Holidays are near

The semester is almost over and the summer break is approaching. Before everyone disappears for their holidays or the intensive writing phase, we would like to make a few announcements.

First of all, we would like to congratulate the 15 BGHS graduates who have completed their doctorates since January 2023. In chronological order, these are:

Sisay Dirirsa Megersa (History): Specters of Ethiopia and the National Question: A Global History Perspective of the Ethiopian Student Movement and its Postcolonial Sensibility during the long 1960s

Holly Patch (Sociology): Claim Your Voice: An Ethnographic Study of Trans*Vocality

Florian Kaiser (Sociology): The impact of formal control on delinquency during adolescence: Do formal control interventions prevent, promote, or have no effect on delinquent development?

Paulina Gennermann (Geschichtswissenschaft): Eine Geschichte mit Geschmack. Die Natur synthetischer Aromastoffe im 20. Jahrhundert am Beispiel Vanillin

Aziz Mensah (Sociology): Work- and life-related social determinants of health and health differences among workers across Europe

José Antonio Villareal Velásquez (History): Becoming a Plebeian Leader: Moral Careers, Life Stories, and Sociopolitical Bonds of Two Ordinary Persons

Takuma Fujii (Sociology): Die Eigenlogik der künstlerischen Felder und Mobilitätspraxen von angehenden Künstlern

Lisa Bonfert (Sociology): Subjective Social Positions in Cross-Border Perspective. How do Perceptions of Social Position Evolve in the Context of Cross-Border Migration?

Abrham Yohannes Gebremichael (Sociology): National Identities Versus Cultural Identities: Beta Israel Community

Jule Adriaans (Sociology): Distributive Justice: Definition, Determinants, and Consequences of the Justice of Earnings

Tobias Gehring (Sociology): Discourses on refugees in Ugandan media. Homogenization and silencing in newspapers of Africaʼs primary refugee host country

Karlson Preuß (Sociology): Die Erfindung des 19. Jahrhunderts im westlichen Rechtsdenken. Ein wissens- und professionssoziologischer Beitrag zur Rechtshistoriographie

Julia Engelschalt (History): The Great Obsession: Tropicality in US-American Colonial Medicine and Domestic Public Health, 1898-1924

Nele Weiher (Sociology): Identitätsbildung von trans*Migrant*innen. Eine empirische Analyse unter Berücksichtigung heteronormativer Machtstrukturen

Elisa Gensler (Sociology): Algorithmische Arbeitssteuerung und Arbeitsautonomie in Arbeitsorganisationen. Eine Untersuchung zu Gestaltungsoptionen, Bewertungen und Auswirkungen

We are very pleased that the BGHS was allowed to accompany you during the doctorate!

We would also like to hint to two events that will take place in autumn. In the last week of September, the Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) on the topic of “Understanding - the researchers’ perspectives and knowledge production”, which the BGHS is conducting in cooperation with six international universities, will begin with the on-site phase in Bielefeld. We are expecting about 20 doctoral researchers and 10 lecturers from the universities of Bologna, Helsinki, Jaén, Örebro, Paris Cité and Tel Aviv and are already looking forward to the exchange. The virtual phase will follow from October to December. You can find the flyer for the BIP here.

And there's something to celebrate this autumn: the BGHS is turning 15. To mark the occasion, we are organising a talk between BGHS directors Klaus Weinhauer and Ruth Ayaß and the future rector of Bielefeld University, Angelika Epple, about her visions and plans for graduate training on Tuesday, 21 November 2023, starting at 6 pm. Afterwards, four professors from Bielefeld University will discuss their personal and disciplinary perspectives on the topic of scientific understanding in an Interdisciplinary Dialogue. We have been able to win as discussants: Oliver Flügel-Martinsen (Political Theory), Marie Kaiser (Philosophy of Science), Lisa Regazzoni (Theory of History) and Tobias Werron (Sociological Theory). More information on the event will be available after the summer break.

Speaking of summer break: The BGHS office also deserves a break and will be closed from 11 August to 01 September.

Academic Award for BGHS alumna Isabell Diekmann

Caption: Martina Wild (2nd Mayor), Prof. Dr. Sabine Doering-Manteuffel (President University of Augsburg), Dr. Isabell Dieckmann, Jury Chairman Prof. Eckhard Nagel and Dagobert Ross (FILL e.V.) © University of Augsburg

On 10 August, BGHS alumna Isabell Diekmann received the Augsburg Academic Award for Intercultural Studies 2023 for her doctoral thesis, which is awarded jointly by the University of Augsburg and the Forum Interkulturelles Leben und Lernen (FiLL e.V.). In her doctoral thesis with the title “Good Muslims, bad Islam? On the differentiated consideration of hostile attitudes towards people and religion”, she explores the question of whether Islamophobia and hostility towards Muslims are actually the same thing. More information is available here.

