Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I have visited Tübingen before to give guest lectures and participate in the research work on the concept of proximity, which interests me greatly.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area? 

I have worked in Indigenous Australia for many years because it presents some of the most challenging and interesting problems for Australia as a settler nation that colonized peoples with a 65,000 year history.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. 

Today’s major challenge is how to live in proximity to the earth, rather than seeing human culture as separate from nature.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

I see myself as a precursory to future collaboration between the University of Tübingen and the Nulungu Research Institute in Broome, Western Australia.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I earned my Ph.D. in Occupational Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and my dissertation focused on activism among Black college students and how their engagement in such work impacted their health. I also have a background as an occupational therapist, and that work, along with my interest in activisim, informs my work and has led me to expand disability research among young people.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area? 

My research helps address ethical concerns in society that affect people with disabilities while also educating others to reduce discrimination and ableism in everyday life. I am particularly interested in exploring how various countries address the needs and concerns of young people with disabilities.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. 

People with disabilities deserve to receive healthcare services to meet their needs. Being aware of the ethical concerns of disabled people not only helps the intended group but also benefits everyone in society. By being aware of the limitations within systems, we can work to improve them.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

The College of Fellows is the perfect place to foster interdisciplinary collaborations with so many researchers coming together. The institute is a space where research can be expanded through the community provided by the College of Fellows as various experts come together to discuss and learn from one another.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at the University of Freiburg, working on Islamic philosophy with a focus on metaphysics and theories of human agency. During my stay in Tübingen as a Global Encounters Fellow, I will be working on a project on natural purposiveness and the concept of nature’s agency, with a particular focus on post-classical Islamic philosophy.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area? 

My research addresses how nature can be understood not as a passive domain, but as a dynamic reality endowed with forms of awareness and agency. What fascinates me is the possibility of recovering alternative metaphysical frameworks that challenge assumptions about the separation between humans and the natural world.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. 

This research contributes to broader reflections on the human–nature relationship that may enrich contemporary discussions on environmental ethics and help move beyond strictly anthropocentric models.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

The topic of human–nature relation, which is central to my research, invites interdisciplinary collaboration between philosophy, theology, and environmental studies. It also opens up opportunities for international exchange, as different intellectual traditions offer diverse conceptual approaches to shared global challenges. In this context, institutions like the College of Fellows provide a space for dialogue across disciplines and intellectual traditions. By bringing together researchers from different backgrounds, they create an environment in which new perspectives and collaborative approaches can emerge.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I like to tell people that I am a Bible scholar by training and political theologian or religious-political thinker by necessity. I am originally from the US and first became interested in the academic study of the Bible as it became a central source of American political discourse and identity posturing in the late 2010s. I have had the privilege to collaborate with colleagues in fields such as political science, law, and sociology to analyze similar trends on this side of the Atlantic and imagine ways in which religious traditions can be sources of democratic resilience. Thanks to the local funding of Baden-Württemberg, I can continue my research on the Bible and nationalism, which is under political pressure in the US, in partnership with my biblical studies colleagues at the Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area? 

A lot of my research focuses on the mutual influences of the Bible on politics and politics on the Bible, both in its original ancient west Asian context and in modern-day Europe and the US. In Tübingen, I’m working to push back on narratives that trace the origin of nationalism back to the Hebrew Bible, specifically to the book of Joshua, by instead highlighting how the texts are shaped by imperial ideals, especially conquest. What fascinates me is how natural it feels to modern Western minds to identify “nations” or political concepts like “sovereignty” in ancient texts. This is largely because the modern study of the Bible and even vernacular Bible translations, which became the heart of European religious and cultural identity, were themselves intertwined with the rise of nationalist thought, especially in Germany. So not only does nationalism subtly shape our modern political imagination but also the historical and religious discussion around the Bible and the very language we use to talk about it.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. 

With the global resurgence of nationalism and transnational far-right networks, the Bible is being coopted by both religious and nonreligious movements as a weapon of political consolidation. Conservative religious communities, who have been alienated by secularist politicians denying the relevance of sacred traditions today, are told that nationalism is the only truly “biblical” form of political engagement. In some cases, academic scholarship is being appropriated to bolster historical claims that the Bible itself is a “proto-nationalist” document. My work specifically challenges religious and political fundamentalist narratives, not only by correcting historical misconceptions, but by demonstrating how the Bible itself contains a diverse collection of voices who continually renegotiated and reimagined belonging as their circumstances changed. Similarly, as the same Bible texts have been interpreted differently throughout history – Joshua, for example, was used both for and against Apartheid in South Africa – interpretation can be a source of inclusion and discourse rather than othering.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

Tübingen has a unique concentration of expertise at the intersection of religion and nationalism, particularly between the Theology Faculty, including one of the only departments of Islamic Theology in Germany, and the Institute for Research on Far Right Extremism (IRex). As demonstrated through their collaboration in hosting an international conference on Religion and the Far-Right (29-31 July 2026), the university has the unique opportunity to spearhead the growing international interest in this area—both within Europe, perhaps in partnership with initiatives like the Oxbridge Political Theologies Conference series, and beyond, building on the Transatlantic connections of the German-American Institute (d.a.i.) to reach institutions like the Public Religion Research Institute, that have analyzed these movements in North America and are eager to share their knowledge. The College of Fellows, which already boasts a focus group on Far-Right Threats to Democracy, is the perfect venue to bring together these seemingly disparate organizations and fields to address the multi-facetted global issues around religion, democracy, and co-existence.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am an Earth scientist with a background in geochemistry, stable isotope analysis, paleoecology, archaeology, and environmental research. I defended my PhD thesis titled "Out of the Shadows: Reconstructing Mammoth Paleoecology from Underrepresented Regions of the Western Siberian Plain and Estonia, Eastern Europe", and I enrolled in the Teach@Tübingen programme, because this was a great opportunity to share the vast amount of knowledge in different scientific areas that I have gained throughout my studies.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area? 

My research, regardless of the field, has always focused on filling gaps in data and knowledge. My current research project is designed to try to shed a light on the 500 gap between ~7.8 ka  ~7.3 ka cal BP, and understand the extent and nature of human influence on local vegetation at the arrival of LBK groups in the Ammer Valley in Germany.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. 

The past is the key to the present. My project addresses a fundamental question in European prehistory: did the spread of agriculture into central Europe encounter pristine landscapes, or had Mesolithic hunter-gatherers already substantially modified the ecosystems that farmers entered? Understanding the history of our ancestors allows us to understand ourselves and where we come from, and to use this knowledge to understand how the landscape changes after human impact, and which changes are harmful and irreversible.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

I think that the College of Fellows provides great opportunities for researchers from various fields to connect, share their knowledge and get an interesting and unexpected perspective on their research. The College of Fellows creates a lot of workshops and organises lectures, and by doing so, researchers from different fields who may never meet each other during their professional life, have the opportunity to connect and familiarise themselves with the most up-to-date research in other distant fields.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

After completing my PhD degree in Portuguese Studies from the University of Oxford, in 2023, with a thesis exploring 20^th and 21^st-century feminist poetry, I stayed on at Oxford as a tutor, teaching Lusophone Studies at undergraduate level and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at master’s level. Subsequently, I obtained a half-year position as a counsellor at a mental health charity, where I discovered how to turn my cultural knowledge into practical activities for promoting emotional wellbeing. I am delighted that my current Global Encounters Fellowship in Tübingen has presented me with an opportunity to continue pursuing all of my interconnected interests. My love of the Portuguese-speaking world, cultural studies, and eco-feminism, as well as my newfound interest in the production of emotional wellbeing, all converge in my research project: ‘Eco-Utopias of the ‘We-Earth’ – The Multi-Species Co-Authoring of Culture in Portugal & Brazil’. In this project, I explore utopian ecologies and hopeful environmentalisms in Portugal and Brazil.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area? 

This postdoctoral fellowship is giving me the chance to broaden my intellectual horizons. I am exploring new avenues of inquiry and experimenting with new ways of conceptualising my research. Currently, I am preparing diverse papers which explore: (1) how cultural artifacts promote inter-species empathy; (2) how Azorean literature, especially the work of surrealist poet Natália Correia (1923-1993), represents island ecosystems; and (3) how Brazilian eco-poets convey the specific biodiversities of their home regions.

As our Earth experiences a sixth mass extinction event, caused by human activity especially in the Global North, I am increasingly motivated to examine the hopeful role played by culture in promoting species conservation and the rewilding of our imaginations. Much like a seedbank or genebank, culture is a storehouse for preserving the dreams and ideas that plants and animals inspire in humans. In this realm of creativity, where human intuitions concerning the inner lives of plants and animals also find expression, we can open a window from our world into theirs. This can help us to de-centre human concerns, overcome our species-based prejudices, and explore the value of empathy.

The intellectual possibilities which open up through such inter-species empathy – epitomised, for example, in the work of Rachel Carson, Donna Haraway, and Vinciane Despret, and indigenous thinkers such as Ailton Krenak and Robin Wall Kimmerer – are what most excite me about working in academia and the environmental humanities right now. For me, there is nothing so liberating as stepping outside of a purely human framework. Achieving this, however partially, makes me feel less oppressed by human social norms, less apocalyptically absorbed by my own species’ follies, and simply more curious about the kaleidoscope of alternative viewpoints and intelligences that are represented across the tree of life. Discovering new texts and films which speculate about how other creatures might think and feel, in as sensitive and non-anthropocentric a way as possible, as well as finding vegan art which refuses to turn animals into mere objects for our consumption and amusement, is thrilling. It feeds my curiosity and strengthens my hope further still.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. 

Socially-speaking, the increasingly digital existences we are subjected to by big tech and the ensuing reduction in life’s sensuous qualities have irrefutably negative impacts on our mental health. To counter our alienation from the beauties of nature, it is crucial that we reconnect with our animal selves. By exploring cultural representations of nature, ecocriticism opens our eyes to how artists, writers and filmmakers have already sought to reacquaint us with this suppressed human animality. Here I take inspiration from the lyrical philosophy of David Abram. His books The Spell of the Sensuous (1996) and Becoming Animal (2010) remind us that human beings are indeed, above all else, earthlings: just like any other animal, we long to experience our environments and bodies to the fullest extent made possible by our finely tuned and nature-loving senses. 

Any research on plants and animals, and how their unique life-worlds are represented in literature and film, also provokes us to think about another important aspect: how our societies are built to exclude and suppress plants and animals’ own needs and desires. How might we redesign society to give more democratic representation to the species among whom we cohabit the earth? How might caring for other species and nurturing their habitats, via rewilding initiatives, help us to make a more compassionate society in general? And what might we stand to benefit if we turned away from our screens and instead towards the captivating more-than-human world which surrounds us?

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

In terms of global cooperation, I am pleased to mention that one such collaborative initiative is already in the offing! Alongside my colleague Dr Dorothée Boulanger (University of Oxford) and others who represent a range of disciplines, from literature and languages to geography, history, and indigenous studies, I am co-launching a Critical Animal Studies Reading Group. This discussion group will meet once monthly on Wednesdays (28 October 2026 – 30 June 2027, 5pm-6.30pm UK / 6pm-7.30pm Germany). In view of our encouragingly numerous sign-ups so far, this reading group responds to an evident thirst for more international scholarly dialogues within the environmental humanities.

The College of Fellows is already helping me to promote this new research network amongst colleagues in Tübingen and beyond, for which I am immensely grateful! Accommodating scholars who have pre-existing friendships with fellow academics across the globe, as well as providing a space in which new academic partnerships can be forged, the College of Fellows serves as a hub for the international exchange and circulation of ideas. This hub allows Tübingen to become the beating heart of emergent debates across a variety of fields.

In my view, Tübingen, with its two stunning botanical gardens and its location in the Neckar valley close to the Schönbuch nature park, can make the most of its unique proximity to nature and abundant wildlife by consolidating its position as an international hub for the environmental humanities and sciences. The College of Fellow’s current and commendable focus on the theme of “Making Peace with Nature”, via the Global Encounters Platform, serves as an excellent foundation for a thriving research culture in ecology, environmentalism, and the much-needed greening of all disciplines.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am José Zapata Sevilla, assistant professor at the University of Málaga. I am delighted to join the University of Tübingen to contribute on my lecturing and research domains.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area? 

Why there is no financial integration in the European Union despite being a single market? Financial integration entails the “law of a single price”, meaning that financial products and services should have the same price regardless of the location of the transaction parties. Instead, there is currently a situation of financial fragmentation, where financial actors are strongly “home bias”, the jurisdiction of the subject matters to determine its financial risks and the benefits of the single market are underused. Moreover, this background persists despite the enactment of the “Banking Union”.

It is fascinating to join the discussion about the causes of such a intricated question and the measures to break the deadlock.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. 

The European Union is carrying out an industrial and energetic transition relying on digitalisation and the deployment of clean energies amid an increasingly complicated geopolitical context. This transformation requires large number of investments to fund it. Therefore, the future of the EU economic performance is tied to the scale and competitiveness of the European banking system. In this regard, financial integration is paramount to promote a banking system meeting the needs of the EU member states. 

