Visiting (Tandem) Fellowships 2023

Application deadline: September 30, 2022

Against a backdrop of global political power shifts and faced with the environmental crisis and social injustice, the Joint Center for Advanced Studies “Worldmaking from a Global Perspective: A Dialogue with China” explores existing notions of “world” and approaches to worldmaking from transnational and transcultural perspectives. The Center is jointly organized by researchers at universities in Berlin, Göttingen, Heidelberg, Munich, and Würzburg. It is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

In order to promote knowledge exchange, dialogue, and cooperation between Chinese and German scholars, the Center has established a visiting fellowship program. During the fellowship period from April to August, the program provides several short-term fellowships at one of the Center’s partner institutions.

Within the framework of the Center, the project “Epochal Life Worlds: Man, Nature and Technology in Narratives of Crisis and Change”, located in Heidelberg (Prof. Dr. Barbara Mittler) and conducted in cooperation with the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society and LMU Munich, studies epoch-making moments of crisis, examining their emotional repercussions, their representation in the media and their institutional effects. The project investigates different narratives accompanying such periods of crisis of change—in the form of climate data and statistics on technical and demographic developments as well as in the form of cultural products such as music, film, literature, art and film. What effects do such epochal catastrophes have for concepts of worldmaking? Heidelberg (with its cooperation partners at LMU and the Rachel Carson Center in Munich) are inviting applications for fellowships with research topics that contribute to this broader question, addressing a relevant theme or sub-topic within this framework.

 

About the Visiting Fellowships

This call invites applications for visiting fellowships in 2023. The Center will be able to grant fellowships for one to three months for internationally renowned scholars with a Chinese (or Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwanese) university background. The exact beginning and end of the fellows’ stays are flexible and can be negotiated with the universities. Ideally, visiting fellows would team up with colleagues at Heidelberg University or the Rachel Carson Center in Munich.

The visiting fellowship comprises a monthly stipend of € 3.170 during the stay in Heidelberg and/or the partner institutions in Munich (plus family supplements, depending on personal circumstances). Additionally, international travel costs of max. € 1.300 and national travel costs for travels to other locations of the Center during the stay in Germany will be funded.

 

About the application:

Visiting fellowship applications are open to all senior scholars with Chinese (or Hong Kong/Taiwanese) university background (professors and postdocs). The project “Epochal Life Worlds: Man, Nature and Technology in Narratives of Crisis and Change” is open to all fields in the Humanities and Social Sciences but particularly encourages applications from the following fields: History, Literature, Art History, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Environmental Humanities.

All applications should be submitted electronically in one PDF-file to our coordination office: office[at]worldmaking-china.org

Application materials include:

• Letter of motivation
• Curriculum vitae including a list of publications
• Project outline (1 page)
• Preferred time and duration of your stay and preferred location (Heidelberg or Munich)

The diversity of our project should also be reflected in the fellowships. We therefore welcome applicants irrespective of their cultural and social background, age, religion, world view, disabilities or sexual identity.

Applications will be evaluated by the selection committee by November. All applicants will be informed of the outcome of the selection process in November 2022.

While we are still closely monitoring the ongoing implications of the coronavirus pandemic on the safety and mobility of people, we would like to pursue the fellowships as announced in this call.

In case of any questions, please contact Emily Tsui (worldmaking[at]zo.uni-heidelberg.de).