The ZfL is a humanities institute for literary studies in interdisciplinary contexts that draw from a cultural studies framework. In contrast to the study of literature at universities, predominantly organized by nationality, the ZfL fosters a broad concept of literature. It uses interdisciplinary tools to fundamentally question the etiology of various literary concepts, their potential for the future, and the relationship between literature and other arts or cultural practices.
The ZfL is the FID AVL's most prominent open access collaboration partner: After a "moving wall" of three years, all of the ZfL' edited volumes are archived on CompaRe that had been published by the publishing houses Fink and Kadmos. The open access series Interjekte and Forum Interdisziplinäre Begriffsgeschichte are archived on CompaRe as well. Furthermore, the ZfL was granted access to edit the Networking module in order to communicate its research activities. The Twitter channel @AVLdigital is jointly maintained by the FID AVL and the ZfL library, whose catalogue is planned to be integrated to the Finding literature module's search index.