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

Further integration at the EU level cannot work without taking in account the member states national needs following an interdisciplinary perspective. A breakthrough in this field can only occur after putting together the economic, legal and institutional factors affecting cross border banking activities. The College of Fellows brings together international researchers belonging to different expert areas whose ideas will inspire my research results.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am Associate Professor of Religious Studies at George Mason University in the US, with a specialization in Islamic studies, and with particular expertise in Islamic intellectual history (including Shii and Sufi mystical thought) and in Qur’anic studies. My ongoing work is focused on Islamic conceptions of “religion” as a universal category of human experience, rooted in the Qur’an and in classical Islamic thought, and my recent work also includes applications of the Islamic perspective on religion to interfaith dialogue and to addressing contemporary, global ethical challenges. During my stay at Tübingen, based at the Zentrum für Islamische Theologie, I am engaging multiple aspects of my research: presenting at and participating in a term-long Scriptural Reasoning seminar, focused on comparative Muslim and Christian readings of their scriptures; co-teaching a seminar on Contemporary Muslim Thought and Interfaith Engagement in the West; participating in a roundtable on the study of religion and contemporary ethical challenges; and engaging other scholars on my book project “Toward an Islamic Theory of Religion,” including through a presentation of my ongoing work in my lecture for the College of Fellows.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area? 

As a scholar of Islamic thought and intellectual history, I have always been interested in the diversity, complexity, and sophistication of Islamic religious thought, both its inescapable rootedness in the distinctive worldview of the Qur’an, and at the same time, its resistance to homogenization or uniformity. I am also interested in the way that the Islamic world’s intellectual history has been shaped by a dialectic between the needs of religious community for logical and practical understandings of its theology and law and the radical mystical implications for the meaning of human life and the potential for human spiritual and intellectual attainment inspired by the Qur’anic and Islamic understanding of God, humanity, and the world. 

In my first book, The Charismatic Community, I examined the way in which a set of early religious and political injustices became a catalyst for the distinctive and sophisticated theological perspective of Shiism, which has persisted in existence and in importance despite its minority status. In my work in Qur’anic studies, I have tried to show how the Qur’an – a scripture with a singular form used across diverse Muslim religious perspectives – has given rise to a breathtaking range of interpretive positions and has been the basis of a great diversity metaphysical and mystical developments. 

In my current work, I aim to make the intellectual developments and contributions of Islamic religious thought accessible to a broader audience, as a set of meditations and deliberations on the the nature and meaning of human life and its intellectual and spiritual vocation that can and should be part of broader human discourses on these topics.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. 

The diverse and (in some cases) provocative contributions of Islamic thought are still primarily known to Islamic Studies specialists, despite the fact that they can (in my view) be brought into profitable and generative conversation with other religious, philosophical, or ethical worldviews. Through both my forthcoming book, Toward an Islamic Theory of Religion, as well as my recent work in the area of interreligious dialogue and the potential contributions of some Islamic ethical concepts to contemporary global ethical challenges, I hope to highlight the potential contributions of Islamic thought to the global human project of understanding itself and its purpose. 

Attempts to understand the nature and vocation of human beings is a fundamental part of Islamic religious thought and intellectual history, just as the study of human nature has occupied scholars and thinkers throughout history and across various cultural contexts. In the contemporary world, however, AI and other challenges have complicated the understanding of human nature, human intelligence, and human meaning in an unprecedented way, forcing us to address these issues with particular urgency, but also with contributions from human cultures and perspectives across the globe. I hope that my work, along with that of other scholars of Islamic thought, will help make Muslims contributions on these topics part of the global conversation.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

As discussed above, I believe that the rise of AI and the intellectual and existential challenges it poses for human beings’ understanding of themselves and their purpose have made the study of “the humanities” and the study of the humanities across the cultural and religious diversity of human societies a matter of new and unprecedented urgency. The College of Fellows and intellectual institutions like it can help to facilitate these discussions by bringing scholars and cross-cultural representatives of the intellectual and scholarly life from across different parts of the world into conversation over these critical issues. I have participated in some of the ongoing working group events at the College of Fellows around the environment and environmental challenges – another set of existential crises that requires cross-cultural and global intellectual engagement and conversation. A similar set of cross-cultural working groups on issues related to humanity, intelligence, and technology could make a unique and much needed contribution to this discussion.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

My name is Cheng He and I’m a postdoctoral researcher in early modern history at the Intercultural Studies focus group. I’m happy to join the group, whose research orientation on phenomenology resonates with my interest in material culture and the history of science and medicine.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area? 

My research questions usually centre around how a material’s concept(s) formed through its interactions with humans and the environment. In the early modern period, this is particularly fascinating because the understanding and use of materials were constantly shifting and interwoven. This allows me to untangle the layers of their cross-disciplinary meanings in different contexts.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. 

The understanding and use of materials in the early modern period have strong implications for how we understand “non-living” or still things, with their own power shaping how humans perceive and think about the world we live in now. Instead of humans dominating the materials, the process of making objects is a mutual interaction between the two. The cross-disciplinary and fluid conceptions of things in the early modern world well demonstrate this aspect, inviting us to rethink the clear-cut disciplinary boundaries and the meanings of objects in today’s society. The theme relates to various aspects of our lives: from the creation of art and technology to daily life, leisure, and preservation of culture, including museum displays of objects. Moreover, it helps us consider our relationship with the environment in general.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

A space for exchanging studies on different regions and disciplines provides a window to challenge the boundaries of thinking, something that could be taken for granted as stable or fixed. I find inspiration from studies of other fields. And I’m excited when they sometimes share common ground with what I study, or surprised to realise that I focus merely on one point or side of the past while neglecting the broader context. So cooperations like the College of Fellows are wonderful platforms where new and meaningful ideas grow together.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

My long-standing work has been dedicated to the dialogue between Eastern and Western thought within the phenomenological context. The University of Tübingen is not only a historical stronghold of Western philosophy but also boasts a highly vibrant intercultural atmosphere today, making it an ideal platform for my research.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area? 

My current research aims to uncover the unique insights in Chinese philosophy that extend beyond established phenomenological contents. I believe these "trans-phenomenological" elements can, in a broad sense, contribute to a intercultural phenomenological movement itself. It is this potential to advance human thought that I find most fascinating.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. 

In an increasingly interconnected world, my research fosters intercultural understanding by building philosophical bridges between East and West. It demonstrates how different intellectual traditions can mutually enlighten each other, providing a multifaceted framework for addressing global challenges such as ethical deliberation and the meaning of human action in modern society.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

I see future opportunities in moving beyond traditional Euro-American collaborations to engage deeply with leading academic institutions in Asia. In this process, an institution like the College of Fellows can play a pivotal role: it serves as a central incubator, bringing together top early-career researchers from diverse fields and cultures, creating a dynamic environment where spontaneous interdisciplinary collaborations—for instance, between philosophy, cognitive science, and ethics—can flourish and seed larger university-wide initiatives.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

My name is Antonia Anstatt, and I am a medieval historian. I recently completed my PhD at the University of Oxford (Merton College) and am now a Teach@Tübingen fellow at the College of Fellows in the academic year 2025/6.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area? 

One of my current projects focuses on turning my PhD thesis into my first monograph. Titled ‘Holy Couples: Sainthood, Marriages, and Gender, c. 1100–1500’, my thesis researched the cults of three ‘Holy Couples’ – cases in which two saints were married to each other – in the later Middle Ages. Sitting at the intersection of gender, sainthood, and marriages, my research addresses questions of how people in the Middle Ages envisioned ‘ideal’ marriages, as expressed in the cults of these saints. I was fascinated to find that contrary to assumptions about arranged, unhappy, and violent medieval marriages, my research clearly shows that even if not always reflected in reality, these marriages were consistently imagined as happy, loving, consensual, and full of mutual respect. I am also fascinated by the ‘humanity’ that permeates the cults of these saints: far from being aloof, faraway ideals, they were envisioned as helpers and friends, but were also simply popular figures, akin to both modern popstars and fairytale figures.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. 

The Middle Ages are often envisioned as a time both completely foreign and remarkably similar to our own. With the global rise of the political far right, the Middle Ages are often hijacked as a kind of ‘idealised’ past onto which misogynistic, nationalistic, xenophobic, and transphobic views can be projected. It is important that as medieval historians, we counter this narrative and present the immense richness and variety of the Middle Ages. My research into medieval gender roles, ideals of marriages, and sainthood contributes to these debates by demonstrating the flexibility and versatility of categories that are often assumed to have been ‘fixed’ and ‘simple’ in the past.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

An institution like the College of Fellows, which brings international and interdisciplinary scholars to Tübingen, is important in enabling international exchange and research collaborations. Programs like the Teach@Tübingen scholarships also ensure that teaching remains open and flexible, offering diverse options and different viewpoints to students.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am a Roman archaeologist with a primary focus on architectural decoration. My work encapsulates various aspects of architectural diversity, contemporary attitudes towards decoration, as well as local and regional trade and connectivity. I am currently involved in fieldwork in Italy, Croatia, and Spain. I took my BA in Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Manchester. Thereafter, I moved to the University of Edinburgh where I first completed my MSc in Late Antique, Islamic, and Byzantine Studies before obtaining my PhD with a thesis titled ‘Misplaced Ingenuity? Polychrome marble panelling: its use and reception in Late Roman Italy (c. AD 300 – AD 600)’. 

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My research project here in Tübingen, ‘Decoration and the Jewish diaspora in the Late Antique West (c. AD 300-600)’, explores a so far neglected aspect of Late Roman architectural studies. Indeed, this topic attracts because it remains so overlooked. Consequently, my work has the capacity to shed new light on a community which was simultaneously fully integrated into the Roman world but at the same time retained specific cultural traditions.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

By analysing an overlooked community (i.e. the Jewish diaspora in the Late Antique West), I hope to demonstrate the impact that minority communities can have on society.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

As a member of the teaching staff at the Institute of Classical Archaeology here in Tübingen, I am pleased that the College of Fellows has afforded me the opportunity to develop my capacity as a teacher. Moreover, by providing me with the opportunity to become part of the Institute of Classical Archaeology, the College of Fellows has offered a vital opportunity for professional collaboration as well as the chance to work with colleagues from different backgrounds.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am a feminist scholar, writer, filmmaker, and educator. I hold a PhD in Women’s Studies from Ewha Women’s University in Seoul and an MA in Gender and Diversity from the Freie Universität Berlin. My dissertation ‘Epistemic Vulnerability of Korean Budding Feminists in the Era of Post-Feminism Reboot.' focused on the contemporary and generational context, examining the impact of feminism and anti-feminism backlash on the young generation. Following the emergence of the #MeToo movement in the arts sector, I have taught mandatory feminist courses at the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul for six years. In an educational environment characterized by acceptance and resistance, I cultivated my interest in feminist pedagogy. 

For a considerable time, I participated in numerous projects to develop educational content and published academic papers and books in the complex Korean context. I struggled to find answers and methods in a limited context but repeatedly came up against the same failures, which drained me. Finally, I found an opportunity to return to my research in Germany, which had given me much inspiration and questions during my master’s program. Tübingen is a friendly, harmonious city with old and new, innovative and supportive simultaneously. I want to become a sustainable and self-confident scholar in this atmosphere.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

The title of my project is “Alternative Facts Built on Memes in the Politics of Division - Formation of Post-Truth Knowledge and Finding the Way Out.” It focuses on alternative knowledge that “seems to be knowledge” and will always cause and justify injustice. I will look at the process by which it becomes widely embedded in society and ruins democracy-typical forms of politics of division, such as anti-feminism or anti-migrant hatred. At the end of the project, I will propose the institutionalization of counter-methods against alternative knowledge and the various tools of everyday life. This is how I could act as an academic and a feminist and resist injustice.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

In my dissertation, books, and classroom, I have always tried to capture and archive the anti-feminist backlash and the waves of the alt-right. However, as I mentioned above, I have consistently failed to find the next step, the solution. I did not come here with a perfect answer, but I have brought the experience and spirit of having fought this problematic issue for a long time. We will not miraculously find a single answer soon, but we can intervene more effectively and confidently from different standpoints in solidarity.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

The exchange of sharing and listening to stories at academic conferences in Germany, including Tübingen, and in Europe, as well as at each of the linked departments and projects, will help everyone grow together. This will be especially effective in finding answers to complex problems that are more academically valuable. It is important to provide opportunities to concentrate on one’s research and physical and psychological space, where one can willingly exchange ideas and trust to continue to take on challenges.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

My name is Dr. Blair M. Proctor and the primary purpose of my stay as a Research Fellow in Tübingen is to work on my book project. I took academic leave from my current tenure-track professorship at the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz of academic teaching and service to focus on my research and time for writing.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

As an extension of my dissertation Blurred Consciousness: How Blackness and Space Shapes Identity-Formation among South African Coloureds & New York Creoles (ProQuest, 2017), this research project will analyze how necropolitics shapes the Black body ever since enslaved Africans first set foot on American soil. Necropolitics also contributes to the theoretical framework of Black geographies - the lived conditions of Black people within geographic spaces of confinement. Systemic-racism and concentrated-poverty contributes to stress/ hypertension/ high blood pressure, substandard living conditions/ sanitation, unemployment, drug use, gang activity/ violence, police brutality, poor diet and eating habits, and food apartheid that plague de-facto racially segregated neighborhoods in Johannesburg and New Orleans. In short, the socialization, racialization and spatialization of Blackness, which is quintessential to otherness at its core, is for the primary purpose of generating a space of controlled decay of the black body. Hence, necro. Negro. Black. Death. 