The BGHS is happy and congratulates her warmly!

Isabell Diekmann completed her doctorate in 2022 in the Faculty of Sociology and is employed as a research associate in the working area Transnationalisation, Development and Migration.

Workshop "Reflecting on differentiations of affiliations in the research process"

On 19 and 20 October 2023, a workshop on categorisations and their effects will take place, organised by Dr. Katharina Leimbach (Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence) and Stella Nüschen (German Police University and BGHS). The workshop is supported by the BGHS. Under the topic "Reflecting on differentiations of affiliations in the research process", researchers will talk about their projects, discuss their own handling of categories and present and discuss related methodological and theoretical problems.

In addition, inputs are planned that will deal with theoretical insights into differentiations on the one hand and the research-analytical practice of categorisations on the other. We are pleased to welcome PD Dr. Marc Mölders from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Jun.-Prof.'in Dr. Dörte Negnal from the University of Siegen as keynote speakers. The workshop will be in German.

The link to the call: https://soziologie.de/aktuell/news/differenzierungen-von-zugehoerigkeiten-im-forschungsprozess-reflektieren

Many paths lead to a professorship 

There is no patent remedy for an academic career. In the online event “BGHS Alumni's Experiences on the Way to a Professorship”, six former BGHS members reported on their personal and concrete experiences and showed that there is no one ‘right’ way to a professorship, but that many different paths can lead to it. These paths can only be planned to a limited extent; rather, they emerge step by step. And precisely because luck and chance often play the decisive role, one should concentrate on the path on what one likes to do and what seems to make sense to one.

„Strategically, it’s probably best in the post-doc period to teach as little as possible and focus on research. For me that just was never so interesting because I always wanted to do teaching and research. It’s not the smart thing to do but I’ve never been much of a strategist. I think in this academic field […] the chances are so low anyways and if I start doing things that would look good on paper but don’t make me feel good and in the end I fail then it wasn’t worth anything.” (Sebastian Teupe)

BGHS alumni in conversation with BGHS coordinator Clara Buitrago:

• Bettina Mahlert, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck, Austria
• Edvaldo Moita, Professor of Public Law at the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Viktoria Spaiser, Associate Professor of Sustainability Research and Computational Social Science at the University of Leeds, UK
• Li Sun, Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, UK
• Raphael Susewind, Associate Professor in Qualitative Methods at the London School of Economics in London, UK
• Sebastian Teupe, Assistant Professor of Economic History at the University of Bayreuth, Germany

Paths to professorship

When asked by Clara Buitrago how they got to their current position, the researchers each told their own stories.

For Viktoria Spaiser, now Associate Professor of Sustainability Research and Computational Social Science at the University of Leeds (UK), the path led from the BGHS via a postdoc position in Sweden to her current tenure track position at the University of Leeds. She reported two important things along the way: her willingness to be internationally mobile and an intuition for what scientific topics will be important next in her field. This made her a perfect fit for her current position.

Li Sun, Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy also at Leeds, cited mobility and a fit for the labour market in the form of publications and presentations as important prerequisites for her career. As a Chinese woman, she was not committed to an academic career in Germany from the outset and has oriented herself internationally. Many of the tasks she was confronted with at the start date of her current tenure track position were new and unfamiliar at first. But she found people who supported her and says today: “Try to be open-minded to learn as much as you can in the first years”.

After completing his doctorate in Bielefeld, Edvaldo Moita returned to his home country of Brazil, where he is a professor of public law at the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro. Professionally, he is qualified for this position by a completed law degree and doctorate in sociology. Now, the legal rules for public service employment in Brazil are completely different from those in Germany or the UK, for example. Edvaldo told us that he had to take a written exam when a suitable professorship was advertised. This exam was then the basis for his recruitment.

For Sebastian Teupe, the only historian in the round and currently assistant professor of economic history at the University of Bayreuth, the restructuring of the department played an important role. He already had a postdoctoral position at the University of Bayreuth when it was decided there to strengthen the field of economic history by establishing an assistant professorship. It was a perfect situation for him, as he was already there and knew the conditions in the department as well as the interests of the colleagues. So he prevailed in the appointment procedure. A small drop of bitterness, however, is that his professorship is without tenure track.

