The Center for Critical Studies (CSS) gathers together the critical theories, analyses and practices that shape Cultural Studies research in Lüneburg. It anchors the School of Culture and Society Cultures of Critique research focus. And it serves as a space for exchange and collaboration in this area with others from across the university. CCS is a platform for existing research and a site for new initiatives in research and teaching.

CCS takes a genealogical approach to contemporary problems and lines of conflict, including: capitalism and crisis, ecology and environment, work and technology, coloniality and decoloniality, gender and queerness, media and truth, racism and migration, protest and police, production and reproduction, modernity and postmodernity, aesthetics and resistance, Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment, power and politics, the city and art, provenance and property.

The goal of CCS is not simply the assembling of wide-ranging historical and systematic theories and analyses. It also seeks to be a site for exchange; one that facilitates productive interruptions, opens possibilities for redirection, and aids in the development of new perspectives. CCS combines approaches from the social sciences and the humanities and is decidedly interdisciplinary. Approaches drawn from Sociology, Philosophy and Media Studies, History, Arts and Literature are entangled with one another, and with theories, analyses, methods and methodologies with less discernable disciplinary lineages.

CCS is involved in the shaping of research-oriented graduate education at Leuphana University of Lüneburg, including the Cultural Studies MA programs “Critical Studies – Arts, Theory, History”, “Culture and Organization” and “Media and Digital Studies” as well as the “Cultures of Critique” DFG Research Training Group and the doctoral research training groups of the School of Culture and Society.

The Center plans and hosts workshops, guest lectures, conferences, working groups, reading groups and discussions. It also serves as a point of contact and a site of integration for Fellows of the Leuphana Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and Society (LIAS).