As a Black American scholar specialized in African Diaspora Studies, my research is an ode to my African-American ancestors.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

This research project would be a strong contribution and continuation to the field of Black Studies and the Humanities at SUNY New Paltz. The initiative is to assert an integrative, inclusive, comprehensive, and interdisciplinary approach for students interested in various aspects quintessential to the fields of the Humanities such as Black Studies, Sociology, History, and Political Science and other existing literature and scholarship centered on human rights and liberation representing my College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (LA&S) at SUNY New Paltz. More importantly, this research will adhere to the Platform Global Encounters mission to focus on resilience of fuel-hated politics, civic culture building, and generating innovative knowledge production within the field of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

Project deliverables will involve submitting my book prospectus and manuscript to an academic publishing house such as Oxford University Press, DeGruyter Academic Press, and WITS University Press. Necropower as an upcoming manuscript matters, because twentieth century discourse pertaining to investigating the so-called politics of division such as the “Negro problem” in the U.S. Global North and the South African Global South “African problem” persist in the twenty-first century dude to uninterrupted suppression of Black and Brown bodies. This manuscript will adhere to redefining, rearticulating, and regenerating knowledge production within the College of Fellows at Universität Tübingen. 

As a pedagogical tool at SUNY New Paltz, Necropower would be incorporated into my curriculum specifically in my capstone Seminar in Black Studies. I would apply this manuscript as a blueprint for assisting my students in which they would conduct archival and qualitative research for their senior research projects. Moreover, this postdoctoral work will adhere to the changing times within the global society in the twenty-first century and beyond.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

Through my supervisor at Kyoto University, I learned about Professor Weidtmann and CoF at University of Tübingen. As this aligned with my own interest in intercultural philosophy, I expressed my interest in a research stay at Tübingen.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

How might intercultural philosophical dialogue become possible? What role can philosophy play in a contemporary world dominated by technological thinking? And through these two questions, how might we rethink Western modernity from an intercultural perspective?

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

In contemporary society, caught between the dilemma of violent globalism and xenophobic nationalism, I wish to find a third way. Furthermore, I believe the problem of the dominance of technological thinking in the modern age can be re-examined by employing an intercultural perspective.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

The erosion of trust in intelligence has been recently pointed out, but in re-examining the significance of scholarship as a whole in the modern era, I believe interdisciplinary collaboration is indispensable. Institutions such as CoF are, I feel, crucial in supporting this collaboration.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I'm Naomi Thurston, and I teach Chinese Church history and theology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, while my research concentrates on scholars of religion and religious studies in contemporary Chinese academic settings. In September 2025, I came to Tübingen University's College of Fellows on the invitation of Prof. Dr. Drecoll and his colleagues in the Protestant theological faculty and professors at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies to help organise events and research activities around the broad topic of the “Sinicization of Christianity”.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

What is the role of religion in Chinese society and academic scholarship? What are the historical trajectories of diverse Chinese Christianities? What are some of the concerns of Chinese Christian thinkers over the last hundred years?

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

Christianity is not a foreign ideology in the People's Republic of China, but one of the five officially recognised religions with forms of religious presence, theology, and writings dating back to the Tang dynasty and missionary efforts by different churches, religious societies and denominations from the Yuan dynasty, then from the late Ming and early Qing - and for the Protestants, the late Qing dynasty - onwards. Chinese Christian communities today are diverse, with a variety of social experiences, political alignments and affiliate institutions. While their histories can seem inaccessibly complex, they deserve serious scholarly attention as integral building blocks of modern Chinese social, intellectual, and religious history.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

During my stay in Tübingen I met numerous scholars in theology, sinology, and philosophy, whose research and professional activities I discovered converge with many of the questions I've asked in my own research in Hong Kong and ML China. The unique problem consciousness developed through the kind of interdisciplinary research and debate advocated and promoted by the College of Fellows is not just intellectually stimulating but the sign of the functioning and health of academic life itself.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am delighted to be joining the College of Fellows and to be an affiliate in the Institute for Right-Wing Extremism (IRex), where I will work closely with scholars who work on everyday aspects of extremism, on gender and extremism, and on social media's impact on polarization and violence. 

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

I have just finished a book on the role of misogyny and gender as foundational to violent outcomes in mass shootings, targeted attacks, and terrorism. I am now working on a new book, part of which I will write in residence in Tuebingen, on gendered grievances and gendered divides among Gen Z and Gen Alpha, drawing on focus groups conducted in four countries along with analysis of online trends in how gendered grievances move from the fringes to the mainstream. During my own work time, I will be writing and reading toward the completion of that book, but I will also be engaging in several public- and university-facing engagements, including two workshops, several public talks, and interactive sessions with local practitioners and policymakers, including in the broader region and other local cities.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

My work is always oriented toward preventative solutions, and my research lab at American University now employs 30 researchers and educational experts who design, evaluate and scale up tools, many of which are modeled or adapted from German approaches, such as the innovative Mobile Beratung approach that we have pilot tested in the US states Michigan and Georgia and are now expanding to other regions. 

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

I have always been inspired by German investments in preventing racism, antisemitism, and violent extremism more broadly and see the innovations in Germany as a model for what much of the rest of the world can do. There are also opportunities to have dialogue about some of the innovations we have done in our lab, like short form videos that “prebunk” conspiracy theories and propaganda, in ways that make global and trans-Atlantic dialogue essential and meaningful. The College of Fellows is already playing a key role in my ability to have these dialogues and conversations and have mutually engaging learning opportunities across borders. Especially at this moment when so much is changing in American higher education and in the prevention of political violence more broadly, I can’t think of anything more important than ensuring continued global dialogue, including among academics and researchers. 

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

My name is Megan Fieser, and I am an inorganic chemistry Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California. I am in Tübingen to build new ideas with a team of faculty, led by Prof. Reiner Anwander.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My research aims to address the sustainability of plastics. This research area is challenging because the work needs to combine fundamental and applied science to identify industrially viable targets. This field is fascinating because it requires an understanding of chemistry, engineering, environmental science, biology, economics, politics, and more.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

My work in sustainable plastics has a direct connection to social life. Plastics are incorporated into most things we do in our daily lives, creating a growing pollution challenge. Improvements in the sustainability and circularity of plastics on a global scale will require the opt-in of the public to create meaningful change. 

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

Innovation in the sustainability of plastics requires a global approach to address challenges in packaging and medical applications. Interdisciplinary cooperation is critical to develop practical solutions that work at scale. Chemistry alone, in the United States, will not solve all problems. Therefore, creating new dialogue and collaboration with other fields and other countries is crucial for innovation and change.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

My name is Doaa M. Baumi, and I am a postdoctoral researcher in Islamic theology at the Centre for Islamic Theology (ZITh), University of Tübingen. As a Teach@Tübingen Fellow, my work explores the development of the concept of ʿiṣma (infallibility) and the reception of biblical narratives within Islamic intellectual history.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My research addresses how classical Muslim theologians formulated the doctrine of prophetic infallibility (ʿiṣma) and how this intersects with their engagement with biblical figures and narratives. What fascinates me is the intellectual rigor and diversity of classical Islamic thought, particularly how inherited narratives were critically examined and adapted within a coherent theological framework.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

By investigating how Islamic theology historically engaged with shared prophetic figures and scripture, my research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of Muslim–Christian relations and enriches contemporary interreligious dialogue. It also challenges simplistic representations of Islamic doctrine by highlighting its interpretive plurality and historical depth.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

There is rich potential for interdisciplinary collaboration at the intersection of theology, philosophy, history, and comparative literature—particularly in examining shared scriptural and ethical traditions. The College of Fellows provides an ideal platform for such engagement by fostering a collegial and intellectually diverse environment that brings together scholars from across disciplines and regions.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

Originally from Italy, I lived in the UK for almost 12 years and completed my PhD at Durham University in 2023. Working under the Lehrstuhl of Prof Christoph Reinfandt (Anglistik), I will teach a course in Romantic Literature and, hopefully, a course in Comparative Romantic Studies in the Winter Semester, while also starting my second monograph Forgetting the Present, Remembering the Past: History, Philosophy and Poetry in European Romanticism and finishing the manuscript of my first monograph Promethean Grief in Byron and Shelley: Subjectivity, Knowledge and Art.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

Drawing on the work of the Romantic scholar Stefan Matuschek (Jena), my project is a reassessment of the intellectual history during the Romantic period in Europe, in particular I am interested in exploring the genealogy of Platonism and Neoplatonism in Romantic philosophy and poetry. Ultimately, the aim of this project is to scrutinize the Romantics' relationship towards (Neo)Platonic theories and whether they were always so tied to them or, perhaps, departed from them and, if so, the wider implications of this "philosophical departure" in how we understand notions of poetry, history and the imagination.. 

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

The field of Comparative Romantic Studies has always been a bit precarious for a number of reasons. Firstly, Comparative Romantic Studies requires researchers to speak a combination of language, such as English, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and this is not always the case. This leads to my second point. The lack of researchers with language skills in literary studies, especially in the United Kingdom, is increasingly shaping Romantic studies as a discipline that is losing its continental or transgregional frame. In fact, this has caused a general view that Romanticism is either a German or an English phenomenon. With my project I want to break these barriers and rekindle a critical and cultural conversation that, not only lead to our modern understanding of Europe, but also allows us to see that Romanticism, in its varying developments in Europe, is crucial for the shaping of cultural and literary modernity.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

I'm already scheduled to give a lecture in Paris and present my research in Pisa in June so that's definitely a starting point for international visibility (and a chance to visit Paris and Italy, duh!), but I've also been invited by international scholars to write for their journals, while I'm also working on an edited volume that brings scholars from the UK, USA, France, Germany and Italy. The College of Fellows could, for example, provide insight into the varying international opportunities at Tuebingen that I might not aware of.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am a doctor in Biogeochemistry. My work at the University of Tuebingen aims to understand how microbial activity influences redox cycles and their impact on carbon dynamics in permafrost environments.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My research addresses how microorganisms influence the redox cycling of carbon and key minerals like iron and manganese in permafrost soils, particularly in the context of climate change. I'm fascinated by how microbial processes control these redox reactions, shaping carbon storage and release, and ultimately affecting greenhouse gas emissions. 

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

By studying how microorganisms influence carbon release and interact with minerals like iron and manganese, my research helps predict these processes more accurately, informing climate models and policy decisions aimed at mitigating climate change.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

Research on global challenges like permafrost thaw, carbon cycling, and microbial ecology requires collaboration across disciplines such as microbiology, geochemistry, and modeling, as well as partnerships with international institutions studying similar ecosystems. The College of Fellows can play a vital role by fostering these collaborations, bringing together diverse expertise

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I received my PhD in English Literature from Lancaster University in 2021, where I researched the relationship between theology and literary form in the work of the Victorian writer George MacDonald. Since completing my studies, I have worked as an associate lecturer at Lancaster and Anglia Ruskin Universities. 

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My current project seeks to seeks to discover how nineteenth-century readers derived ‘therapeutic’ value from reading and how these reading practices were shaped by spiritual practices. I’m fascinated by nineteenth-century conversations about reading practices and the ways in which people often understood reading in terms of being healthy or unhealthy (whether physically, spiritually, and/or mentally). For many people, religious belief and practice influenced and shaped their ideas on how and what to read and on the potential effects of such reading—this is what I find particularly interesting!

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

Scholarly work in clinical medicine has begun to recognise the importance of spirituality in developing approaches to public health, but this key aspect of human experience remains largely absent in conversations about ‘therapeutic’ reading. Many Victorian writers and readers were more holistic in their approach to well-being, attending to physical, mental, and spiritual concerns. I am interested not only in understanding how the Victorians thought about the relationship between reading and well-being (to use our current language), but also what we might learn from them about cultivating well-being.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

As a hub for outstanding international researchers working on a variety of topics, the College of Fellows is an ideal space for developing relationships that will continue across international borders. Hosting virtual events at regular periods might offer further development of these relationships and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration after researchers have completed their fellowships at Tübingen. 

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am Sergio Pérez-Gatica (Ph.D.), researcher in the fields of phenomenology, violence research and Latin American philosophy.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My research engages contemporary questions in intercultural philosophy, violence research, phenomenology, and liberation philosophy. What I find fascinating about this area of study is that it challenges us to reconsider how deeply personal experiences shape broad social phenomena, such as structural violence, and influence our potential for ethical and cultural renewal. The area of phenomenology—a philosophy that seeks to understand consciousness and lived experience—brings fresh insights into how violence, cultural heritage, and intercultural encounters unfold and shape human existence. This area of study highlights how even large-scale social issues are rooted in both individual and collective experience, inviting a nuanced and human-centered understanding of social transformation.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

Phenomenology, violence research, and Latin American philosophy each offer crucial insights into pressing social issues, especially when brought into conversation. Phenomenology provides tools to analyze human experience from the inside out, allowing us, for instance, to better understand how pervasive forms of violence are lived and perceived—not just as physical acts, but as systemic and cultural phenomena. This kind of analysis is essential for addressing the root causes of violence rather than just its symptoms. Latin American philosophy, on the other hand, brings in voices and perspectives that have historically been marginalized in global academic discourse. It challenges Eurocentric paradigms and opens space for plural and situated approaches to justice, memory, and resistance—topics that are particularly urgent in postcolonial, post-dictatorship, or structurally unequal societies. Bringing these approaches together helps illuminate the lived realities of those affected by various forms of violence—be it structural, symbolic, or direct—and creates conceptual tools needed to understand how such forms of violence could and should be prevented. In that sense, my work not only contributes to philosophical understanding but also holds potential relevance for policy, education, and social transformation.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

In an increasingly interconnected yet culturally diverse world, the university has a critical role to play in fostering international and interdisciplinary dialogue. In my opinion, one of the most promising opportunities for future cooperation lies in addressing global challenges—such as migration, climate change, and social inequality—through the lens of diverse philosophical traditions. For these challenges demand not only technical solutions but also intercultural understanding and ethical reflection, areas where intercultural philosophy can make a unique and substantial contribution. Institutions like the College of Fellows are particularly well-positioned to catalyze such cooperation. By providing a space for academic engagement across cultural and disciplinary boundaries, they can help reframe philosophical inquiry as a genuinely global endeavor. In doing that, they also serve as a platform for building long-term collaborations among scholars from different parts of the world, fostering research that is both academically grounded and globally relevant. Ultimately, institutions like the College of Fellows can act as a bridge—between disciplines, between cultures, and between academic and non-academic spheres—helping the university advance its mission as a space of open, critical, and transformative thought. 