As a single mother with a full-time job, Bettina Mahlert has already completed her doctorate under challenging conditions. However, her profile as a systems theorist subsequently helped her to obtain a postdoctoral position in Aachen, where she wrote her habilitation. At that time, she was able to commute between Bielefeld and Aachen because her son was old enough to manage on his own a few days a week. Her professional profile also qualified her for her current position as assistant professor of sociology at the University of Innsbruck (Austria). At this point you can see how tight the academic job market is: an Austrian assistant professorship is equivalent to the German junior professorship. Actually, these positions are supposed to replace the post-doctoral habilitation qualification. Bettina, however, only got it as a habilitated scientist. However, her position is tenure track, i.e. after successful evaluation she will be able to remain as a professor in Innsbruck.

Raphael Susewind decided early on against an academic career in Germany, which had to do with the difficult conditions in the German academic system, but also with his field of research, social anthropology. He applied for around 50 positions all over Europe and received two acceptances for tenure track positions. One of them was at King’s College in London, where he worked until recently. He is now employed at the London School of Economics (LSE). He attributed the fact that he prevailed in the application procedure not to his better qualifications or fit for the job, but to luck and chance. He emphasised that all applicants are very good at what they do and told us about his daily work: for an advertised position in his institute at the LSE, there are 120-150 applications from all over the world that he and his colleagues have to read and rank within about one working day. Fifty applicants are then perfectly qualified to do the job, and 20 of them are also a perfect fit for the institute. It is a matter of chance which of them will be taken on. That is why it is important to have a plan A - not plan B - in case the academic career does not work out. You can't just live for science, you have to have time for other things, for your family, for example. He says: “You need to protect your limits and your health”. Raphael also has two children and was a single parent for a while. He gave himself a year to find out whether the job in London worked for him in this situation - and fortunately it did.

„You do a lot of things that have nothing to do with being a good researcher.” (Raphael Susewind)

The professorship - a dream job?

The alumni made it clear that they enjoy their jobs and the many opportunities they have to shape them. But there are also very different conditions for this. While Viktoria and Li can devote themselves extensively to their research, which they see as a great advantage, other participants emphasised that teaching is important to them and that they enjoy it. However, it is astonishing how little time professors actually have for their own research in the end, especially when one considers that they usually get the job because of their own research profile. But as a professor you spend a lot of time on teaching and administration or management. It is important to concentrate on what you really want to do. That could also be teaching or involvement in self-administration or for the scientific community.

“There is like a hierarchy, an evaluation in the academic world like research is on top and has the highest prestige and then there is teaching and the third is administration. And we do not necessarily have to share this evaluation because I think people are different and there are different strengths and preferences.” (Bettina Mahlert)

Social aspects of the profession, such as giving students ‘development aid’, which in the case of first generation students can have an impact on entire families, as Edvaldo emphasised for Brazilian conditions, but also the writing of reviews or the development of a study programme obviously contribute in no small measure to the fact that the activity is experienced as meaningful. In most of the stories, the professorship did not appear to be a dream job, which is due to the tight labour market and the abundance of tasks, but it is obviously a job that gives pleasure, creates meaning and is experienced as responsible.

„Over all, it’s a quite entertaining position and to some extent you get this feeling that you’re helping people improve their careers […], an improvement that can help the whole family.” (Edvaldo Moita)

Tips for paths to professorship

The BGHS alumni named flexibility and mobility, preferably international, as the most important prerequisites for academic careers. These qualities are absolutely necessary due to the tight labour market. However, publications and, as a rule, a postdoc position after doctorate are also important for the path. One challenge is to develop a clear profile and position oneself in the system. A certain overview of the conditions in the system is necessary for this, which one can gain by participating in the system and exchanging ideas with others.

But other qualities are also useful, such as being able to deal well with rejection, because you will inevitably experience that. A certain pragmatism is also an advantage, which helps to get things done and to achieve good quality in the process, but not necessarily to strive for perfection. Patience and perseverance also pay off, because chance plays a big role in academic career paths.

„Be good at failing because you will fail a lot […] and take initiative.” (Viktoria Spaiser)

And don’t forget: Science is not everything! Being a professor is a professional activity that must also leave room for other things in life.

„Collectivise! […] Join the trade union, treat your work as work, […] not as your identity, not as who you are. […] The collectivisation also means be helpful, give care, build community, share ideas, share advice, share teaching resources. […] so that you can be proud of how you attempted to get there.” (Raphael Susewind)

Linie 4: What is behind a 'clan'?

