Conception and Goal

The research training group "Law and Literature" supported PhD-projects, which provide crucial input for a national and international interdisciplinary discussion between law and literary studies. The research training program provided a focused introduction into the main research highlights in the field through renowned research fellows and guest scholars with special study modules, which served as a source of evaluation, critique and inspiration for individual dissertations. This research tranining program comprised seminars and lectures within the regular study program at the University of Münster as well as classes that were designed specifically for the young scholars of the CRC. All classes placed a special emphasis on interdisciplinarity and contingency with other research fields and they also supported the development of soft skills and further qualifications including a perpetual focus on career perspectives. In order to be able to address all interests of the respective PhD-candidates, the research tranining program offered a number of extracurricular classes geared towards practical experiences. On the one hand, all candidates were provided with a consistent structure that involved them in the theoretical and methodological foundations of the CRC and on the other hand, they still had the privilege to pursue their own projects and potential individually. This flexibility was the result of a close connection between all PIs of the CRC as potential supervisors and a complex structure that created the law-and-literature network within the CRC. The following aspects framed the research training program:

• efficient and extensive qualification within obligatory classes
• disciplinary competence with high interdisciplinary contingency
• large supervision capacity within two of the biggest faculties of the University; immediate access to supervisors
• support of former academic networks at the University of Münster and beyond

The research training group continued structures and supervision concepts resulting from the research training group "Practices of Literature" in Münster as well as the regional research training group "Law as Science." PhD-candidates had to submit extracts from their ongoing research on a regular basis to guarantee continuity to their progress and they receive an immediate response from the supervision panel. Such reports, which apply a general procedure to individual research, have proved highly successful and work extracts might comprise individual chapters from the works in progress, but also related papers and exposés.