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

Given my transdisciplinary approach to reearching the connections between aesthetics and politics, I look forward to working at the College of Fellows as a place where different disciplines intersect and inspire each other. In addition, the fellowship generously provides me with the opportunity to strengthen already existing ties with colleagues at the University of Tübingen. 

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

I will work on an introductory book on the history of Western aesthetics that focuses on this discipline's entaglement with colonial-capitalist practices. On the other hand, I will engage with aesthetic theories and practices of socialty that go beyond Western aesthetics and its violent implications.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

The field of aesthetics is often credited with a liberating and emancipatory power, without paying attention to the violent aspects of the discpline in its history and the present. This gap has resulted in paternalistic pedagogies of sensibilisation as well as in problematic conceptions of a subject that has become soverign and, oftentimes, white through aesthetic education. Such sovereignity, in its turn, is part and parcel of an arrogant universalism, which, I believe, is in dire need of being questioned in favor of pluriversal thinking, sensing, and acting. In addition, it is my contention, that we must abandon the soverign subject in favor of the sociality of relational aesthetics practices to be able to counter the authoritarian, self-possessive individual which is at the center of today's multiple global crises. 

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

I envision the College of Fellows as a place where researchers can engage in collaborative exchange despite their differences, so that individual weaknesses may become the strength of the researcher's sociality. Ideally, such sociality would extend beyond the university. 

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am a visiting postdoctoral fellow with the Global Encounters Platform. I am affiliated with the center for Islamic Theology and graciously hosted by Prof. Dr. Erdal Toprakyaran. I completed my PhD at the University of Rochester in 2024.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My research looks at the intersections of cultural memory, religious identity, and conflict in the late medieval and early modern period. I am particularly interested in the movements of peoples and ideas across religious and cultural boundaries. My current project examines the afterlife of the Expulsion of the Moriscos (Muslims and their descendants who were forcibly converted to Catholicism) in seventeenth-century North Africa. It describes how Moriscos wrote about and understood the Expulsion while adapting to their new homes in North Africa. What fascinates me most of all about this research is the continual ability of marginalized groups to redefine, refashion, and recreate their own systems of meaning and value in new contexts.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

The results of my research provide historical context to contemporary debates about migration, religious and ethnic minorities, and identity formation. It also casts light on some of the ways individuals and communities adapt to and overcome forced migration and institutional repression. At a time when historical memory is often politicized, particularly in Europe and North Africa, my work contributes to a more nuanced understanding of shared histories and the legacies of displacement.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

My research draws on multiple disciplines and I look forward to how conversations and interactions at the College of Fellows will develop my own lines of inquiry. Tübingen has already proved to be a prime site for interdisciplinary collaboration. The College of Fellows will continue to expand on its mission by organizing international events, fostering relations with other universities, and bringing scholars from around the world into dialogue through a growing network of alumni, hosts, and guests.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am a Professor at University College London, where I research how the mind and brain represent the body, both as a source of sensory inputs, and as a motor output for deploying thoughts and intentions onto the external world.  I was delighted to be invited to become a New Horizons Fellow in 2024.

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

The experience of our own body is the backdrop of individual consciousness, or what it feels like to be you or me.  We cannot even imagine our self or our mind independent of our body.  The pervasive, or constitutive nature of this relation makes the relation between body and mind hard to study scientifically.  My research is based on trying to design simple experiments that allow us to see clearly how the mind represents the body, both in sensation and in voluntary action.  It’s fascinating, but also frustrating, because it is so difficult to design experiments that are clear and interpretable.  I’m motivated by a desire to approach self-consciousness scientifically, and empirically. 

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

Several psychiatric and neurological disorders involve a changed mental representation of the body.  Further, a key concept of my research is the sense of agency – the feeling that I control my own actions, and, through them, events in the outside world.  This concept plays a key role in the social processes of responsibility, and is the basis of legal, cultural and moral systems in many societies including our own.

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

Scientific excellence often depends on mixing good individual thought or scholarship, with good communication .  Exchange and collaboration are key sources of new ideas, and offer an effective way to test existing ideas, and thus make scientific progress.  Internationalizing this process has two key benefits.  First, it increases the size of the conversation, allowing more efficient creation and testing of ideas.  Second, it provides an important way for countries to co-operate.  International scientific co-operation therefore has very major benefits economically and politically - though these benefits can often seem rather indirect.  An ongoing level of international scientific communication and exchange provides an important background for global partnerships.

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

 Originally from British Columbia, Canada, I recently completed my PhD in art history at Columbia University in New York City, but have also lived in Berlin for many years. I was brought to Tübingen through the gracious sponsorship of Professor Megan Luke and will be working and teaching in the Kunsthistorisches Institut. 

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My research deals with the historical development of the modern animal processing industry. I study photographs and films captured inside or adjacent to these facilities and their political, affective, and aesthetic impact, as well as some examples of painting, drawing, and sculpture. These images are interesting because they provide a means to examine forms of death and dismemberment that are largely socially sanctioned and acceptable. 

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

My work also focuses on animal by-product use, specifically the use of gelatin in film stock. However, it would be nearly impossible to enumerate the amount of products and materials made from the bodies of animals that are ubiquitous in human life. In terms of social relevance, though not often thought about, industrial animal processing provides most people's daily meals, countless products they use, and is one of the major contributors to climate change.  

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

Much of my time is focused on teaching, student connection, and engagement. I feel this is the most socially important function of the university and feel privileged to have the opportunity to teach that the College of Fellows has provided for me. Bringing in an inclusive group of international scholars to Germany to expose students, professors, and other fellows to a rich diversity of perspectives, experiences, and knowledge is vital in fostering mutual respect and solidarity. 

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am currently a Teach@Tübingen fellow at the Scandinavian Studies department where I will teach the courses ‘Digital Vikings: New Approaches to Study the Viking Age’ and ‘That’s Settled: Depictions of Viking Age Settlement, Diaspora, and Migration in Medieval Texts’. Additionally, I will expand upon my PhD research ‘New Methods for the (Land)-taking: Visualising the Sturlubók redaction of Landnámabók’ completed at the University of Nottingham (2024).  

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My research combines conventional historical and literary methods with Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Visual Analytics (VA) to analyse the narrative networks (i.e. people and their relationships) of the Sturlubók and Hauksbók redactions of Landnámabók‘The Book of Settlements’ in an interdisciplinary way. This process facilitates the extraction of the approximately 3,100 individuals and their roughly 8,100 relationships mentioned in these texts that when combined form their narrative networks. These networks are then visualised and subjected to a large-scale visual and quantitative investigation to detect emerging social, political, and geographical patterns, providing new insights into how the landnámsöld ‘settlement period’ (c.870-930 CE) was remembered in Iceland during the latter half of thirteenth century (c.1275-1280 CE) and in the earlier half of fourteenth century (1306-1308 CE). 

What fascinates me about my research is how the settlement period still resonates with contemporary Icelanders. Whenever I mention to an Icelander that I study Landnámabók, they almost immediately share with me how many generations removed they are from a particular landnámsmaðr ‘settler’ or provide me with fascinating stories of their familial farms. Settlers are also immortalized in the place-names of Iceland and there are many statues dedicated to them around the island, including a prominent statue in the middle of Reykjavík of Ingólfr Arnarson, who is considered Iceland’s first settler. The connection to the past is ever present in Iceland and every step in landscape, brings forth multiple histories. 

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

Comparing narrative network graphs of two different redactions (Sturlubók and Hauksbók) of a litero-historical text (Landnámabók) has far-reaching historiographical implications. It will help show how contemporary perceptions of settlement are transmitted in cultural memory. For example, if the same individuals are connected via the same types of relationships in the narrative networks of both Sturlubók and Hauksbók, this may indicate that this relational information is derived from genuine oral tradition passed down from the settlement period. Conversely, if a group of individuals only appears in one network, this could suggest that that redaction’s compiler used different sources. Alternatively, it could be evidence that this compiler manipulated the text to fulfil a contemporary need, and that this information is not from the settlement period. 

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

There are several opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation with other Scandinavian Studies departments. During my first week in Germany, I presented at ‘Die Arbeitstagung der Skandinavistik’ at the University of Bonn. This opportunity allowed me to introduce myself to Scandinavian Studies scholars based at universities in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, who I previously never met in-person. 

Additionally, I plan on fostering a stronger bond between the Centre for the Study of the Viking Age at the University of Nottingham, a strategic partner of the University of Tübingen (and where I completed my PhD), and the Scandinavian Studies department in the form of joint conferences or workshops and the College of Fellows can provide insight into how past collaborations were cultivated and funded. 

My work in Digital Humanities is inherently interdisciplinary and the University of Tübingen not only encourages but supports intercultural and interdisciplinary research. For instance, I participated in the ‘Autumn School: Networks –An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Connectivity’ hosted by the University of Tübingen. This School brought together a group of interdisciplinary scholars, who use social-network-theoretical approaches, to discuss their research. 

I am also passionate about disseminating my research to the broader public. The College of Fellows can help me develop avenues for knowledge exchange and outreach, so that the public can become more engaged with the Viking Age. 

Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I have been a student for nearly 50 years of philosophical pragmatism and the thought of Charles S. Peirce in particular. I greatly admire Prof. Gesche Linde, a member of Tubingen's faculty, as being among the most insightful of contemporary scholars devoted to the interpretation of Peirce's semiotic theory, and I look forward to working with her and with her colleagues in theology and philosophy at Tubingen. 

Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My work is focused on the relevance of philosophical pragmatism as a resource for specialists in religious studies and theology. I am expecially interested in the importance of the concept of “attention” for thinkers like James, Peirce, and Royce, and its usefulness for exploring the nature and logic of certain spiritual practices.

Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

I hace argued for an intimate link between philosophical pragmatism and certain forms of liberation theology, grounded in their shared emphasis on the importance of praxis for shaping inquiry and on the significance for our intellectual lives of maintaining vibrant communities of interpretation. 

Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

In addition to theology and religious studies, philosophical pragmatism potentially has enormous significance for scholars working in a broad range of disciplines – in the humanities, physical, and social sciences. I have a special secondary interest in the resonance between classical pragmatism and contempoary psychology and psychotherapy. Inspired by the work of thinkers like Apel, Habermas, Deuser, Joas, and Linde, I am excited to continue to explore such topics in Germany, at Tubingen's College of Fellows. 

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

I am a descendant of indentured workers who emigrated to Fiji in the late nineteenth century.  I was born in Suva City and read for my PhD in Australia. I have been working on the Global South project with Prof. Russell West-Pavlov for some years now: hence my interest in spending time at the University of Tubingen which has provided leadership in this area of study.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

I feel that anthropocentric perspectives (underpinning the capitalist project driven by massive fossil fuel consumption) have led us down the wrong path, resulting in the ongoing climate crisis. I have proposed a shift in consciousness whereby we see ourselves as just one element, alongside countless organic and inorganic others, and of no more of less value, in a dynamic planetary assemblage decoupled from damaging extractive practices. My intention is to combine creative and critical research outputs in pursuit of this changing consciousness.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

We cannot survive in a human-centred world since that has been historically our Achilles heel. That human consciousness is implicated in this type of perspective is conspicuously self-evident. Our material context, vis-à-vis climate-related challenges, should compel us to radically overhaul our consciousness, steeped in extractive patterns, habits and futures, so that it takes stock of the dynamic field of a complex planetary assemblage. It’s time to forgo exchange-value and to revisit use-value for survivalist reasons.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

Increasingly, extant indigenous practices in the Global South are providing answers to some of our climate-related challenges. The thinkers of the Frankfurt School once did an interested thought experiment. They asked what would happen if an extant archaic practice where to join up with a technologically-advanced one. Would it open up space for a new kind of political economy? The College of Fellows, given its contiguity to the Global South project, might be the place to pursue this question to its logical conclusion.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.
Before coming to Tübingen as a postdoctoral Teach@Tübingen Fellow, Nora completed her Ph.D. in Classics at Florida State University in the Summer of 2024. She also holds a BA in Classical Archaeology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MA in Classical Studies from Columbia University. Nora’s excavation experience includes Hadrian’s Villa (Tivoli, Italy) and The Poggio Civitate Archaeological Project (Murlo, Italy). Her excavation experience at Cosa Excavations (Ansedonia, Italy) first connected her to the Institut für Klassische Archäologie through Prof. Dr. Richard Posamentir’s work at the site.
2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
Nora's dissertation, "At Home in Middle Republican Colonies: Colonial Households and Water Management," explores the evolution of domestic water management systems in the colonies of the Italian Peninsula established between the third and second centuries B.C. and their influence on community planning. This topic is particularly fascinating because it sheds light on the diversity of Roman water engineering practices within the domestic sphere and demonstrates how Romans adapted their water management techniques to incorporate indigenous technologies in newly founded colonial settlements. Cosa, in particular, is a fascinating case study, as each house and many public buildings feature robust systems for collecting rainwater and removing wastewater due to the lack of natural water sources.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

Nora's research on domestic water management in ancient Italian colonies offers valuable insights into contemporary global challenges and contributes to our understanding of ancient Roman culture. By examining the historical practices of water management and the interactions between Roman colonists and indigenous populations, this research sheds light on the complexities of resource use, cultural exchange, and Roman expansion. Furthermore, Nora's work challenges the traditional view of Roman culture as a singular, homogenous entity by demonstrating the diversity of building practices and adaptations to local conditions found within ancient Italian settlements. Additionally, her focus on domestic water management contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the domestic sphere, highlighting the importance of smaller-scale features that have often been overlooked in favor of large-scale public works such as aqueducts. This research further sheds lights on domestic practices and production and how they were influenced by access to water.  

