Each year the Frobenius Institut invites an internationally renowned researcher to give a series of guest lectures during the summer term. The lecture series is dedicated to Adolf Ellegard Jensen (1899-1965), who in 1946 was appointed Director of the Frobenius Institut, as well as Director of Frankfurt's Museum of Ethnology. The subject of these lectures is usually centred on Jensen's main research interests which were myth, ritual and cult. However, the invited guests are free to choose their own preferred subjects.
2010: "Kult und Kunst - Ästhetik des ethnographischen Archivs", Prof. Dr. Fritz W. Kramer (Berlin)
2009: "Lessons in the Anthropology of Nature", Prof. Dr. Philippe Descola (Paris)
2008: Nine lectures on the topic "The end of anthropology?": Adam Kuper (London), Ulf Hannerz (Stockholm), Signe Howell (Oslo), Maurice Godelier (Paris), Antonio Palmisano (Triest), John Comaroff (Chicago), Vincent Crapanzano (New York), Patricia Spyer (Leiden) und Mark Münzel (Marburg)
2007: "A Quest for Understanding: Eastern Indonesia in Historical and Comparative Perspective", Prof. Dr. James J. Fox (Australian National University)
2006: "The Making of Colonialism in Equatorial Africa", Prof. Dr. Robert Harms (Yale)
2005: "Amazons: Women Warriors of Dahomey in and out Africa", Prof. Dr. Suzanne Preston Blier (Harvard)
2004: "Colour of the Sacred", Prof. Dr. Michael Taussig (New York)
2003: "Social Anthropology: only a Western science?", Prof. Dr. Maurice Godelier (Paris)
2001: "Violence, Social Order and the Spectral State. Policing The South African Postcolony", Prof. Dr. Jean Comaroff, Prof. Dr. John Comaroff (Chicago)
2000: "Emotion: Experience and Expression - A Cross-Cultural View", Prof. Dr. Unni Wikan (Oslo)
1999: "The Anthropology of Imagination" Prof. Dr. Vincent Crapanzano (New York)
1998: "The Crisis of Presence: Death and Alterity in Amerindian Amazon" Prof. Dr. Tullio Maranhão (St. Paul)
1997/98: "Out of our Minds. Science, Ecstasis and the Ethnography of Africa" Prof. Dr. Johannes Fabian (Amsterdam)
