🇬🇧🇩🇪 24 May 2026. On the Towel Day weekend we had a festival to mark the 25th anniversary of Douglas Adams death: Which of his prophecies have (almost) come true? What do we need to watch out for? How do we best embrace his advice: Don’t panic?

🇩🇪🧒 10 May 2026. On Mother’s Day, we organized a parent-and-child treasure hunt with time for solving puzzles and laughing together, and lots of fun with numbers. We started in the Institute for Veterinary Anatomy, proceeded to the Botanical Garden, and had a third and final stop in the INSPIRATA.

🇩🇪 8 March 2026. 235 years ago, author and political activist Olympe de Gouges published the Déclaration des droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne (Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens), and it took almost 200 years for them to be implemented in Western Europe. On the International Women’s Day, we traced the long road to their adoption, and took note of the important contributions made by women in Leipzig — with notable interludes to discussion where we stand today.

🇩🇪 8 August 2026. In 1812 Samuel Hahnemann became a lecturer (“Privatdozent”) at Leipzig University. It was here that he developed his ideas on medicine, and where he gave lectures on homeopathy. He advocated for careful empirical studies of the effects of medications, and opposed the treatments commonly used at the time, such as bloodletting and purgatives. This makes him an important pioneer of modern medicine. In 1833, the first homeopathic hospital was opened in Leipzig, and exactly 175 years ago, on August 10, 1881, the Hahnemann Monument was inaugurated on today’s Richard-Wagner-Platz. In our tour we will explore Hahnemann’s contributions to establishing modern medicine in the 19th century, and we will revisit his sustained influence till the present day.

🇩🇪 31 May 2026. The School Museum is currently hosting a special exhibition entitled “Freiräume für Bildung – Schule und Architektur im Dialog” (“open spaces for education – schools and architecture in dialogue”). We are taking this as an opportunity to venture out on a tour exploring old and new school buildings, as well as classic, still relevant, and brand-new educational concepts.

🇩🇪🇬🇧 8.-16. November 2025. In the context of the „Tag des Vergessens. Und des Erinnerns.“ the class for Artistic Action and Research at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig contributed artistic interventions to the exhibition Forget it?! in the German Museum of Books and Writing. The interventions made use of research-based, site-specific, speculative, and power-critical working methods that question processes of remembering and forgetting from different perspectives. In doing so they also established references to thematic focal points of the permanent exhibition.

🇩🇪🇬🇧🧒 8 November 2025. On occasion of the first birthday of the WissensSpuren and the kickoff of the exhibition Forget It?! in the German Museum for Books and Writing we organized a KnowledgeFestival with hands-on activities, guided tours, and lectures. Together, we reflected what is worth remembering, what can be safely forgotten, and how to preserve what is important. And we discovered also some new aspects of the topic of forgetting.

13 September 2025. Climate change brought about the geological richness of the Leipzig Bay — and men turned it into a unique lakeland. On our tour we explored the traces of the climate history, and discuss the impact of human interferences.

05 July 2025. In July 1885 the second volume of Karl Marx’ “Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Oekonomie” was printed in Leipzig. In view of this 140th anniversary we took a walk along the WissensSpuren where we explore the impact and repercussions of Karl Marx’s works in Leipzig. We are very grateful that Jun.-Prof. Dr. Niklas Venema joined us on this tour.

20 June 2025. In this tour we explored the historical, cultural, and political dimensions of remembrance of scientists and the canonization of their work. The evening started with a talk at the Museum of Books and Writing. Subsequently, we walked through the Linnéstraße and the Liebigstraße into the city center. On the way we visit research institutes and collections, and discussed the achievements of some well-known and less-known researchers. Against this backdrop we exchange views about whom we remember and for what reasons.

20 June 2025. In my contribution to the Langen Nacht der Wissenschaften Leipzig I explore the biographies of outstanding personalities who covered new ground and broke through glass ceilings. Which scientists had secure employments? Which qualifications did they emphasis in their applications? What were they payed for? What about female researchers? What do I advise students nowadays — 5 years after the hype concerning the hashtag #IchBinHanna.

12 May 2025. We officially formed an association for the Leipziger WissensSpuren, and subsequently, we celebrated this achievement in the beer garden. We are greatful for our wonderful friends for their support and encouragement, and express our gratitude to the members who have agreed to serve on the steering board.

10 May 2025. We took a children tour (hosted in German) beginning in the Veterinary Anatomy building and progressing through the Alte Messe, arriving finally at the INSPIRATA: with lots of time for new inspirations, collaborative riddle solving, and mathematics recreation.

8 March 2025. 50 years ago the United Nations celebrated the International Women’s year, where they declared women’s rights, and addressed peace, education and development. On this occasion the tour revisited the agenda of the feminist movement and its important activists in Leipzig. We took a look back at the 1970s, and at Leipzig’s female Students, Teachers, Researchers, and strong women who contributed to the constitution of the Women’s Day.

8 February 2025. As concluding event of the studium universale, we took a walk through the city that addressed our blind spots: Which gems of our scientific knowledge and traditions are hidden on our daily routes through Leipzig?

In the winter term 2024/25 the studium universale of the University of Leipzig visited selected sites of the Leipzig Liberal Arts and Science Trail. We learned about the history of the places, and the contemporary research conducted in the places.

23 October 2024. In the winter term 2024/25 the WissensSpur is the topic of the lecture series studium universale of Leipzig University. In the first meeting, on October 23rd, we introduced the idea of the WissensSpuren and their new homepage to the public audience of the city of Leipzig.

2 August 2024. We had our first run of the WissensSpuren mit Kindern.