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

Classical archaeology throughout its history has often been characterized by disciplinary boundaries and limited interdisciplinary exchange. Only recently has scholarship begun a dialogue with theoretical approaches from other disciplines, enabling new insights into Roman expansion, the complexities of colonial encounters, and alternative perspectives on gender and sexuality in antiquity. It is through interdisciplinary discourse that more inclusive and nuanced approaches to the ancient world have been established. By encouraging dialogues across disciplines, the College of Fellows plays a pivotal role in facilitating exchange and collaborations among scholars from different backgrounds.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences. 

I am originally from Kolkata, India, and did my undergraduate and graduate degrees in English there. In August 2024, I completed my PhD from the Department of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, At Tubingen, I am affiliated with the German Seminar and the English department, working with Dr Dan Poston. My research and teaching interests intersect Twentieth-century global Anglophone literature, postcolonial literary studies, materialist aesthetics, environmental criticism, media studies, and urban studies.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
I am fascinated by how the environmental conditions of places shape their cultural representations. Drawing from the theories of new materialist ecocriticism, environmental media studies, and literary urban studies, my research rethinks the representations of ecological conditions of global cities. I am especially interested in how literature and cinema connect the geophysical conditions of urban environments and the ways these conditions are discussed in sociopolitical discourses on the city. For example, when we are thinking of concepts like precarity and crisis, how do they invoke or reflect physical experiences of precarity like heat, pollution, water crisis, lack of public transportation, etc? 

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

My  PhD dissertation seeks to contribute to the contemporary scholarship on urban environmental justice, exploring how understanding the elemental conditions of cities is critical to the perception of causes, agents, and effects of inequalities and unsustainability. Whereas, my postdoctoral research contributes to discourses on the contested idea of the urban underclass, and how unique social, political, and ecological histories of the 21st century are creating new definitions and representations of the idea of the underclass world over. 

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this? 

In our first Fellow Workshop for the semester in October 2024, I was struck by how interdisciplinary the research interests of our cohort were, and how informed they were of different research methodologies. This created a very engaged and lively discussion during the workshop. I think this can be instrumentalized well in organizing workshops for undergraduate and postgraduate students of the university, where the fellows can play an important role in introducing them to the basics of both academic research and professional communication. In terms of internationalization, CoF can focus on working with more institutions from the global South. 

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.

Marília de Nardin Budó is a Brazilian professor (tenured) of Criminal Law and Criminology at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil. She finished her Ph.D. in 2013 at the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil, and has been a visiting researcher at the University of Barcelon (2016), University of Leven (2022) and the University of Birmingham (2024). Marília has collaborated with different research projects in Brazil, Belgium, Spain, Italy and United Kingdom, and she is staying for six months (Sept. 2024-Feb. 2025) as a visiting researcher at the College of Fellows - Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies. 

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

I have researched in the area of critical criminology since I finished law school, and the research questions I have tried to answer during this time have always been related to how discourse shapes the ideas and realities about crimes, criminals, victims and punishment. In the last few years, I started working within the field of green criminology, from where I am seeking for an intersectional and decolonial approach to comprehend how the disputes for truth in cases of environmental destruction are organized both within the strategies of denial by corporations and states and the counter-hegemonic discourse of environmental victims that resist their power. Specifically, the ways in which we learn from the people who are affected by environmental harm, bringing their knowledge about territory and nature, provide important insights of how to build more participative and effective tools of accountability and to promote memory and justice for dealing with the traumas of the past and to avoid repetition in the future.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

The research I'm working on now intends to contribute to filling a gap in the field of the research areas of crimes of the powerful and green criminology, since historically it has been connected to macrostructural criticism of the economic relationships in capitalism, but still lacks an intersectional approach to deal with the question of power linked to racial, colonial and gender structures. This contribution is also related to the intent of proposing alternative policies to deal with the most compelling issue we face nowadays, the ecological crisis from these critical and intersectional lenses.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?

By having fellows from different parts of the world working together, the College of Fellows promotes a good environment for many types of cooperation, such as international research projects, institutional agreements, international publications etc. 

1.Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.
My interest in understanding anticancer mechanisms has led me to explore plant-derived compounds with natural cytotoxic effects on malignant cells. The research conducted by the Cellular Nanoscience group under the leadership of Professor Erik Schäffer focuses on studying molecular machines that orchestrate cellular self-assemblies, particularly emphasizing the cytoskeleton as an essential target for anticancer treatment. 

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
Through a previous collaboration in the Schäffer Lab, I gained valuable insights into the behavior of microtubules, which has propelled me toward developing a research strategy to create a targeted drug delivery system. However, before implementing such a system, I seek to explore the fundamental interaction mechanism between natural-derived drugs and microtubules. Such investigations require collaborative efforts, and I am eager to contribute to this field of research with the help of light and electron microscopy techniques.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
The main implications of my research would be visible in time, as it targets the population affected by cancer. However, since the research focuses on answering fundamental questions, more valuable outcomes could arise along this journey. 

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
First, by joining the Schäffer Lab I will be able to expand and improve my research expertise. Second, I believe that this fellowship will significantly enhance my academic profile while fostering a productive and mutually beneficial collaboration between the University of Tübingen and Babes-Bolyai University. And third, the opportunity offered by the College of Fellows will allow me to increase international visibility which might culminate in successful collaborations and grant applications.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.
John S. Sanni is a lecturer in the philosophy department at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and he received his doctoral degree in philosophy at Stellenbosch University in 2018, also in South Africa. Prior to joining the University of Pretoria, he was a post-doctoral researcher in the SA-UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory, the University of the Witwatersrand and Cambridge University from 2019-2021. Sanni has served as associate editor and he is currently the managing editor of the South African Journal of Philosophy.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
My research areas include but are not limited to phenomenology, philosophy of religion, philosophy and migration, political philosophy, coloniality and decoloniality, and philosophy and violence. My research aims to critically engage the nature of socialisations, understood here as a process through which one acquires values and belief systems, and how in their attempt to inform identity, they assume absolute disposition that make ingroups unwilling to engage in any discussion with outgroups. The potential risk of absolute kinds of socialisations is violence, the kind that legitimises the infliction of harm on others.
As opposed to the implication of violence that is attributed to absolute socialisations, I proposed a different conception of violence, an internal kind. This new disposition to violence entails a commitment to revisit, with the intention to undo and reimagine, absolute claims that inform and valorise absolute socialisations.   
My fascination is driven by a desire to proffer a possible solution to a world that is increasingly committed to both real and systemic forms of violence and war.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
My research holds signification social relevance in three different ways. First, at the level of human relations, my research offers insights on the need for moral reflectiveness in matters that pertain to socialisations and how they inform negative othering. Second, at the level of discipline, my research hope to contribute to existing literature on violence. Lastly, my research offers some insights on the kinds of bias that inform both local and internal social policies.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
The multidisciplinary and intercultural commitment and goal of the College of Fellows intersects with the nature of my project. The outlook of my project is not only multidisciplinary, it is also intercultural. The conference I will organise, and the research activities thus far, already show that the College of Fellows offers excellent opportunities for collaborations. I am certain that my connection with the College of Fellows will bring open minded international scholars who are committed to genuine academic exchange.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences.
I have a PhD in philosophy from the University of Bucharest and I’m doing a one-year fellowship in Tübingen working on religious epiphany. 

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
My research addresses the way in which the ‘holy’ appears in religious experiences and how it can be distinguished from other type of experiences, as well as how the religious experience poses problems for both phenomenology and metaphysics. Thus, what fascinates me is the attempt to reconciliate the conflicting ways of phenomenology and dialectics in explaining how that which is beyond the senses somehow is given to the senses.  

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
I don’t think my research’s relevancy can be measured on a social scale, but rather it addresses something which one ought to experience on a more intimate and personal level, as our relationship with the outer and inner world is in a constant reconfiguration. Thus, my research can work as a mirror which hopefully will aid individuals to better understand themselves.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
The way I see it, the College of Fellows is currently doing good work in achieving its goals in building bridges between different universities and approaches to philosophy. The way The College of Fellow currently operates is up to date and if it wants to further develop as an interdisciplinary and international institution, I think it just needs to just do more of what it already does. 

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences.
I have been affiliated to the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, specifically with Prof. Karin Polit and have been pursuing research on understanding the history and expression of Tamil identity through worship of goddesses in my own native village in Tamil Nadu, India and across the oceans in Trinidad where Tamils went as indentured workers almost two centuries ago.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
My research seeks to describe the ways in which faith in the divine feminine has helped those from oppressed sections of society- oppressed caste, the poor and women - find, innovate, create and sustain deep relationships with their identity to land and language even in the most violent circumstances such as that of indentureship and caste based patriarchy. This research shows how this history can be mapped across time and space by juxtaposing two places, two goddesses and the women (including myself) who practice such faith, at the centre. The resilience of human beings to hold on to love, faith and to share that love in their communities across generations, I find hopeful for us as a species. While this process involves constantly negotiating structures and expressions of power and hegemony, it still maintains a kernel of love and hope that contributes to collective strength. My research maps one such story.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
In a world that is divided and one where egalitarianism feels like a distant dream, the stories of faith among the marginalised - in its negotiation of hegemony; its persistence across time, space and violent circumstances; its intrinsically shared practice - together provide us a way to think about our cultures, identities and thus societies as changing and vibrant entities rather than fixed. This way our cultural practices can become nourishing roots for us to grow from rather than shackles that curtail us. To grow healthily is what helps us to connect with one another. I hope these historically grounded contemporary realities that I map will inspire us to think more carefully and seriously about how we may all be connected to one another, even as powers of hegemony persist and place us on hierarchies. This I see as a counter to the longstanding dominant focus on mapping difference and division.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
I believe that a space like the College of Fellows can keep the University vibrant not just by connecting Universities to one another but by bringing in inter-disciplinary practitioners whose work involves research, who may enhance the work at the University. It can also be a space that supports such connections over a long period of time where faculty and students at the University of Tuebingen are able to evolve long standing relationships with scholars and multi-disciplinary and multi-modal practitioners from around the world. Instead of feeding into existing circuits of international collaboration mediated by the anglophone academic world, an institute like the College of Fellows can focus on filling gaps vis-a-vis folks from parts of the world and from departments and other practice spaces that include research, that are not yet brought to Tuebingen or to other international forums and focus on bringing them in. 

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as a Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences.
I am currently conducting my postdoctoral project as a Global Encounters Fellow at the Tübingen University Faculty of Protestant Theology.  

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
My research project focuses on the theological basis of religious education. I have proposed to put forward a perspective on the sources of knowledge in the current religious education perspective and the transformation of the knowledge to be obtained from these sources. This research focuses on understanding the sources of knowledge of religious education (with all its sub-headings/fields of study) from both Christian and Islamic perspectives. It also examines how the reference to and interpretation of practical theological sources of knowledge can also be a source of knowledge transformation and how this happens.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
My research presents a scientific perspective following the contemporary understanding of the sources/ways of producing knowledge in Islamic religious education and transforming it into communication and interaction with the target audience. 

