German Research Foundation grants new Research Training Group
Seven Departments of Philology Research Literary Forms
Münster (upm), Mi, 28 Nov 2012
In order to strengthen the support of young researchers the German Research Foundation (DFG) has set up 23 new post-graduate programmes throughout Germany – one of which will be situated at Münster University. At the Graduate School "Literary Form – History and Culture of Aesthetic Modelling" the principle of Literary Studies is to be discussed anew. According to this principle, reality, as it is represented in literature, directly depends on the chosen artistic form.
Prof. Klaus Stierstorfer from the English Department is the spokesman of the research training group, in which seven philological disciplines are involved. The programme will receive two million euros funding. "Considering the strong competition and the amount of applications, I am pleasantly surprised," Stierstorfer stressed. Research training groups offer doctoral candidates the possibility to work on their PhD in a structured programme for research and qualification at a high level of expertise. The German Research Foundation, which is based in Bonn, is currently funding 226 research training groups.
The new research training group will be established under the umbrella of the graduate school "Practices of Literature" at the Faculty of Philology. The Departments of English, German and Dutch, as well as Romance, Scandinavian and Slavonic Studies, and Classical Philology are involved. A total of 15 PhD grants will be awarded to outstanding young scholars, who will have three years to carry out their dissertation projects within this programme. The new research training group attaches great importance to internationalization: its members will have the opportunity to stay abroad for three to six months at renowned universities which will provide expertise for their doctoral theses.
The German Research Foundation highlighted in their reasoning that the insights into the significance of fiction and form for the respective modelling of reality are not only present in Literary Studies but have also long since become relevant in History, Social Studies and Natural Science. The research training group in Münster is about to revive theoretical debates on the contributions of literary forms within Literary Studies itself.
Translated by: Alena Heisig, Simone Herrmann and Melanie Wegner
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