[spectre] 10 Postdoc Fellowships in Berlin / Summer Academy in Beirut

[Geert Lovink]

> Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:36:30 +0100
> From: "Europe in the Middle East; The Middle East in Europe" 
> <ch at wiko-berlin.de>
> To: fellows05 at wiko-berlin.de
> Subject: grants: 10 Postdoc Fellowships in Berlin / Summer Academy in 
> Beirut
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> Please find enclosed below as well as attached
> in a PDF format two announcements for
>
> 1) 10 Postdoctoral Fellowships for the research program
> EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE EAST; THE MIDDLE EAST IN EUROPE
> for the academic year 2006/7 in Berlin and
>
> 2)  an International Summer Academy on the theme
> TRAVELLING TRADITIONS:
> COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON NEAR EASTERN LITERATURES
> that will take from October 2 to October 13 at the AUB
> in Beirut.
>
> I kindly ask you to spread the information about
> the fellowships and the summer academy among scholars
> interested in the methodological perspective of dealing
> with cultures, not as closed entities or polarities,
> but by looking at processes of transfer, exchange,
> and interaction between Europe and the Middle East in
> the sense of entangled or shared histories and cultures.
>
> We would be grateful if you could post the announcements
> at your institution and circulate it, also per email,
> among young colleagues and scholars who you think would
> be qualified and interested in applying for the postdoc-
> fellowships or the Summer Academy.
>
> Europe in the Middle East; The Middle East in Europe is
> a new research program of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy
> of Sciences, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and the Wissen-
> schaftskolleg zu Berlin which builds upon the previous
> work of the Working Group Modernity and Islam. For more
> information on the new program please visit:
>
> http://www.wiko-berlin.de/kolleg/projekte/AKMI/?hpl=2
>
> With my best regards
> Georges Khalil
> PS Apologies for double postings.
>
> CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
> 10 POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS
>
> The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the Fritz
> Thyssen Foundation and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
> invite scholars to apply for ten postdoctoral fellowships
> for the program
> EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE EAST; THE MIDDLE EAST IN EUROPE
>
> This research program seeks to rethink key concepts and
> premises that divide Europe from the Middle East. The pro-
> ject draws on the international expertise of scholars in
> and outside of Germany and is embedded in university and
> extra-university research institutions in Berlin. It
> supports and rests upon the following four interconnected
> research fields:
>
> - Cities Compared: Cosmopolitanism in the Mediterranean
> and Adjacent Regions - directed by Ulrike Freitag and
> Nora Lafi (both Centre for Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin)
> - contributes to the debate on cosmopolitanism and civil
> society from the historical experience of conviviality and
> socio-cultural, ethnic, and religious differences in the
> cities around the Mediterranean;
>
> - Islamic Discourse Contested: Middle Eastern and European
> Perspectives - directed by Gudrun Krämer (Institute for
> Islamic Studies, Free University Berlin) - analyzes modern
> Middle Eastern thought and discourses in the framework of
> theories of multiple or reflexive modernities;
>
> - Perspectives on the Qur'an: Negotiating Different Views
> of a Shared History - directed by Angelika Neuwirth (Seminar
> for Arabic Studies, Free University Berlin) and Stefan Wild
> (Bonn University) - situates the foundational text of Islam
> within the religious landscape of Late Antiquity and combines
> a historicization of its genesis with its reception and
> perception in Europe and the Middle East;
>
> - Travelling Traditions: Comparative Perspectives on Near
> Eastern Literatures - directed by Friederike Pannewick
> (Oslo University) and Samah Selim (Wissenschaftskolleg
> zu Berlin) -reassesses literary entanglements and processes
> of canonization between Europe and the Middle East.
>
> The program 'Europe in the Middle East; the Middle East in Europe'
> is funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation; it supports
> historical-critical philology, rigorous engagement with
> the literatures of the Middle East and their histories,
> the social history of cities and the study of Middle Eastern
> political and philosophical thought (Christian, Jewish,
> Muslim, and secular) as central fields of research not
> only for area or cultural studies, but also for European
> intellectual history and academic disciplines. The program
> explores modernity as a reflexive and polyvalent historical
> space and conceptual frame. The program puts forward three
> programmatic ideas:
>
> 1) support for research that demonstrates the rich and
> complex historical legacies between Europe and the Middle East;
> 2) a re-examination of genealogical notions of mythical
> 'beginnings', 'origins', and 'purity' in relation to culture
> and society; and
> 3) an attempt to contribute to the rethinking of key concepts
> of a common modernity in light of today's perspective on cultural,
> social, and political entanglements that supersede rigid
> identity discourses, national, cultural or regional canons
> and epistemologies established in the world of the nineteenth century.
>
> PREREQUISITES FOR APPLICATION
>
> The fellowships are intended above all for scholars of
> History, Literature, Philology, Political Philosophy,
> Religion and Sociology from the Middle East who want to
> carry out their research projects in connection with the
> Berlin program. Fellows gain the opportunity to pursue
> research projects of their choice within the framework of
> one of the above-mentioned four research fields and
> connected to the program 'Europe in the Middle East;
> the Middle East in Europe' as a whole. In Berlin, they
> will be integrated in a university or extra-university
> research institute.
> Fellows will receive a monthly stipend of EUR 1,800
> (supplement for married Fellows: EUR 250) and are obligated
> to work in Berlin and to help shape the seminars and working
> discussions related to their research field.