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
Theology and religious education, by its very nature, strives to take a holistic view of human beings, society, and every communication, interaction, and encounter related to it. It tries to understand human beings in every aspect. In this respect, international and interdisciplinary encounters make valuable contributions to this holistic understanding.  The College of Fellows not only paves the way for both international and interdisciplinary interaction but also provides the opportunity to get to know the studies carried out in different disciplines closely, making each study more productive.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as a Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences. 
I am a cultural and literary historian of the early modern Atlantic world, delving into translingual and transcultural encounters in my research and in my daily life, immersing myself in vibrant cross-cultural exchanges. Currently, I am a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Global Encounters Platform, hosted by Professor Renate Dürr at the Institute of Modern History.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
From a historical perspective, my research illuminates how speakers of different languages understood each other and how they transformed themselves through encounters. It investigates English/French-Indigenous exchanges along the eastern regions of North America in the 17th and early 18th centuries, contributing to a more diverse comprehension of early modern history. I am fascinated by the era in which transatlantic interactions became increasingly frequent. Particularly, I address how Indigenous peoples engaged in their encounters with European newcomers and how the knowledge of Indigenous peoples and their languages moulded the European understanding of the non-European world.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
I am committed to respectfully studying Indigenous history and cultures, and in my future research in Canada, I shall engage with Indigenous communities in a manner that honours their knowledge and perspectives. I attempt to raise public awareness of a more inclusive understanding of early modern history, amplifying the experiences of Indigenous peoples. Furthermore, I plan to disseminate my research findings through various channels, including writing public history blogs and editing Wikipedia pages. Through these efforts, I endeavour to foster greater public engagement and contribute to a broader dialogue from historical and literary perspectives.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
I look forward to seeing an expanded cohort of visiting fellows and guest speakers, anticipating their interactive and enduring contributions to the vigorous research community at Tübingen. The College of Fellows can organise an array of events, fostering collaboration among fellows exploring similar research enquiries across disciplinary boundaries. By engaging with departments and research centres, the College of Fellows can invite international speakers to present their research, particularly in a hybrid format. Moreover, I envision visiting fellows offering voluntary guidance to students on their studies, research, and careers. After their duration of stay, former visiting fellows can maintain connections with their previous hosts and colleagues, facilitated by the coordination efforts of the College of Fellows.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as a Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences. 
Flavia Guerra Cavalcanti is a Postdoctoral Fellow of Global Encounters Platform at Ebenhard Karls University of Tübingen. The fellowship is connected to the College of Fellows which is Tübingen´s newly founded university based Institute for Advanced Studies.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
My research investigates how Ocean Studies and wet ontologies push the limits of a terrestrial discipline such as International Relations (IR), which is based on the dichotomie of Land and Sea and its correlate assumption that all knowledge and politics come from the Land. What fascinates me about critical IR theory, and specifically about the sub-field of International Political Sociology (IPS), is the openness to theoretical and methodological diversity coming from other disciplines. In the case of my research, Ocean Studies (familiar to political geographers) brings to the fore how the Sea has been neglected and understudied in IR. 

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
Understanding the role of the Sea and, more broadly, the water in International Relations not as a place of passage, but also as a productive agent that creates knowledge and shapes our way of doing politics and belonging, allows for an alternative narrative of the ´´International´´ with consequences for ecological and decolonial thinking. An example of this is the water epistemologies developped by native people in different parts of the Globe, from the Pacific Islands to the Artic. 

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
The College of Fellows has a role in fostering debates, research, and publications among fellows from different departments who work on similar themes. Regarding my line of research, I am especially interested in how wet ontology, Ocean Thinking, and Blue Humanities, widely studied in Geography, Literature, and Arts, can be connected to the discipline of international relations.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as a Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences. 
Olisa Godson Muojama is a Postdoctoral Fellow of Global Encounters Platform at Ebenhard Karls University of Tubingen. The fellowship is connected to the College of Fellows which is Tuebingen’s newly founded university-based Institute for Advanced Studies.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
My research deals with the changing nature of neighbourhoods in Anglo-German colonial frontiers in West Africa, most especially the impact of the Anglo-German colonial influx and rivalry on the local neighbourhoods, as well as how the West African locales perceived this colonial influx and how they navigated, negotiated, engaged and possibly struggled to balance between their own interests and those of the colonial powers. The fascinating thing about this research is its demonstration that the current movements towards Africa has a historical parallel and that Africa has always been a centre of global confluence.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
The research puts the current debate on neighbourhood, migration, and transnationalism in proper historical context. It shows that the so-called “‘tsunami’ of African migrants ‘invading’ Europe, chasing the European wealth and challenging its values”, as Mayke Kaag, Guive Klan-Mohammed and Stefan Schmid put it, is just a reverse of the erstwhile movement towards Africa by Europeans and that Africa has since the colonial period been a centre of global connectivity instead of a place of exodus.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
The University of Tübingen has been an intellectual hub for cutting-edge and innovative research. International and interdisciplinary cooperation will enhance and sustain the university’s global relevance and credibility, which will, in turn, position the university as a destination for international scholars and students from diverse geographical backgrounds and academic disciplines. The College of Fellows, which is the university’s Institute for Advanced Studies will be a veritable platform for attracting international scholars through fellowships, workshops and conferences.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as a Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences. 
During my post doctoral research stay at the Global Encounters Program, I will develop my current research on urban ruination in Eskişehir, Turkey to understand complex relationships between older residents and refugee newcomers on a ruinated zone which has been recently called an “Afghan neighborhood” by its residents.
2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
My research asks how we can study urban policies and plans that promised modernization and empowerment, but resulted instead in ruination and urban decay. How do we scrutinize ruination and dispossession that does not only impact spatial dynamics but also social and cultural spheres? Further, I try to examine how urban ruination impacts both older residents and refugee newcomers and how these groups interact with each other during the ruination process. 
3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
My research develops a comprehensive approach to study multiple layers of dispossession, which is not only physical but also social, cultural, and economic, in a neighborhood of Eskişehir where urban poor and refugee newcomers live together. My preliminary ethnographic research shows that, while the population directed their anxiety and problems towards state institutions before 2014, after the refugee influx into the city, they directed their anger towards refugees. My research tries to understand people’s claim-making mechanisms and politicization dynamics that have changed in the last decade.
4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
I am an anthropologist, but my research is significantly interdisciplinary. During my stay at Tübingen University I will have opportunities to involve in the activities of College of Fellow that hosts several junior and senior research fellows across social sciences and humanities. This will give me an opportunity to share and develop my research with this interdisciplinary team. 

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as a Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences. 
Trained in Religious Studies (University of Jos), I received my Ph.D. at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University in 2017. As a research fellow, I will work on neighborhood and globalization. 

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
My research will explore how the Middle Eastern geopolitics of religion generated a flow of people, ideas, and goods that globalized the local neighborhood of Anguwan Rogo neighborhood in Jos, Nigeria.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
The results of my research will highlight the role of global forces in shaping conflictual Sunni, Shia relations at the local level. This will help state authorities to better understand and manage the conflicts. 

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
Tubingen is one of the leading universities in the areas of international and interdisciplinary cooperation. However, more opportunities in this regard can be cultivated through; global research collaborations, interdisciplinary research initiatives, student exchange programs, virtual collaborative platforms, and cross-cultural research initiatives. College of Fellows can enhance and foster these initiatives by attracting more funding and international researchers. 

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.
As a sociologist, I will say that the University of Tübingen provides a platform to develop your 'sociological imagination' and apply it to understand contemporary social processes and issues. 

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
The central research question that I want to explore is how the institution of policing practice could shape and guarantee neighbourhood cohesion, neighbourliness, and belongingness in the context of urban citizenship. 

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
My research project might positively affect police behaviour towards citizens/protesters. In other words, police can strengthen belonging, solidarity and social integration by recognising the citizens' human rights. The project outcomes will also be helpful for the government/police institution to make the police more democratic, inclusive, and accountable. 

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
I see a lot of future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university because it provides various vantage points to understand contemporary local/global social issues and processes. 
The College of Fellows is crucial in bringing scholars/researchers and academicians  together across disciplines. Along with that, it brings various methodological/ theoretical approaches and methods from different disciplines across geographical locations. This will foster the cooperation for the university. 

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences. 
I graduated in Philosophy from the University of Milan and obtained my PhD in Philosophical Sciences from the University of Naples Federico II in cotutela with the University of Seville. I have also carried out several research periods outside Europe, in particular at the UNAM in Mexico City. I am currently a post-doctoral researcher at the College of Fellows (Centre for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies). In parallel, I continue to teach Semiotics of Art and Phenomenology of the Image at the Academy of Fine Arts in Italy. Since 2022, I have also been the director of a research programme at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris. Lastly, alongside my research activities in the academic field, I have for several years been working on creative writing with a focus on the world of childhood and aspects of folklore, with the aim of establishing and maintaining a lively and effective relationship between philosophy, the arts and practices of knowledge that are able to resonate at a social level. 

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
Following my doctoral research, mainly of an aesthetic nature, on the contemporary Spanish and Mexican philosophical context, as part of my postdoc at the Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies I am developing a project entitled: Nature, sign, image. Reconfiguration of the Imaginary and Scopic regimes in postcolonial Mexico (1910-1930).   This project examines the representation of nature in a peculiar historical phase of post-colonial Mexico (1910-1930) to analyse the transformation of systems of representation and "scopic regimes" and to show their role in the dynamics, real or possible, of reconfiguration of the imaginary. This research is certainly specific from a cultural-historical point of view but nevertheless aspires to contribute in general to studies on the imaginary by studying its structures and revealing its possibilities of transformation. In particular, the focus on nature and its artistic representation as an essential tool for modifying the collective imagination aims to offer an analytical tool capable of promoting alternatives even in the current landscape and climate crisis. 
What particularly fascinates me about my research is the question regarding the historical-cultural dimension of perception and representation that underlies the entire project, a question that is always topical and crucial in the contemporary debate about interculturality. In this perspective, the current research context is providing me with extraordinary possibilities for in-depth study and comparison.

3.    Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
My research has the declared aim of investigating to what extent a changed representation of nature, largely heir to a rediscovery of the indigenous world in Latin America, can impact as a profound transformation of the collective imagination. In this sense, it is intended to fit into a context of knowledge practices also aimed at affecting environmental and intercultural sensitivity. In this perspective, the workshop that I am organising in June 2024 on the theme "Landscape and Imaginary: philosophy, arts, literature" intends to place itself in an interdisciplinary and intercultural way at the intersection between landscape studies and those on the imaginary precisely in order to reflect on the possibilities of incidence and impact, also at a collective level, of thought practices and actions. In addition, a specific "window" on artistic processes with the participation of a number of guests will be included in this event, with the aim of further widening the pool of recipients of reflections that often circulate in the academic world alone and to integrate practices and points of view.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
Regarding the line of research I am currently developing, I believe that Germany offers various possibilities for future collaborations, although perhaps not as long-term as one would wish.  
In the context of future research prospects, the College of Fellows, specifically through the support of Niels Weidtmann, is certainly a valuable resource. In particular, the Centre for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies could be included as a partner in possible projects and offer excellent support for research development as well as collaborations in terms of events such as congresses and seminars.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences. 
I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Tuebingen AI Center as part of the Real Virtual Humans Group. Previously. I got my Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2021 from the University of Verona, and I was a postdoctoral researcher at Sapienza University of Rome. My stay in Tuebingen has been supported by the Humboldt Foundation with a Research Fellowship, and now by the European Union with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship. My activities involve the study of 3D Geometry, Computer Vision, and Artificial Intelligence, with applications to 3D Humans.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
3D data has become more and more available in the last few years, thanks to fast technological development. Customer mobile phones are nowadays equipped with depth sensors and multiple cameras, and advancements in Artificial Intelligence let us to recover 3D geometry even from videos, or a set of photos. Developing methods to derive analogies in this abundance of 3D data coming from disparate sources, represents a fundamental challenge. It enables discovering and studying recurrent patterns, transferring properties, and deriving statistical models of the surrounding world. My research focuses on finding such connections and recovering dense point-to-point correspondences between 3D surfaces (e.g., given any point on the skin of a 3D human model, I could seek the corresponding point on a canonical "mannequin").

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
Deriving relations in our 3D world is something that we do inherently; formalizing and empowering such capability with computational resources has uncountable applications. Consider the possibility of having a 3D replica of our body (often called a Digital Twin). Taking anthropometric measures or comparing our geometry with other acquisitions could help doctors plan health treatments or surgeries. 3D data are crucial for virtual reality, which is widely adopted in many industries including entertainment and manufacturing. Finding correspondences lets us understand the surroundings, like the objects with which we interact, and bring them into simulated environments. 

