Call for Applications: Irmgard Coninx Prize Fellowship for Transregional Studies 2015/2016

Application Deadline: January 10, 2015

Irmgard Coninx, Self-Portrait, 1927, Copyright Irmgard Coninx Foundation

In 2015, for the second time, the Forum Transregionale Studien and the Irmgard Coninx Foundation are issuing a call  for applications for the Irmgard Coninx Prize for Transregional Studies.

The Prize is awarded for a research project that relates disciplinary and area-based knowledge in an exemplary way. The prize consists of a research fellowship of up to ten month and the possibility to participate in the scholarly activities of the Forum in Berlin.

The Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien and the Irmgard Coninx Foundation invite postdoctoral researchers in the humanities and social sciences to apply for the first Irmgard Coninx Prize Fellowship for Transregional Studies.

In an age of increasing interconnectedness and globalization, cross-border processes and the mobility of things, persons, and ideas have transformed individual life worlds and whole societies. Exchange and interaction, entanglement and networks characterize our world. This requires a fundamental thematic and conceptual reconfiguration of the academic disciplines, which largely continue to analyze the world within the framework of nation-states.

The Forum Transregionale Studien aims to contribute to such a revision that includes curriculum reform, terminological innovation, and a rethinking of the prevailing narratives of social change. By bringing scholars from a variety of disciplines and from different locations to Berlin, the Forum promotes intellectual dialogue across fields of specialization and between area studies and the systematic disciplines. The aim is to arrive at a novel understanding of the interrelated processes that have shaped social dynamics locally and globally.

The prize

The Irmgard Coninx Prize Fellowship for Transregional Studies consists of a research fellowship of up to 10 months and is awarded for a project on a particular research question that in an exemplary way relates disciplinary and area-based knowledge in mutually beneficial ways.

The winner of the award will be able to carry out a research project of his or her own choice and to participate in the scholarly activities of the research programs and initiatives at the Forum. Like the other Fellows, he or she will be affiliated with a research institution in Berlin. The prize will be awarded by a joint jury of the Forum and the Irmgard Coninx Foundation.

Application

Applicants should be at the postdoctoral level and should have obtained their doctorate within the last seven years.  As a rule, the fellowships start on 1 October 2014 and end on 31 July 2015. Postdoctoral fellows will receive a monthly stipend of 2,500 € plus a supplement depending on their personal situation. Organizational support regarding visa, insurances, housing, etc. will be provided. Fellows are obliged to work in Berlin and to contribute to the ongoing discussions at the Forum. The working language of fellowship is English.

An application consists of

• a curriculum vitae
• a project description (no longer than 5 pages, including a brief summary) stating what the scholar will work on in Berlin if granted a fellowship
• a sample of the applicant’s scholarly work (maximum 20 pages from an article, conference paper, or dissertation chapter)
• a letter of recommendation from one university instructor (that can be sent as a separate e-mail).

The application should be submitted as four separate word documents or PDF files in English and should be received by January 10, 2015, sent by e-mail to:

Forum Transregionale Studien
Attn: Georges Khalil
Wallotstrasse 14
14193 Berlin
office@trafo-berlin.de

The Forum Transregionale Studien is a research organization that provides scope for collaboration among researchers with different regional and disciplinary perspectives and that appoints researchers from all over the world as Fellows.

In cooperation with universities and research institutions in and outside of Berlin, it carries out research programs and initiatives that examine other regions of the world and their relationship to Germany and Europe systematically and with new questions. One central goal of its work is to bring together the research perspectives of the area studies and those of the systematic disciplines in order to more closely integrate theory and local knowledge.

The Forum Transregionale Studien cooperates with the Max Weber Stiftung – Deutsche Geisteswissenschaftliche Institute im Ausland. The Forum is funded by the Land Berlin; its research programs and initiatives are funded by the German federal Ministry of Education and Research and by private foundations.

For more information, please see www.forum-transregionale-studien.de

The Irmgard Coninx Foundation was founded in Munich in 2001. In association with the Social Science Research Center Berlin and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Foundation organizes the Berlin Roundtables on Transnationality. The Roundtables provide a forum for international young academics and journalists to discuss the political and social challenges facing a global civil society. The Berlin Roundtables hope to contribute to an international discourse about the phenomenon of transnationality.

For further information, please see www.Irmgard-Coninx-Foundation.de