[Bilimsel Haber] Call for Applications - 5 Postdoc Fellowship "Zukunftsphilologie: Revisiting the Canons of Textual Scholarship, " Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien

[Gonul Pultar]

From: Zukunftsphilologie

Call for Applications

5 Postdoctoral Fellowships for Academic Year 2013/14
(Location: Berlin / Closing Date: 15 January 2013)

The Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien invites scholars to apply
for 5 postdoctoral fellowships in the framework of the research program


Zukunftsphilologie: Revisiting the Canons of Textual Scholarship

Zukunftsphilologie is a Berlin-based research program, which supports
research in marginalized and undocumented textual practices and literary
cultures with the aim of integrating texts and scholarly traditions from
Asia, Africa, and the Middle East as well as from Europe itself. The
program takes as its point of departure the increasingly growing concern
with the global significance of philology and the potential of philology
to challenge exclusivist notions of the self and the canon.

The title “Zukunftsphilologie” [Future Philology] is inspired by the
1872 polemic between the classicist Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff
and Friedrich Nietzsche on the method and meaning of classical studies.
The program draws on recent calls for a return to philology as
particularly emphasized by Sheldon Pollock in his essay “Future
Philology?” and the late Edward Said’s essay “The Return to Philology”.

The program encourages research in the following areas: the genealogy
and transformations of philological practice, philology’s place in the
system of knowledge (e.g. its relation to science, theology, and
jurisprudence), philology and the university, and philology and empire.
Zukunftsphilologie aims to examine the role mobility, calamities,
expulsions, and natural catastrophes play in the dissemination and
globalization of knowledge. How does the mobility of scholars, books,
and manuscripts bring about scientific innovation (e.g. in tenth-century
Baghdad, during the European Renaissance, or during the Ming dynasty)?
What types of knowledge systems are also displaced by these processes of
reorganization? What transformations and translations accompany such
mobilizations?

Zukunftsphilologie is associated with and located at the Friedrich
Schlegel Graduate School for Literary Studies at Freie Universitaet
Berlin. The program is directed by Angelika Neuwirth and Islam Dayeh
(both Freie Universitaet Berlin), and is supported by an international
group of scholars, including Manan Ahmed (Columbia University), Michael
Allan (University of Oregon), Whitney Cox (School of Oriental and
African Studies, London), Ananya Jahanara Kabir (University of Leeds),
Marcel Lepper (Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach), Markus Messling
(University of Potsdam), Pascale Rabault-Feuerhahn (CNRS Paris) and
Nicolai Sinai (University of Oxford).


Candidates

The fellowships are intended primarily for scholars of the major
linguistic and philological traditions from Africa, Asia and Europe (for
example, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Sanskrit, Syriac,
Turkish), whose research explores linguistic practices and disciplinary
entanglements in intellectual and literary history, comparative
linguistics, philology, religion and the history of science. The
fellowships are intended for scholars who currently reside outside
Berlin and who wish to carry out their research projects in the
framework of the program Zukunftsphilologie in Berlin. Applicants should
be at the postdoctoral level and should have obtained their doctorate
within the last seven years. Fellows are given the opportunity to pursue
research projects of their own choice, provided the topic falls within
the research agenda of the program. Fellows are expected to participate
in the regular lecture series, as well as in workshops, conferences and
summer or winter academies, organized by the program and by the Forum
Transregionale Studien. The program seeks to create a context of
intellectual synergy, where scholars from various textual and
philological traditions can work together comparatively and develop a
common language necessary for an engagement in Individual research 
projects should fall within the intellectual framework of 
Zukunftsphilologie.

Projects should have a comparative perspective, whereby the plurality of
textual practices, polyphonic textuality, and the trajectories and
genealogies of philological traditions are explored.

Research projects focusing on intellectual debates, polemics,
correspondences, and transregional encounters are especially welcome. In
revisiting important philological debates, the goal is not to merely
evaluate the argumentative worth of these debates, but to reflect on the
wider cultural and political context in which these debates emerged and
how they have shaped our knowledge of the past. Moreover, an examination
of philological debates will shed light on marginal philological
traditions and undocumented intellectual positions as well as the ways
in which canonical positions were consolidated and normalized.


Fellowships

The fellowships start on 1 October 2013 and end on 31 July 2014. In
certain cases, shorter fellowship terms may be considered. Postdoctoral
fellows will receive a monthly stipend of € 2.500 plus supplements
depending on their personal situation. Organizational support regarding
visa, insurances, housing, etc. will be provided. Successful applicants
will be fellows of the program Zukunftsphilologie at the Forum
Transregionale Studien and Associate Members of the Friedrich Schlegel
Graduate School of Literary Studies. Through this association they will
be integrated into the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at the
Freie Universitaet Berlin and will have access to an academic milieu of
literary and philological studies as well as to libraries and other
research facilities.


Application Procedure

To apply, please send the following documents in English exclusively by
e-mail as separate word or PDF files:

— a curriculum vitae
— a project description (not longer than five pages), stating what you
will work on in Berlin if granted a fellowship
— a sample of scholarly work (maximum 20 pages from an article,
conference paper, or dissertation chapter)
— a letter of recommendation from one academic faculty. It can be sent
as a separate e-mail.

The application should be submitted in English and should be received by
15 January 2013, addressed to:

zukunftsphilologie at trafo-berlin.de

Forum Transregionale Studien
c/o Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
Attn: Georges Khalil
Wallotstraße 19, D-14193 Berlin / Germany


Institutional Framework

The Forum Transregionale Studien is a research platform of the Land of
Berlin designed to promote research that connects systematic and
region-specific questions in a perspective that addresses entanglements
and interactions beyond national, cultural or regional frames. The Forum
works in tandem with established institutions and networks engaged in
transregional studies and is supported by an association of the
directors of universities, research institutes and networks mainly based
in Berlin. It supports four research programs: Zukunftsphilologie:
Revisiting the Canons of Textual Scholarship, Rechtskulturen:
Confrontations Beyond Comparison, Global Prayers: Redemption and
Liberation in the City, and Europe in the Middle East—The Middle East in
Europe. The Forum Transregionale Studien cooperates with the Max Weber
Stiftung and is funded by the Senate of Berlin.


Information

For more information on Zukunftsphilologie, please visit:
— www.zukunftsphilologie.de

For more information on the Forum, please visit:
— www.forum-transregionale-studien.de


Please find the complete text of the announcement here:
http://www.forum-transregionale-studien.de/en/revisiting-the-canons-of-textual-scholarship/call-for-applications.html