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
My research is naturally interdisciplinary, and to me is one of the most exciting things in my work. Studying geometry and humans requires the consideration of many domains: mathematics, physics, anatomy, but often also cultural and behavioral aspects. Such connections with different fields are fundamental not only for applications but also for delivering methods that are useful in the real world. Different domains also help us infuse insights and intuitions into algorithms, making them work better. Institutions like CoF play a crucial role in fostering such exchange, connecting scholars, and creating an inspiring environment.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences. 
I am an archaeologist specializing in Phoenician and Punic Studies. Since June 2022, I have held the position of an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Biblical Archaeology (BAI) at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
My research addresses the question of how studying burial customs (with a focus on crematory practices) between the Levant and the central Mediterranean can contribute not only to a better understanding of Phoenician religious beliefs and eschatology but also to our knowledge of Phoenician society and history across the Mediterranean.
I am particularly intrigued by the Phoenicians’ remarkable capacity to develop complex and original artistic languages – which are often mysterious and cryptic for modern critics – and include elements drawn from encounters and exchanges with other cultures. This phenomenon is part of their expansion in the Mediterranean, where they established a plurisecular system of connections that stretched from their homeland on the Syro-Palestinian coast to the Atlantic coasts of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
I firmly believe that a thorough understanding of the past offers a broader historical perspective, serving as a crucial tool for gaining profound insights into present-day challenges. Take, for instance, the examination of the role played by the introduction of religious practices, funerary customs, and the formulation of new expressive languages in shaping the identity of communities that emerged after the displacement of Phoenician groups from their homeland to other Mediterranean regions already inhabited by indigenous peoples.
This historical exploration not only provides valuable insights into the dynamics of ancient societies but also prompts reflection on current social, cultural, economic, and political challenges. By delving into the past, we can better grasp the complexities of phenomena like mobility and international migration, which significantly impact the Mediterranean basin and extend far beyond its borders in the contemporary globalized world.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
Archaeological research, by its very nature, transcends the barriers of modern nations and can no longer disregard cooperation with other disciplines, as underscored by the successful work of the Institute for Archaeological Sciences (INA). The College of Fellows presents great opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation, fostering cross-culturally engaged research collaborations and providing visibility and crucial networking opportunities for international researchers.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences. 
Smith B. Babiaka is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science,  University of Buea (Cameroon), where he received his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2019. He has been granted several awards and honors from ARISE Intra-ACP, AGNES, ACS etc  to support his research. He holds several editorial board appointments and is a reviewer of manuscripts from several reputed  journals. Since 2021, he is a Georg Forster Alexander von Humboldt and Georg Forster-Bayer Research Fellow, at the University of Tübingen, Germany where he is searching for novel microbial natural products with interesting antibacterial activity.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
My research is intended to fight antimicrobial resistance through the discovery of nature-inspired antimicrobial agents  with a new mechanism of actions from nature. The discovery of penicillin from the filamentous fungus, Penicillium notatum, by Fleming in 1929, and the observation of the broad therapeutic use of this agent in the 1940s has motivated us to revisit nature as a source of novel antimicrobial agents.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
Over the past decade, antimicrobial resistance continues to be a public threat on a global scale. It has increased the global infectious disease burden and put a greater strain on health systems. Antimicrobial resistance  is currently responsible for over 700,000 deaths annually around the world. The trend has been predicted to exponentially rise to above 10 million deaths annually by 2050, with an estimated economic cost of $100 trillion worldwide. The discovery of new antimicrobial agents would promote good health and well being.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
With the emergence of artificial intelligence, future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university would be very flexible and interesting. Institutions like College of Fellows would be very beneficial to create a link for  international collaborations and enduring networks to visiting fellows. 

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.
I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, supported by a fellowship from PSI Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Additionally, I hold the position of Associate Professor at the Department of Foodstuff Expertise at the National University of Food Technology (NUFT) in Kyiv, Ukraine.
My research interest focuses on gas sensors and their application for food analysis, food chemistry, data mining and deep machine learning in chemistry.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
The research aims to develop alternatives to standard physicochemical methods for analyzing food products, with a focus on edible oils in this project. This will allow to perform more effective monitoring of edible oil quality and safety at the all stages of the entire food supply chain. The implementation of new sensor-based methods will facilitate fast and efficient analyses without the need for chemical reagents and solvents. Historically, analytical chemistry has been constrained by the lack of progress in data science. However, advancements in today's deep machine learning algorithms, incorporating elements of artificial intelligence (AI), offer the potential to enhance the sensitivity and selectivity of methods based on cross-selective chemical sensors. The simplicity and affordability of these innovative methods, based on micro gas sensors, make them suitable for application in various settings, including small enterprises, large mills, and regulatory authority labs.
I am fascinated about tackling applied problems and addressing industry needs, with a focus on delivering tangible results in the near future. I hold the belief that the contemporary speeds and production volumes necessitate a reconsideration of traditional analytical chemistry approaches for food analysis.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
The research project holds significant social relevance in several key areas: ensuring the quality and safety of edible oils is paramount for public health, adaptation to modern production speeds; environmental impact of reducing the reliance on chemical reagents and solvents; accessibility and affordability, and the practical application of solutions to industry challenges as well as promoting innovation in the food industry. By addressing these aspects, the research contributes to building a safer, more sustainable, and technologically advanced food ecosystem.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
The project inherently involves multidisciplinary aspects, necessitating collaboration between the academic community and industry. This particular project converges at the intersection of analytical and food chemistry, physical chemistry, engineering, and information technology. The application of the developed methods and approaches transcends geographical boundaries, adapting to the global industry's evolving needs.
The College of Fellows provides an opportunity for potential collaborations, along with the critical analysis of results, facilitating the exchange of ideas.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.
I am a professor of German Intercultural Literature at the University of Bucharest, Romania and performed here the last months of my research related to my Humboldt fellowship. My research interests focus on intercultural literature, migrant literature, postcolonial studies, modernist literature.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
The current project deals with colonial sea voyages in the German literature from the 19th century until the present. The aim was to examine in less known texts of canonical authors the connection between colonization and seafaring in the German history and literature of the period, along with the literary enactment of these phenomena as aesthetic experiences. At stake was to show the role played by the maritime voyages and the sea as a cultural space within the process of colonization in questioning eurocentrism, colonial desire and binary constructions and bridging difference. The texts state, against the public discourses,  a poetic and a policy of similarity, by promoting not as much the difference but the cultural exchange and liquifying borders.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
My research deals with a nowadays extremely relevant topic in the context of decolonization discourses. The study tries to show how literary texts of canonical authors reflect not only historical precolonial fantasies and desire, but also precolonial, colonial and postcolonial scepticism. The texts recapitulate contemporary colonial affirmation in historic and political discourses of their time along with the habitual stereotypes, but finally delegitimate them by showing collapsing or shipwrecking sea voyages as failed colonial projects. There are also interesting connections between migration and (post)colonialism to be followed diachronically, which might shed light upon current phenomena and developments.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
The CIVIS course “Refugees, exiles, migrants in German and comparative Literature”, now on its 3rd year, is an example of successful partnership with the University of Tübingen (Prof. Dr. Dorothee Kimmich). Some PhD candidates of mine also enjoyed via CIVIS research stays in Tübingen. I am sure that the strongly interdisciplinary component of the current projects will encourage future cooperations also with the College of Fellows.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.
I am a fellow of the Philipp Schwartz Initiative at the Rhetoric Institute of the University of Tuebingen and I am currently working on the research project "Rhetoric of War Speeches" under the supervision of Prof. J. Knape. From 1999 to 2003 I was a DAAD scholar and worked on my PhD thesis on the topic "Periphrasis", which I defended in 2004. My scientific advisor was Prof. J. Knape.
After the defense of the dissertation our cooperation with the Institute of Rhetoric and in particular with Prof. J. Knape continued as I have repeatedly been a DAAD scholar and have been engaged in a comparative study of Ukrainian and German election speeches.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
There is no longer any doubt that the current war against Ukraine is not only a war of annihilation, but also an information war. In order to resist Russian propaganda terror, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses Ukrainians daily and often the parliaments and other peoples with videos of appeal in order to strengthen the cohesion of the whole world against the aggressor. Zelensky's wartime speeches seem to be characterized by a highly persuasive character, because they have a great media impact. Here is the question: What makes these speeches so effective? However, the same public interest applies to the war speeches of Russian President Vladimir Putin, because they are the speeches of the aggressor. This cruel attack by Russia on my Motherland was the motivation to start researching the speech phenomena of current war rhetoric on both sides. The aim is to conduct a fundamental scientific investigation of the text type "war speech". It aims at testing two working hypotheses: 
1. The presidential speeches concerning war against Ukraine in 2022 are about the speech type "war speech", which takes on a very special character in the historical situation of 2022. 
2. The Russian presidential speeches are to be specified as offensive speeches and the Ukrainian speeches as defensive ones. Or is it perhaps possible to work out a new type of speech? Methodologically, the phenomena are to be analysed rhetorically and textually on a linguistic level.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
It is hard to believe, but the 21st century is a period of wars, so my research is unfortunately still relevant today, as it tries to explore the role of the "word" in these tragic events, how politicians use the "word" as a tool on the one hand to justify the war, as the President of Russia does, or as a means of strengthening the cohesion of the Ukrainian people and the whole world in the fight against the aggressor, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
Is war in the 21st century different, or perhaps the same strategies are used as in the 20th century, or before? War is a difficult challenge not only for society, but also for scholars, including political scientists, historians, sociologists, lawyers, and others, who deal with war issues in their field, using their research tools, which is, in my opinion, an opportunity for interdisciplinary and international cooperation within the framework of this project, the purpose of which is primarily to prevent war. I see the College of Fellows as a manager in this project, which offers a podium to present the results of research and discuss this issue, and perhaps to create an international interdisciplinary project that would support and strengthen the "peace formula" that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is talking about in order to prevent the spread of evil and new human suffering. Society and politicians, as its representatives determine our future, but it is science that offers the knowledge to create strategies for this development.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.
I am a Postdoctoral Humboldt Fellow jointly hosted at the Centre for Global South Studies at the University of Tübingen, and the department of English and American Studies at the University of Potsdam. My Humboldt fellowship is my second research period at Tübingen. I first came here as a Teach@Tübingen Fellow (2021-2022). Prior to coming to Tübingen, I taught in the English and Theatre Studies program at the University of Melbourne, where I completed my PhD in 2019. 

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
I am interested in how contemporary literature engages with borders and water as technological, material, environmental and imaginative formations on a global scale. My question is what literature, as cultural product and system, tells us about the contemporary border regimes and the political psychology that they generate and sustain across various geographies. 

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
The contemporary times are shaped by an anxiety about borders on a large spectrum of political membership. These enviro-political formations will feature even more prominently in the years to come. Whether the political subject is a ‘core’ citizen of a Global North country, or a refugee from the Global South, more people will have to navigate borders and bordering technologies, as we are facing the prospect of greater global mobility in the era of climate change. My research shows that global literary cultures mediate and are mediated by the pervasiveness of border regimes. This means that literary works and the systems of production and distribution of literary cultures can provide ways of better understanding the assumptions that shape the contemporary political anxiety about our futures and the imaginaries that support a view of a future defined by even harsher bordering practices. 

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
I think universities can play a stronger role in bridging the gap between academic knowledge-production and the civic space in a variety of disciplines, and in relation to many pressing social and environmental issues. To achieve this, academics will have to face two challenges: interdisciplinarity and communicability. In my area, for example, there is still a lot of room to cross the disciplinary divide between literary studies and other disciplines in the humanities and beyond, in the hope that we can better tackle questions about life under climate change. It is also key that we come up with ways of communicating research to the public outside of the conventional academic circles and the classroom. Effective public engagement is, of course, easier said than done. But perhaps more than anything else, it requires a commitment to reaching wider communities, stakeholders and policymakers through innovative methods that break away from disciplinary conventions, as well as engaging pathways to research dissemination. 

I think the College of Fellows is already doing a great job of bringing scholars together, and facilitating a broader interdisciplinary conversation among the senior and junior researchers, invited speakers and scholars at Tübingen. 

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tübingen in one or two sentences.
I arrived in Tübingen in April 2022 to begin a Teach@Tübingen Fellowship at the English Department. In December, I started a Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, also in Tübingen, where I work on early English literary print.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
My current research shows how early sixteenth-century writers and printers convinced an expanding and diversifying readership of the value of new literary texts in English, by harnessing the collaborative energy which characterised literary production. It demonstrates the rhetorical and imaginative potential of what I call ‘co-creativity’, as evidenced by dedications, prefatory epistles, and other printed paratexts, which appear at the front, back, and in the margins of early modern printed books. It reveals an alternative to individual authorship as the prevailing paradigm for textual production in this period, which is a surprise, I think, to many readers today (it was to me!) but is amply witnessed by the texts themselves and the paratexts that frame them.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.
Besides reframing our understanding of early sixteenth-century writing and opening up critical approaches to a new corpus of English literature, the findings of my research resonate with issues in our own time. An understanding of textual production that is premised on co-creativity rather than individual authorship can suggest insights and historical precedents for the multi-authored or AI generated, response driven, and increasingly unattributable texts of the twenty-first century media revolution. We have much to learn from sixteenth-century paratexts!

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
I have greatly benefited from the partnership between the University of Tübingen and Durham University as members of the Matariki Network. I would like to see this partnership, and those with other members of the network, further developed through exchange and fellowship programmes. The College of Fellows has a role to play in this, by making connections with similar institutions at partner universities. It is already an important part of the rich academic community in Tübingen, making this a place where researchers want to stay!

