The Graduate School promotes research in literary studies that is methodologically innovative through reflection on its text-, media-, and culture-comparative procedures. It is the only genuinely literary studies graduate school to have been funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments since 2007 and is located at Freie Universität Berlin. In the second funding period, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin was added as a cooperation partner. Here, too, the high graduation rate and internationality were praised. The award funds are needed to further strengthen international visibility and networking, for example with the help of summer schools or the awarding of short-term scholarships.