[Germany] The Scholarship for Doctoral Program - University of Mannheim
The graduate program “Globalization and Cultural Studies” offers doctoral students the opportunity to study globalization processes within a uniquely transdisciplinary context. As an interdisciplinary research forum, located in the Humanities Division of the University of Mannheim, the graduate program is designed to introduce cultural studies perspectives to the burgeoning field of globalization studies.
Within a cultural studies framework, globalization can be understood as an irreversible process that influences not only economic developments and inter-, or transnational political relations but also systemic developments, cultural dynamics, and diverse other areas of experience. It is a phenomenon which on the one hand needs to be investigated in its concrete manifestations, in such distinct areas as economics, the arts, literature and culture, politics, media, social developments, migration movements etc., and which on the other hand also implies a “new” or at least modified paradigm of observation. Do we see differently when we look at well-known events, developments, and artefacts through the perspective of global, transnational, or cosmopolitan networks of dynamic relationships? Does this require some form of “paradigm shift” or does it merely involve an extension of existing angles of description and research?
While globalization processes have been at the center of investigations in economics, politics and international relations as well as the social sciences and, furthermore, have come to take center stage in recent public debates, researchers in the humanities have paid scant attention to the phenomenon and the complex cultural, political, and critical issues it raises. The analysis of “globalization” - understood here as an umbrella term for transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, network culture, dynamic interactive and emergent systems etc. - within the framework of cultural studies and the humanities constitutes a field of inquiry yet to be explored on a wide range of levels. This includes research concerning specific and concrete areas as well as theoretical explorations that seek to combine models from literary and cultural theories, philosophy, the natural sciences, information and media theory as well as the social sciences. Such research is pertinent because, as several authors have claimed, in a post-industrial information and network world society, economic, political, and cultural developments have become inextricably bound. While economic and political changes can no longer be understood without taking cultural dynamics into account, cultural transformations have to be considered in the context of economic and political processes. The forms and functions of knowledge in a global system, then, are at stake and might well have to be radically rethought. Accordingly, the graduate program “Globalization and Cultural Studies†regards itself as an open and emergent project. It adopts an interdisciplinary approach while remaining based in a humanities and cultural studies environment. Participating disciplines include American Studies, English, German Studies, History, Media and Communications Studies, Philosophy, Romance Studies, and Slavic Studies; in addition, these fields will cooperate with the social sciences and the economics and law departments of the University of Mannheim.
Applicants should provide an exposé (up to ten pages) outlining a transdisciplinary research project that maintains strong ties to one of the participating disciplines in the Humanities Division of the University of Mannheim. The scholarships cover two years of studies with the possibility of a one-year extension. Fellows will be enrolled as doctoral students at the “Philosophische Fakultät.” We expect participation in the scholarly curriculum of the Graduate Program, enthusiasm for intense discussion, and the presentation of research results on a frequent basis. Every fellow will work with one supervisor and two mentors with which s/he discusses his or her ongoing work. Sufficient knowledge of the German language is required. Each scholarship is in the amount of 820 € per month and is paid according to the guidlines of the “Landesgraduiertenförderung” Baden-Württemberg.
Deadline: 15th January 2007
Open to:
applicants must have successfully completed a M.A. degree or the equivalent to a German
Website: http://www.phil.uni-mannheim.de
