The Kolleg is named after Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), a prominent graduate of the University of Bern whose work combines different disciplinary strands within the humanities.
The Kolleg was funded in May 2015 in order to bring together the interdisciplinary centers, projects and range of courses at the Faculty of Humanities.
It is to be understood as a “Market Place of Ideas” with a laboratory atmosphere, a low level of institutionalization, and great voluntary commitment.
So far the Guest Professorship has been held by David Wagner, Joanna Bator,[2] Louis-Philippe Dalembert,[3] Wendy Law-Yone,[4] Fernando Pérez,[5] Wilfried N'Sondé,[6] Juan Gabriel Vásquez,[7][8] Josefine Klougart,[9] Xialou Guo,[10] Peter Stamm,[11] Nedim Gürsel[12] and Lizzie Doron.
Among its past speakers, the DLS has welcomed scholars such as Giorgio Agamben, Paul Gilroy, Homi Bhabha, Jacques Rancière, Judith Butler, and Alain Badiou.