Social cohesion has many facets. For example, “the Council of Europe defines social cohesion as the ability of a society to ensure the well-being of all its members and to manage differences and divisions by minimising inequalities and avoiding marginalisation, and to ensure the means to achieve the well-being of all.” Social media, among others, play a special role in our society - with both integrating and fragmenting effects that need to be systematically empirically tested.
At the same time, this correlates with questions about individual knowledge and skills, habits, behavioural styles and personality traits, but also about motives, goals and (educational) contexts, which can only be answered through cooperation between economics, sociology, law, psychology, theology, media studies and others.
Social cohesion has many facets. For example, “the Council of Europe defines social cohesion as the ability of a society to ensure the well-being of all its members and to manage differences and divisions by minimising inequalities and avoiding marginalisation, and to ensure the means to achieve the well-being of all.” Social media, among others, play a special role in our society - with both integrating and fragmenting effects that need to be systematically empirically tested.
At the same time, this correlates with questions about individual knowledge and skills, habits, behavioural styles and personality traits, but also about motives, goals and (educational) contexts that can only be answered through cooperation between economics, sociology, law, psychology, theology, media studies and others.
Annemarie Schimmel’s life and work has built bridges between East and West, between Islam and Christianity and has inspired researchers of religion around the globe. On the occasion of her 100th birthday, the Annemarie Schimmel Fellowship was established to give international PhD students and young scholars the opportunity for a stay at the International Center for Comparative Theology and Social Issues (CTSI) at Bonn University to pursue research in the field of Comparative Theology.
The Fellowship will support the CTSI’s goal of providing a space for exchange and bridge-building between various religious traditions.
A) For PhD students
What we offer
- 4-month research stay at the CTSI from April-July including working space, access to library, participation in events, and the opportunity to discuss your project with international researchers. You can use your stay to develop a full research proposal for a scholarship application or focus on a specific part of your PhD project.
- Participation in the networking activities of the Transdisciplinary Research Area Individuals, Institutions and Societies (TRA 4)
- Travel allowance depending on country of destination
- Financial support for visa and health insurance
- Housing in Bonn
- 600 Euros monthly scholarship to cover your daily expenses
How to apply
The deadline for application is 15 August each year for the Fellowship in the following year. Decisions will be made by the end of September. Please provide
- a 5-page proposal of your research idea in the area of Comparative Theology, including the concrete questions you would like to pursue during your stay in Bonn
Your CV - Contact details of two members of academic staff that would write a letter of recommendation upon our request
B) For Postdocs
What we offer
- 2-month research stay at the CTSI from May-June including working space, access to library, participation in events, and the opportunity to discuss your project with international researchers
- Participation in the networking activities of the Transdisciplinary Research Area Individuals, Institutions and Societies (TRA 4)
- Travel allowance depending on country of destination
- Financial support for visa and health insurance
- Housing in Bonn
- 600 Euros monthly scholarship to cover your daily expenses
How to apply
The deadline for application is 15 August each year for the Fellowship in the following year. Decisions will be made by the end of September. Please provide
- a 5-page proposal of your research idea in the area of Comparative Theology, including the concrete questions you would like to pursue during your stay in Bonn
Your CV - List of publications
Please send all documents combined in one PDF-file to lwiesenh@uni-bonn.de.
Find out more about the CTSI
Find out more about TRA 4
The University of Bonn Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs) aim to jointly support highly innovative, transdisciplinary collaborative research projects from researchers from at least two different TRAs. The funded projects should address new and relevant questions at the interface between disciplines or should aim at the development of new tools, which push the borders of existing research questions.
The innovative and cross-disciplinary nature of the proposal is the most important requirement for funding. A continuation of already established projects will not be funded.
In association with the Udo Keller Stiftung Forum Humanum and the TRA 4 – Individuals, Institutions and Societies (University of Bonn), the International Centre for Philosophy (IZPH) is offering up to 10 Forum Humanum fellowships to qualified doctoral and masters students from any department in the social sciences or humanities at the University of Bonn to participate in an event to be held at the recently founded Institute for Philosophy and the New Humanities at the New School for Social Research (NYC).
Researchers within the TRA 4 – Individuals, Institutions and Societies investigate how institutions mediate complex relationships between individuals and society and from there develop a new view of micro-phenomena (development of personality, agency, individualization) as well as macro-phenomena (world society, globalization). Sharing this research objective, the Institute for Philosophy and the New Humanities is founded on the premise that genuine knowledge acquisition, truth and objectivity are not the exclusive preserve of any single discipline or method. The concepts we deploy to understand and evaluate human cultural and scientific achievements also have to be placed within their broader social, political and intellectual context and therefore have to be approached from a truly interdisciplinary perspective. The Institute thus aims to bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines and draw on the resources of the social sciences, philosophy, and the humanities more generally, in order to pursue a collaborative understanding of the nature and goals of the humanistic and social scientific disciplines and to grapple with the challenges they face in light of the increasing prevalence of intellectual models imported from other disciplines.
Climate change, sustainability and ecologically induced inequality are recognized as crucial societal challenges of our time, both at the national and international level. Climate change in turn creates global, societal and intergenerational inequalities and thus makes an ecological transformation of economy and society imperative, which in turn must counteract a further deepening of social inequalities. Which institutional mechanisms are relevant for this and how can social processes be initiated and accompanied? At the same time, questions about individual knowledge and competencies, habits, behavioral styles and personality traits, but also about motives, goals and (educational) contexts correlate with this and can only be answered in cooperation between economics, sociology, law, psychology and others.
Annemarie Schimmel’s life and work has built bridges between East and West, between Islam and Christianity and has inspired researchers of religion around the globe. On the occasion of her 100th birthday, the Annemarie Schimmel Fellowship was established to give international PhD students and young scholars the opportunity for a stay at the International Center for Comparative Theology and Social Issues (CTSI) at Bonn University to pursue research in the field of Comparative Theology.
The Fellowship will support the CTSI’s goal of providing a space for exchange and bridge-building between various religious traditions.
DETECTING UNUSUAL CONSCIOUSNESS:
FROM BRAIN ORGANOIDS TO AI SYSTEMS
Bonn, 27–28 September 2023
Are some brain organoids, or sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) systems (e.g., ChatGPT 4) conscious? In some cases, it may seem so. But how can we tell? The Center for Science and Thought (CST) at the University of Bonn and the Epileptology Clinic of Bonn invite abstracts for talks at a two-day conference. The conference will focus on unusual candidates for consciousness such as isolated hemispheres after split brain or hemispherotomy surgery, and advanced AI systems (e.g., ChatGPT). The main aim of the conference is to explore cases and investigate what kind of (traditional or innovative) demarcation criteria could be used to detect whether an entity or its local states are conscious.
DATE: 27-28 September, 2023
VENUE: University of Bonn (Germany)
Sept 27. IZPH philosophy building: Poppelsdorfer Allee 28
Sept 28. Life & Brain Building (University Hospital): Venusberg-Campus 1
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Tim BAYNE (Monash)
Jonathan BIRCH (LSE)
Marcello MASSIMINI (Milan)
Elizabeth SCHECHTER (Maryland)