Times of global crises, worldwide transformation processes and political power shifts draw our attention to notions of “world”: How are “worlds” created; how do notions of “world” change? By addressing these issues, the project calls for perspectives which deliberately counter resurgent Eurocentrism (although they may run under the label of the ‘global’) through a change of perspective, namely the engagement with China.

Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) since November 2020, the Joint Center is characterized by its highly integrated network system. It brings together scholarly teams from Freie Universität Berlin, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität München and Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. In close collaboration with German and Chinese researchers from various disciplines, these teams investigate existing notions of “world” and practices of “worldmaking” from different angles.