Stella Nüschen (Foto: Private)

So-called 'clan crime' is on everyone's lips. But what is a ‘clan’ actually all about? Sociologist Stella Nüschen addresses this question in her presentation “What is behind a 'clan'? Communication about alleged criminal extended families, how they are constructed (and what for)” in the public lecture series Linie 4, organised by the BGHS together with the vhs Bielefeld.

Almost every day, the media report on dark deeds that emanate from allegedly criminal extended families, resulting in large-scale operations by the police and administration in response. But ‘clans’ do not only appear in media coverage, politics has also reacted to them. Approaches such as the “strategy of 1000 pinpricks”, in which controls refer not only to criminal law, but above all to aspects of commercial, hygiene and immigration law, aim to combat ‘clan crime’. However, it is still unclear what exactly constitutes a ‘clan’. Stella Nüschen will report on what staff, civil society and authorities who professionally deal with ‘clans’ and ‘clan crime’ actually understand by it and what problems arise from this understanding.

Stella Nüschen is a research associate in the research project “Kriminalität und Kriminalisierung von Angehörigen großfamiliärer Strukturen” at the German Police University in Münster. She has been doing her PhD on “The negotiation of affiliations in exclusionary contexts” at the BGHS since 2021.

The presentation will take place on Monday, 12 June 2023 at 6.15 pm in room 240 at the vhs Bielefeld, Ravensberger Park 1. The event will be held in German.

Here you will find information about Linie 4 and the presentations in the series.

Linie 4: Coffee and colonialism

Title page of the journal "Der deutsche Kulturpionier. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Kolonialschule Wilhelmshof", 1922, Vol. 22 No. 3

Coffee is one of many products that found their way into our German homes through colonialism. But even after the end of the German colonial period, coffee continued to be produced and consumed and colonialism continued by other means. In her presentation “Colonialism without colonies? The magazine 'Der Deutsche Kulturpionier' after 1919” in the public lecture series Linie 4, organised by the BGHS together with the vhs Bielefeld, Catharina Wessing uses the example of the history of coffee to look at the period of the Weimar Republic and its relationship to colonialism.

During this time, the German Empire had formally given up ‘its’ colonies. But there were many colonial enthusiasts who continued to pursue colonialism. This was also the case with the students of the German Colonial School in Witzenhausen, Hesse. This school had already existed since 1898 and trained young German white men to manage farms and ranches in the German colonies. Among other products, this also involved the cultivation of coffee. To improve the students’ networking, the magazine “Der Deutsche Kulturpionier” was founded in 1900. Former students reported there on their experiences and gave tips that were read by colonial enthusiasts worldwide.

Catharina Wessing works as a research associate at the Institute for World Society. She has been working on her doctorate since 2020 on the topic “Kolonial-landwirtschaftlicher Wissenstransfer in der Weimarer Republik. Eine Analyse aus globalgeschichtlicher Perspektive". In addition to all topics related to German colonialism, she is interested in intersectionality and post-colonial studies.

The lecture will take place on Monday, 05 June 2023 at 6.15 p.m. in room 240 at the vhs Bielefeld, Ravensberger Park 1. The event will be held in German.

Here you will find information about Linie 4 and the presentations in the series.

Paths to a professorship - concrete!

On 22 May 2023 at 5 p.m., the BGHS will host an online meeting entitled "BGHS Alumni's Experiences on the Way to a Professorship" with seven BGHS alumni who have already found their paths to a professorship or a position as a lecturer. With them are:

• Edvaldo Moita, Professor of Public Law at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
• Andrea Kretschmann, Professor of Cultural Sociology at the University of Lüneburg, Germany
• Sebastian Teupe, Assistant Professor for Economic History at the University of Bayreuth, Germany
• Bettina Mahlert, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Innsbruck, Austria
• Li Sun, Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, England
• Viktoria Spaiser, Associate Professor of Sustainability Research and Computational Social Science at the University of Leeds, England
• Raphael Susewind, Lecturer in Social Anthropology at King's College London, England 

In conversation with Clara Buitrago from the BGHS office, the colleagues will talk about their own paths to professorships and whether this was indeed a dream come true. They will also give tips on career paths in academic science and answer questions. The event will be held in English.

To register, please send an email to bghs@uni-bielefeld.de.

