Uwe Johnson, who is widely regarded as one of the most important writers of the 20th century, studied at our institute from 1952 to 1954. In 2010, the Uwe Johnson Association was established in Rostock.

The most significant project of the professorship is the "Uwe Johnson-Werkausgabe" (The Complete Works of Uwe Johnson) of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, which has been granted funding from the academies. We are currently recording the writer's estate and developing a concept for the edition that merges the book medium with digital sources. Rostock students and doctoral candidates play a crucial role in this initiative and are divided into three working groups: Werkausgabe, Digitale Edition, and Johnson in der Schule.

The fourth working group, Wissenschaft ausstellen, concentrates on the theory and practice of exhibitions. Three of its members curated the exhibition Von Zuse zu Zuse (2011) at the Rostock Museum of Cultural History, which narrated the history of computer science in Rostock. This working group was also involved in the arrangements for the joint anniversary exhibition of the Hanseatic City (800 years of Rostock) and the University (600 years of the University of Rostock) in 2018.