Here, our School can bring its long years of academic experience to bear. The "Center for Interdisciplinary Women’s and Gender Studies", in addition to the "Center for Study of Anti-Semitism" since its founding in 1980, are good examples of the international reputation that the TU Berlin has earned for excellence in the humanities. School professors hold executive positions in important non-university organizations such as the Berlin Humanities Centers in Berlin and the Academy of Sciences Berlin-Brandenburg.

The "Schinkel Center for Architecture, Building Conservation and Urban Studies" is an interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research platform that explores the development, design and future of our urban spaces. The most recently established research center at our School is the "Center for Metropolitan Studies" (CMC), an interdisciplinary and internationally oriented research association, dedicated to historical and contemporary problems of issues currently impacting life in a metropolis. The transatlantic graduate  research program "Berlin – New York" forms the core of this center. This is a cooperative enterprise supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), three major Berlin universities as well as two universities in New York. The host university is the TU Berlin. This is the first international graduate research program in Germany to be sponsored by the DFG.