Linie 4: The dream of the "strong man"

Reich President Friedrich Ebert parading an honorary company of the Reichswehr on 11 August 1923, the bank holidays in the Weimar Republic (Photo: Georg Pahl, BArch Bild 102-10884)

Convinced republicans were a rarity in the military of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933). Most soldiers in the Reichswehr had a conflictual relationship with the state they had sworn an oath to. In her presentation "Von ‘Herrennaturen’ und ‘Eunuchen’ – Das schwierige Verhältnis der Soldaten zur Weimarer Republik" ("Of ‘Gentlemen's Natures’ and ‘Eunuchs’ – The Difficult Relationship of Soldiers to the Weimar Republic") in the public lecture series Linie 4, which the BGHS is organising together with the vhs Bielefeld, historian Carolin Kaiser explores the reasons for this. 

In addition to the origin of many soldiers from nationalist circles and an elitist self-image, she identifies another factor – the relationship between masculinity and politics. At the time of the Weimar Republic, the language of politics was often peppered with allusions to gender and sexuality. Thus the Versailles Peace Treaty was described as a "rape", its arms restrictions as "emasculation" and pacifists as "eunuchs". It was not only the National Socialists who dreamed of a "strong man" at the head of the nation. In the conflict between a democratic and an authoritarian regime that characterised the 1920s and early 1930s, the latter was considered the "manlier" option. Carolin Kaiser looks at the impact of this social atmosphere on the military and asks: Was the understanding that many soldiers themselves had of what a man and soldier should be like simply incompatible with the image they had of democracy and parliamentarism?

Carolin Kaiser studied history and comparative literature at the universities of Bochum, Stockholm and Tours. Since 2021, she has been doing her doctorate on the topic of "Masculinities in the Reichswehr. Soldiering and Gender in the Weimar Republic" at the BGHS. She is a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation.

The presentation will take place on Monday, 22 May 2023 at 6.15 pm in room 240 at the vhs Bielefeld, Ravensberger Park 1. The event will be held in German.

Here you will find information about Linie 4 and the presentations in the series.

Doctoral Thesis Award

© Kathy Baerg Fotografie

The Bielefeld University Society (UGBi) awarded the prizes for the best doctoral theses at Bielefeld University on 18 April. BGHS alumna Katrin Weible also received an award for her doctoral thesis.

In her doctoral thesis "Social citizenship for 'the poor'? Large N data construction, conceptualisation, and comparative analysis of social cash transfers across the global South", Katrin Weible addressed the question of what programmes similar to our social assistance, which have also been introduced in many developing and emerging countries since the 2000s, contribute to the social protection of poor and vulnerable groups. She will soon be taking up a position as a consultant at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, advising the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development on social protection.

The BGHS congratulates very warmly!

Linie 4: The environmental question - a 'hot potato' at the family table?

left: Anti-nuclear demonstration 14 October 1979 in Bonn (photo: Hans Weingartz), right: Fridays For Future demonstration 15 March 2019 in Berlin (photo: Leonhard Lenz)

How much conflict does the environment actually cause in families? Paulo Isenberg Lima addresses this question in the public lecture series Linie 4, organised by the BGHS together with the vhs Bielefeld. In his presentation “Attitudes to the Environment in Families - Generational Conflict or Cultural Struggle?” he looks at generational relationships and their potential for conflict on the topic of the environment.

Since the 1970s, the image of environmental movements has been shaped by the narrative of a generational conflict. The story of the 'young savages' taking to the streets against the environmental sins of their parents' generation is widespread and has also been reinforced by ‘Fridays for Future’. At the same time, the older generations are symbolically showing their solidarity with the young people of ‘Fridays for Future’ by founding ‘Parents for Future’ and ‘Grandparents for Future’. So is there a conflict between “young and old” when it comes to the environment or does the history of conflict run elsewhere? Using data from a long-term study that has been conducted regularly since 1984, Paulo Isenberg Lima gives an insight into his social science research work and the challenges involved. At the same time, the long-term perspective allows a look at which ‘hot topics’ have led to conflicts between generations over time.

Paulo Isenberg Lima has been working as a research associate at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence (IKG) at Bielefeld University since 2020 and has been doing his PhD on “The intergenerational transmission of values and its impact on societal cohesion” at the BGHS since 2021. He studied sociology at the Technical University of Dresden.

The presentation will take place on Monday, 8 May 2023 at 6.15 p.m. in room 240 at the vhs Bielefeld, Ravensberger Park 1. The event will be held in German.

Here you will find information about Linie 4 and the presentations in the series.