> As a rule, the fellowships begin on 1 October 2006 and
> end on 31 July 2007. The applicant's doctorate should have
> been completed no earlier than 1998. An application should
> be made in explicit relation to one of the four research
> fields and consist of a curriculum vitae, a 2 to 4-page
> project sketch, a sample of scholarly work (maximum 20 pages
> from an article, conference paper, or dissertation chapter)
> and an evaluation by one university instructor. It should
> be submitted in English and received by 10 April 2006, sent to:
>
> Europe in the Middle East; the Middle East in Europe
> c/o Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
> Attention: Georges Khalil
> Wallotstrasse 19
> 14193 Berlin
> Fax +49 30 - 89 00 12 00
> Email: khalil at wiko-berlin.de.
>
> For further information on the program
> 'Europe in the Middle East; the Middle East in Europe'
> and detailed information on the four research fields please see:
> http://www.wiko-berlin.de/kolleg/projekte/AKMI?hpl=2
>
>
> For information on the research institutions in Berlin
> participating in the program please visit:
> Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences:
> http://www.bbaw.de/
> Center for Literary Research:
> http://www.zfl.gwz-berlin.de/
> Centre for Modern Oriental Studies:
> http://www.zmo.de/
> Institute for Islamic Studies:
> http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~islamwi/
> Seminar for Arabic Studies:
> http://web.fu-berlin.de/semiarab/
> Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin:
> http://www.wiko-berlin.de/
>
>
> EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE EAST; THE MIDDLE EAST IN EUROPE
>
> INTERNATIONAL SUMMER ACADEMY
> FOR DOCTORAL AND POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHERS
>
> Within the framework of the research program
> Europe in the Middle East; the Middle East in Europe'
> the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the Fritz Thyssen
> Foundation and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in cooperation
> with the Anis Makdisi Program in Literature of the American
> University in Beirut invite applications for an international
> Summer Academy on the theme:
>
> TRAVELLING TRADITIONS:
> COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON NEAR EASTERN LITERATURES
>
> The Summer Academy is scheduled for 2 to 13 October, 2006
> at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon and will be
> chaired by Professor Friederike Pannewick (Oslo University)
> and Dr Samah Selim (Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
> It will be organized in cooperation with the Anis Makdisi Program
> in Literature of the AUB, the Orient Institute in Beirut and the
> Heinrich Boell Foundation Middle East Office.
>
> 24 young scholars will be given the opportunity to present
> and discuss their current research, while a group of leading
> scholars from the field of Comparative Literature and Near
> Eastern Literatures will act as tutors. The Summer Academy
> will focus on comparativist approaches to the study of
> literature in and across the Middle East and Europe, from
> early modernity onwards, through the prism of three main
> and interrelated issues.
>
> The first section will explore modern canon formations in
> the larger regional literary traditions of the Middle East,
> and its relation to a hegemonic European system of national
> philology. Scholars are encouraged to explore the internal
> power of tradition building and its relation to the politics
> of historical memory and nation-building. As such, this section
> will emphasize the diversity of textual and critical traditions
> across Europe and the Middle East, and their anarchic potential
> in a modern field of national literatures intersected by strict
> notions of autonomous cultural identities. These questions
> aim to foster comparative perspectives on Arab, Persian and
> Turkish conceptualizations of literary 'renaissance' in and
> beyond Arab, Persian or Turkish traditions, while broadening
> and problematizing the term itself as part of a wider com-
> parative inquiry into Anglo-European intellectual history
> and cultural studies.
>
> The second section will examine the formative role of trans-
> lation and popular traditions in national literary histories.
> Here, scholars are encouraged to investigate the links between
> literary canons, translation and popular genres and to re-
> think established binaries - such as originality and imitation;
> 'high' and 'low' cultural forms -  that shape the study of
> literature at large. This section also takes account of the
> fact that genres are themselves intrinsically porous. Scholars
> will be encouraged to explore and question the formal boundaries
> between what are usually considered distinct genres, like fiction,
> drama and prose poetry, as well the mobility of literary genres
> across related cultural media, such as film and theatrical
> performance.
>
> The third section focuses on the links between canon-formation
> and historical transformations in literary criticism and theory.
> Comparative histories of literary criticism would be of particular
> interest. How does literary theory travel across cultural,
> linguistic and discursive borders? Such movements into new
> locations are often distorted and impeded because they necessarily
> involve processes of representation and institutionalization
> different from those at the place of origin.
> The complex north/south itineraries of postmodernism and post-
> colonialism, as well as Marxist and feminist theory are of
> particular interest in this context.
>
> The Summer Academy is supported within the overall framework
> of the research program
> 'Europe in the Middle East; the Middle East in Europe'
> (funded by the German Fritz Thyssen Foundation), which focuses
> on the diverse processes of transfer, exchange, and interaction
> between Europe and the Middle East.
>
> CONDITIONS OF APPLICATION
>
> Participants receive a stipend covering travel and accommodation
> expenses. The program addresses doctoral and postdoctoral
> researchers in Comparative Literature, Middle Eastern and
> other Philologies, and historians, anthropologists, and
> sociologists with an interest in literary studies and in
> opening up Comparative Studies beyond the limitations of
> national or regional perspectives. The researchers' work
> should be clearly relevant to the theme(s) of the Summer
> Academy. The working language is English. The application,
> consisting of a curriculum vitae, a five-page outline of the
> project the applicant is currently working on, with a brief
> summary thereof, and two names of referees (university
> faculty members) should be submitted and received, in English,
> by April 21, 2006 31 to:
>
> Europe in the Middle East; the Middle East in Europe
> c/o Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
> Georges Khalil
> Wallotstrasse 19
> 14193 Berlin, Germany
> Fax: +49 - 30 - 89 00 12 00
> Email: khalil at wiko-berlin.de
>
> For further information on the program
> 'Europe in the Middle East; the Middle East in Europe'
> and a more comprehensive description of
> 'Travelling Traditions: Comparative Perspectives on
> Near Eastern Literatures' please visit:
> http://www.wiko-berlin.de/kolleg/projekte/AKMI/?hpl=2