🇬🇧🇩🇪 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?

🇬🇧 23 May 2026. Stories about trips to the Moon and to the stars have been told from the very beginnings of cultural evolution — and presently humankind is (back on track) on its way to the stars. On occasion of the SteamPunk festival in Leipzig we explored how art, literature, industrial revolution, and scientific discoveries paved the road in this endeavor — and we contemplated what might come up to us. To finish off, we joined the SteamPunk picnic in the Clara Zetkin Park.

🇬🇧 19 April 2026 was the 225th birthday of the polymath and founding director of the Leipzig Physics Institute, Gustav Theodor Fechner. Tracing his life story, we followed the major structural changes of the university during the 19th century: The transition from a national constitution to a faculty constitution — and the establishment of scientific institutes in the faculties.

🇬🇧 7 February 2026. We explored new research on the benefits of diversity: Learning is enhanced when students tackle new concepts form a multitude of different perspectives. A team comes up with more diverse and better ideas when it involves specialists of many different disciplines. Ecosystems tend to be more resilient to external perturbations when they feature a higher biodiversity. How can our society profit from embracing diversity?

🇬🇧 11 Juli 2026. 200 years ago, Joseph Meyer founded the Bibliographisches Institut in Gotha, and his son moved it to Leipzig in 1874. The publishing house was known for its inexpensive editions of classics, encyclopedias such as Mayer’s Konversationslexikon, and as the publisher of the Duden, Brehm’s Tierleben, and the BI-Hochschultaschenbücher.

🇬🇧 12 September 2026. 250 years ago, Goethe and Lessing traveled to Italy, and Seume undertook a walking tour to Syracuse. The next generation of travelers devoted themselves to studying the plants, animals, and geological formations of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. What led to this change? What caused this shift in the focus of travel? Where are researchers heading today?

🇬🇧 6 December 2025. In our Christmas-season tour we traced along the footsteps of (German) Christmas traditions, and we examined their traces in Leipzig. We took a fresh look at the christian and non-christian roots of traditions, markets, music, and myths — with a golden thread provided by Eric Kaplan’s quest concerning the existence of Santa: »Does Santa exist?«

🇩🇪🇬🇧🧒 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.

10 October 2025. This tour addressed international students joining the universities in Leipzig. It was an opportunity to come to know each other, and it informed them about the contributions of researchers in Leipzig to the development of Quantum Mechanics and many other disciplines of Arts and Sciences. We also discussed challenges of international study programs, of living as an expat in a foreign country, and exchanged ideas about cultural and recreational activities.

09 August 2025. Time and again powerful political figures made deals that imposed their will on the nations of the world. On the other hand in the 20th century the American presidents also advocated multilateralism, like in the New Deal and upon establishing and supporting the UN — and grass roots political movements have resulted in some of the most momentous political changes. In our tour we explored the impacts of major political deals and societal developments on the inhabitants of Leipzig, and we discussed which type of deals are worth striving for.

7 June 2025. On occasion of the Wave-Gothic Festival and the accompanying Steampunk Picnic in Leipzig we explored how the industrial revolution and the accompanying scientific discoveries have been covered in science fiction and fantastic art during the past centuries. In this endeavor we were supported by Prof. Elmar Schenkel.

4 April 2025. We took a walk through the city where we explored gems of the history of knowledge and education that are hidden on our daily routes through Leipzig.

10 August 2024. We took a first run of the entire Wissensspur with team members and friends.