"Linie 4" - From 'Clans' to Colonialism

In May and June 2023, the public lecture series "Linie 4 - Neues aus der sozialwissenschaftlichen und historischen Forschung" (Line 4 - News from Social Science and Historical Research) will take place for the seventh time, organised by the BGHS in cooperation with the vhs Bielefeld. Four doctoral researchers from the BGHS present their current research in a clear and understandable way and discuss it with visitors to the vhs. The presentations take place every Monday from 6.15-8 p.m. at the vhs Bielefeld in Ravensberger Park.

On 8 May, sociologist Paulo Isenberg will begin with a presentation on attitudes to environmental issues in families. He will explore the question of whether the topic of the environment causes conflicts between generations or rather between milieus. On 22 May, historian Carolin Kaiser will focus on the soldiers of the Reichswehr, the army of the Weimar Republic, and their ideas of masculinity between the claim to power and castration anxiety. On 5 June, historian Catharina Wessing poses the paradoxical question of how colonialism without colonies could come about after the First World War. Using the magazine "Der Deutsche Kulturpionier" as an example, she examines how the authors of the magazine imagined a future for colonies. Sociologist Stella Nüschen will bring the series to an end on 12 June with her contribution on what so-called clans are all about and what the meaning and purpose of the talk about the supposedly criminal families actually is.

The four presentations offer a small insight into the breadth of academic research conducted at the BGHS. As in previous years, however, the main focus will be on the exchange between the young researchers and the audience at the vhs Bielefeld. Vivid presentations, clever follow-up questions and exciting discussions are intended to bring the University and the city of Bielefeld a little closer together.

Welcome Day Summer Semester 2023

::7 new doctoral researchers at the BGHS::

On Tuesday, 4 April, the BGHS Welcome Day for the summer semester 2023 took place, this time again in person at the BGHS. The BGHS directors Klaus Weinhauer and Ruth Ayaß welcomed the new doctoral researchers, who had the opportunity to introduce themselves and get to know the doctoral representatives and the BGHS office staff. Sabine Schäfer then introduced the BGHS training and study programme. We wish all new members a wonderful start to their doctorate at the BGHS.

New BGHS doctoral researchers and their projects:

Nadine Al-Bayaa (Sociology): Der „Kulturprotestantismus“ und der „Rest“. Othering in Diskursen des Deutschen Kaiserreichs

Kristina Bolender (Sociology): Soziale Folgen der Corona-Pandemie für Jugendliche und junge Erwachsene mit Fluchthistorie

Kübra Gencal (Sociology): Racism and Space: How do Experiences of Racism Influence Socio-Spatial Practices?

Ji Hong (Sociology): Artificial Communication, Complexity, and Temporal Structure: A Sociological Analysis of the Randomness of Algorithms

Patricia John Sanchez (Sociology): Die intergenerationale Transmission gewaltsamen Erziehungsverhaltens. Eine Analyse der Mechanismen des Cycle of Violence innerhalb von Eltern-Kind-Beziehungen

Anton Meier (Sociology): Nachrichtendiskurse in der Kultur der Digitalität – Kritische Diskursanalyse des Instagram-Tagesschaukanals im Themenfeld Rassismus

Elisabeth Strietzel (Sociology): The Production of a Climate Ranking. A Case Study of the Climate Change Performance Index

You can find the Welcome Day presentation here.

Two DAAD Scholarships awarded

Last year, the BGHS successfully applied to the Graduate School Scholarship Programme (GGSP) of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and was awarded a total of four scholarships for international doctoral researchers. The first two scholarship holders have been selected in the BGHS' established gender- and diversity-friendly procedure and have just been confirmed by the DAAD. Yukun Sun from China and Anastasiia Serikova from Kazakhstan will start their doctorate at the BGHS in the winter semester 2023/24.

The two young researchers prevailed in the selection process against great international competition. A total of 65 applications were received in response to the call for applications of the BGHS, 25 of which were considered in principle. Based on reviews from potential supervisors, six persons were invited to the selection interview via Zoom, where they presented their research project and discussed it with the selection committee and the potential supervisor. Subsequently, four persons were selected by the BGHS and nominated to the DAAD for funding, of whom the two first-placed will now receive doctoral scholarships.

The call for applications for two more scholarships in the GSSP, which will be awarded for the summer semester 2024, is currently running until the end of April. The call is aimed at international doctoral candidates, especially from developing and emerging countries. The maximum duration of the scholarships is four years. Click here for the call for applications.