The Research Training Group (RTG) examines the production and enforcement of truth between the 13th and 17th centuries. The RTG focuses on a period shaped by social, political, and religious dynamics, as well as by transformations in knowledge cultures, media shifts, and changing publics. During this time, symbolically generalized communication media became differentiated while their rhetorical-moral equivalents, as well as established ritual and institutional forms of validation, remained effective. Different forms and procedures of truth production conflict with each other here.
The doctoral projects examine how claims are asserted, enforced, and accepted—that is, what is considered true and thus supposed to guide speech, thought, action, and decision-making. On the other hand, the projects examine how processes and practices of truth production are reflected in images, plays, and texts. The focus on Europe and its early colonial contact zones is contrasted with an examination of China and Korea. Due to their highly developed written cultures and specific dynamics, these regions are particularly well-suited for comparative study.
By asking about the "constructed nature" of truth, we acknowledge that truth—even if conceptualized as given, unattainable, or eternal—becomes negotiable only through mediation. Truth must be asserted, and its status must be inscribed or embodied through media, which appears to be immanent to media.
Building on existing research on scientific truth, the history of institutional claims to validity, and the role of experts, the GRK focuses on the practices and processes of producing truth in relation to bodies, natural objects, and artifacts. The GRK views truth production as a set of procedures, actions, attitudes, and material arrangements in which human actors, media, objects, and spatial configurations interact. Bodies, instruments, tools, natural objects, texts, images, diagrams, architectures, workshops, courtrooms, and stages all play a role in asserting truth.
To structure the broad range of possible topics, the GRK focuses on areas of truth production and enforcement that are particularly characterized by a lack of evidence and difficulties in perception, recognition, and representation. Thus, while the research program is oriented toward the problem area of evidence, it seeks its subjects precisely where they must be asserted with greater effort. Several doctoral projects thus focus on areas that challenge truth-making practices because they elude observation to varying degrees and for different reasons. We label these areas with umbrella terms that address different forms of lack of evidence and, accordingly, position practices and material arrangements in three different ways: 1) the withdrawn, 2) the hidden, and 3) the new.
By examining how that which is established as "true"—and which determines future speech and action—is established, a central aspect of premodern culture is reexamined within an interdisciplinary framework. Furthermore, we believe that adopting a historical perspective can contribute to the current debate on conflicting claims to truth.
For more information, visit: https://grk2945.blogs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/forschungsprogramm/
In an age of fake news, alternative facts, and fact-checking, the truth has long since become a contentious issue—or has it always been that way? The GRK 2945 regularly presents case studies from various doctoral projects on its blog, "Wahrheitsdinge – Things of Truth." https://blog.kulturwissenschaften.de/category/wahrheitsdinge-things-of-truth/
Principal Investigators:
Thesis supervised as part of GRK 2945: Jan Seiwerth
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Last update: Jun 15, 2026