Graduate School launches new doctoral programme

Wide range of dissertation themes on religion and politics in eight different disciplines

The Graduate School of the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” launches its new doctoral programme to promote early-career researchers. The current funding phase will see 18 doctoral students from Arabic Studies, Jewish Studies, Philosophy, Protestant and Catholic Theology, as well as Political Science, History and Literature, participating in the Cluster’s interdisciplinary research programme. The students will conduct research partly in single projects of the Cluster of Excellence, and partly in their own dissertation projects, with the wide spectrum of themes including religious diversity in the Roman Middle East, violence in the Old Testament, and the rededication of buildings in medieval Spain (understood as characterizing cultural-religious conflicts). Research also investigates religious relations on the Ottoman-Habsburg border in the 18th century, the political influence of Protestant parliamentarians, and discourses on homosexuality in present-day Tanzania.

Graduate School mentors will welcome the new members of the Cluster of Excellence at a Welcome Day on 15 October 2019, when they will be introduced to the research programme and organization of the Cluster of Excellence. Founded in 2007, the Cluster is the largest of its kind, and among the oldest in Germany, as well as the only one that deals with the subject of religion. Around 140 researchers from 10 countries and from 20 disciplines in the humanities and social sciences investigate the dynamics of religion across epochs, and in particular the factors that make religion the engine of political and social change.

Conflict between religion and politics

The Graduate School offers doctoral students from the humanities and social sciences an interdisciplinary doctoral programme and promotes doctoral studies on themes from the area of conflict between religion and politics. At the same time, members of the Graduate School can participate independently in the interdisciplinary research of the Cluster of Excellence. In addition to seminars, workshops and conferences closely related to the research programme of the Cluster of Excellence, the doctoral programme also includes workshops to impart practical professional skills for careers within and outside academia. (exc/vvm)