Classes offered by the Humanities have been part of engineering education from the very beginning. However, the role of the humanities has changed repeatedly since the founding of the polytechnic schools right up to the present day. Whilst technical universities initially followed the humanistic educational ideal in order to legitimize engineering in society and to compete with the academic self-image of universities, today the humanities and cultural studies are primarily expected to provide an ethical framework for technology and to ensure appropriate communication of scientific and technical projects to society. A historical reflection on this shift in meaning is essential for a current assessment of the position of the humanities and their educational objectives. The Department of History aims to engage continuously with these debates regarding its own role in teaching, research and public discourse.

Teaching: The changing role of the humanities at technical universities—and at Karlsruhe in particular—is a recurring topic in history courses offered by Désirée Schauz, amongst others, in cooperation with the KIT Archive for the EUKLID and LAS degree programmes.

Panel Discussion: Between General Education and Reflection on Technology? The Past and Future of the Humanities at Technical Universities

In 2024, Marcus Popplow and Désirée Schauz organized a panel discussion on this topic at KIT. Together with colleagues from the humanities and natural sciences at KIT and other technical universities, they discussed historical developments, current challenges, and expectations for the humanities within the specific context of technical universities.

Panel Discussion: Between General Education and Reflection on Technology? The Past and Future of the Humanities at Technical Universities (Video Recording)

German-Indian Research and Teaching Collaboration

Between 2023 and 2026, Désirée Schauz was collaboration partner in the project “Public Humanities and Pedagogy in the Global South: Challenges and Directions” at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science Piliani (Goa Campus). The project was funded by the Indian government as part of the “Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration.”
One of the initial outcomes wasis the collaborative development of the course 'The Sciences and the Humanities: Two Cultures?’, which was delivered in the winter of 2025 and spring of 2026 at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science Piliani (Goa Campus) with the participation of the German cooperation partners.

Link to the publication

As part of the project, Utsarjana Mutsuddi a PhD student from BITS Piliani (Goa Campus), was a visiting scholar at the Department of History. Her research focused on issues relating to the teaching of the humanities and the range of courses on offer in the natural and technical sciences at various universities and colleges in Karlsruhe.