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen.
Before coming to Tübingen, I held a faculty position at Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Nigeria, where I earned my bachelor’s degree in 2012. I bagged my M.A. degree in Philosophy at the University of Lagos in 2015 and moved on to complete my PhD at the Department of Philosophy, Rhodes University, South Africa, in 2021. During my PhD research, I was one of the recipients of the prestigious doctoral scholarship from the Alan Gray Center for Leadership Ethics, Rhodes University, from 2019 – 2021. I am also a research fellow at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. I have been following the activities of the College Fellows for some months prior to my application.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?
Recently, environmental issues have been a recurrent theme in global research. For the past six years, I have been keenly interested in environmental issues with a specific focus on climate change, especially its intersections with climate justice and environmental sustainability. Climate change might be a global issue, but the dimension of its impact is never the same everywhere. My research aims to explore insights into the cultural dimension of climate change and how this can be addressed in the pursuit of environmental justice and environmental sustainability. In Tubingen, I am working on fresh insights from phenomenology to address the unnerving assumptions in determining how the impacts of environmental despoliation on cultural resources should be plausibly addressed in environmental ethics. The fascinating thing about my research is that it gives me the opportunity to develop an understanding of environmental injustice in ways that project the experience and voice of marginalized people and how best it can be treated in future environmental treaties. This is borne out of my desire to foster a space for vulnerable people to be seen, heard, held, and uplifted on global environmental issues.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research. We often think the solution to the environmental crisis lies in how much of its science we can understand. We miss the point if we fail to understand the deeper dimension of the problem. The cultural lifeworld is significant in addressing environmental problems because it consists of values and significance that may not be visible from a scientific lens. My research expands the range of significant cultural values (for humans and non-humans) that should be considered in environmental practice and policy. The implication of this is that the cultural dimension of environmental problems that are usually obscured and overlooked is brought to light, thereby jolting policymakers to approach environmental problems and solutions from a broader perspective.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?
There is still so much to be known about humans and the world we inhabit, and a straitjacketed disciplinary focus and methodologies might shrink our opportunities to explore this knowledge. Universities need more collaboration, particularly with knowledge workers in informal settings like indigenous people. That’s why adopting multi-disciplinary approaches, requiring engagement with scholars from diverse backgrounds, is critical to future research. The College of Fellows has been daring and forthright in its objective to encourage intercultural studies. By bringing on board scholars from diverse backgrounds to engage in social-impacting research, this research hub has shown that complex ideas can be cross-fertilized through rich intercultural engagement. The series of research activities that are weaved into talks, colloquiums and workshops has given a platform to speakers to share their ideas in ways that are appealing to a wider audience, exemplifying the need to blend town and gown in conversation.  

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences

I am a Teach@Tuebingen Fellow at the Department of Classical Archaeology, University of Tuebingen. I have a solid background in Classics, and during my doctoral years, I specialized in studying the cultural identities of the Graeco-Roman Southern Levant, with a close focus on its archaeological and historical context. I was awarded my PhD in August 2022 at the School of Archaeology and Maritime Civilizations, University of Haifa, Israel. My current fellowship provides me with an opportunity to gain further experience in teaching and to develop my own projects.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My research seeks to explore how Mediterranean societies dealt with issues of connectivity and cultural interactions, and how those historical patterns continue to hold relevance, providing insights into contemporary global issues. I am particularly fascinated by the ability to draw connections between the past and the present, studying ancient dynamics that shed light on current societal challenges.
Currently, I am developing a project focused on the political aspects of motherhood, tracing the religious pattern of the mother goddess as it traveled from the East to the West. Through this research, I aim to offer a new perspective on the perception of motherhood in antiquity, taking into consideration the various contexts it encompassed.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

My research holds significant social relevance as it fosters cultural understanding, contributes to discussions on gender and motherhood, provides comparative insights into contemporary challenges, and enriches the academic understanding of the past. By delving into how Mediterranean societies addressed issues of connectivity, cultural interactions, and religious patterns in antiquity, my research aims to promote appreciation and respect for the diverse cultural heritage of the region, encouraging intercultural dialogue and empathy.
Furthemore, the investigation into the political aspects of motherhood and tracing the religious pattern of the mother goddess sheds light on the historical roles and perceptions of women in ancient societies. Understanding how motherhood was perceived in antiquity and its connections to political and religious contexts can contribute to ongoing discussions on gender roles and women's empowerment.
By exploring these facets, my work aims to bridge the gap between the ancient world and the present, imbuing it with relevance and meaning for modern society.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?

In today's world, universities have numerous opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation to tackle complex global challenges. The College of Fellows, with its esteemed reputation, expertise, and extensive network, acts as a driving force in advancing the university's global reach and fostering transformative collaborations. By nurturing cross-cultural engagement and preparing students and faculty for an interconnected world, the institution plays a pivotal role in shaping a more inclusive and innovative academic community. Through collaborative projects and research initiatives, the College contributes to addressing global issues and paving the way for impactful discoveries. Its commitment to international cooperation positions the university at the forefront of academic excellence and positive societal change.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences.

I am currently a postdoctoral fellow of Intercultural Studies at the College of Fellows. During my master's and doctoral studies, I have investigated the religious philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling mainly from the aspects of political philosophy and theology. In 2022, I submitted my doctoral dissertation entitled “Philosophy and Religion as Anti-Political Apocalypse: An Introductory Study of Schelling's Political Philosophy” to the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University in Japan. This fellowship is my second stay in Germany, since I spent one year (2016-2017) at the Free University of Berlin as an undergraduate student. I am so delighted to be able to do my research in the city of Tübingen, where Schelling used to live and study.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what  fascinates you about your research area?

I am interested in “the politicity of the apparently non-political.” For example, when we think about politics, we usually associate it with elections, government policies and political parties. Those are definitely part of politics, but not the whole of it. Many other things drive our politics and social conflicts: religion, art, science, literature, media, education, subculture and so on. My present project is to evaluate the political impact of eschatological ideas and apocalyptic views, especially from the perspective of philosophy and the history of ideas. The terms “eschatology” and “apocalypse” here do not necessarily mean the specific thought of Western monotheism, but rather broadly a general framework within which we represent ideas about the end of the world.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

For our 21st century lives, ideological confrontations are not a game confined to intellectuals, but rather a part of our everyday life. Social media is filled with conspiracy theories and skepticism. How should we deal with them? These are new social phenomena with technological transformation, but they also seem to be classical philosophical questions - recall that Socrates was killed by some kind of “fake news.” In times of drastic social changes, people tend to be seduced by delusions and ideologies. Religion and philosophy might be complicit in it, but they have also taught us an ethic that makes us pause and think carefully and critically. I believe that a critical examination of this duality philosophy and religion have can be an urgent task at the present time.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and  interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?

With the excellent support of Niels Weidtmann and the meaningful interactions with the other fellows, I have been able to consider my research interests from different perspectives. Generally speaking, after completing a doctoral dissertation, we researchers need to re-develop our research interests and projects for the next decades. However, in today’s increasingly competitive and bureaucratic academic community, we have less and less opportunities to think fundamentally about our next challenge with free time. In such a situation, an institution such as the College of Fellows could function as a kind of “temple” for scholars.
 

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences.

I am a Sociology Professor at PUCRS, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and since 2010 I combine my research activities with sociological documentary filmmaking connected in some way to my research activities.  I am the first Brazilian scholar to hold the CAPES (Brazilian Agengy for Higher Education) Chair, associated with the Baden-Württembergisches Brazilian and Latin-American Center and the Interdisciplinary Center for Global South Studies (ICGSS) at the University of Tübingen. I have so far concluded 6 documentary films, and currently I am working on the production of 5 other documentary films or documentary series with several episodes. This is a very powerful way to share academic activities with younger researchers, as well as with a non-academic audience, which usually does not have access to academic journals or events.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

My current research addresses the heritage of more of three and a half centuries of slavery in Brazil in the everyday life of three generations of black women from the same family in three regions of Brazil that were strongly dependent on the slaved work. In my study I am using a theoretical and methodological approach developed in the German-academic community, i.e. the sociology of the Austrian-Jew Alfred Schütz and the reconstructive biographical narrative approach, first developed by Fritz Schütze (Universities of Bielefeld and Kassel) and later incremented by the Sociologist Gabriele Rosenthal (University of Göttingen). I organized the translation from German into Portuguese and wrote the Introduction of two books from Schütz and two books from Rosenthal in order to disseminate these approaches in the Portuguese Social Sciences communities. Besides this, I produced two documentaries related to these approaches: “Lifeworld: The Sociology of Alfred Schütz”, already screened and discussed in more than 20 universities worldwide and “Lifeworld II: Biographies and Narratives”, already filmed and to be launched in the next months of 2023. As in my previous studies, connected to my current research I am producing a documentary series in 5 episodes, “Black Heiresses”. The first two episodes are to be launched by the end of next year.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

This is the first time that this methodological approach is applied to investigate this subject, and only rarely the perspective of black women is considered in sociological research. My objective is to analyze the interpretation of those women of their own everyday life experiences, which results will be presented in text format (papers and presentations in academic events) and through a documentary series.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?

The role already played by the team of the College of Fellows is amazing, serving as a powerful platform for dialogue and visibility for efforts made by academics, that most of the time stay isolated within the universities walls. Research is about social realities, regardless of academic discipline, and with the support of the College of Fellows exchange with the academic and non-academic communities is realised, giving an extraordinary new meaning to the research activities developed by fellows who are spending a period of time at the University of Tübingen.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences.

I am Prof. Mohammed Ech-Cheikh, head of the philosophy department at Hassan II University (Casablanca, Morocco) and researcher in political philosophy, philosophy of religion and philosophy of values, who has to his credit around twenty books. My invitation by the University of Tubingen as a distinguished research fellow was made in the spirit of openness and the desire to meet other researchers from diverse backgrounds to enrich German university life.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

The narrative of the Arab-Islamic tradition of thought suffers from a double misunderstanding: It is often reported by Western scholars in a reductionist way, and by Eastern scholars in an apologetic one. It is time to try to dispel these misunderstandings by proposing a more inclusive methodology and to be more attentive to the diversity of this tradition. Hence my interest in a new narrative of this tradition that starts from these questions: How did we arrive at the doubly biased narrative: The reductionist and the apologetic one? How did we come to consecrate the Western narrative of world philosophy as the only legitimate and legitimizing narrative: with its periodization of the history of philosophy, its topics, and its problematics? Can we find in other traditions, alongside known topics, other topics that can enrich and complete Western narratives? Can the history of world philosophy be reported from regional monographs which complement and do not negate each other? What can be interesting and inspiring in these ‘other traditions’? Can they bring us some lessons of wisdom, humility, and serenity at a time when postmodern man is beginning to worry about his future?

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

If we let ourselves be guided by this great hermeneutical principle formulated by Terence:"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", (I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me), we can say that the social relevance of my concerns lies in this: At a time when xenophobic discourse is heard in the public space more than ever, a public space that is resistant, tolerant and open to others is more than ever in demand. "Who does not know foreign languages is truly ignorant of his own language" ("Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen"), affirmed, already in the 19th century, the illustrious German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Nowadays, we can also say that who does not know foreign cultures is truly ignorant of his own culture.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?

We live in a time when 'barbarism' is starting to come ‘from below’, with the proliferation of populist discourses. The need for new ‘Aufklärung’ is once again felt. No new ‘Aufklärung’, less dogmatic and authentically universal, without the participation of academia and academics. Hence the importance of cooperation between researchers from all over the world to revive the 'will to know' against the 'will not to know' which is beginning to spread. From this point of view, the College of Fellows is an innovative idea that distinguishes the German university.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences.

I am currently a postdoctoral Fellow of Intercultural Studies at the College of Fellows. I defended my doctoral thesis "The problem of recognition in German classical and modern practical philosophy" (specialty - History of Philosophy) at Kharkiv National University (Ukraine), where I also taught courses within the Department of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy as well as German language courses for Germanists. I held scholarships at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and at the University of Vienna. Before arriving in Tübingen, I conducted research in the field of bioethics at the University of Münster (Germany) at the Institute of Ethics, History and Theory of Medicine.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

In my previous research, I developed a model for understanding “recognition” in modern practical philosophy. Recognition takes place at three levels: individual (recognition and the problem of constituting identity), collective (recognition and the problem of social justice, human rights and co-existence of all cultural forms on the even conditions in cross-cultural dialogue), and interstate (recognition of the problem of domestic and external legitimacy of the state).
Point of departure in my research is focused on the problem of recognition in its transformation from German classical philosophy to contemporary practice. Based on a critical study of the historical and philosophical sources it detected heredity (“recognition” as a mechanism of realization or institutionalization of individual rights and freedoms or expanding liberty as such) and difference (change from the recognition of individual identity to group identity recognition, understanding of “recognition” as one of the manifestations of justice) in concept recognition in German classical and contemporary practical philosophy.
The most fascinating questions in my research are: what criteria should we use to consider any culture or cultural practices as equal or unequal?
It is necessary to examine closely the relationship between the identity of the cultural group and the self-consciousness of the individual. In this sense, it is also applicable to the research of rapprochement abilities between cultural majority and cultural minority groups.

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

My research project raises a number of issues related to the coexistence of cultures, the conditions of cultural diversity in the context of globalization. As such, I study the mechanisms of preventing the dominance of one culture over another; that research, of course, represents socio-cultural significance.
Today, when globalization blurs or opens the borders of national states and people are forced to closely coexist with diverse cultural forms, values, religious systems, political perspectives, there arises a need for the formation of conservation conditions and reasonable diversity. 
What role does intercultural dialogue play here? Especially in the sphere of multicultural societies. The demand to recognize the autonomy of one or the other cultural group, which will make its existence possible, is based on an idea of the parallel existence of diverse cultures that can permeate, enrich and develop each other.
Intercultural dialogue and recognition not only play an important role in critical reflection on the importance of pluralism, dialogue, freedom in contemporary Ukrainian society in the context of globalization, but are also particularly relevant in view of the current Russian-Ukrainian war.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this?

I believe that with the help of this scientific stay, and in particular with the full support of Niels Weidtmann, it is possible to establish scientific contacts with many universities and scientific ones of my native city of Kharkiv (Ukraine), which is considered the scientific and student capital of Ukraine (there are more than 30 universities and institutes). The possibility of organizing a joint scientific event could demonstrate the great scientific potential of my alma mater.

1. Please introduce yourself and the background of your stay as Research Fellow in Tuebingen in one or two sentences.

I am currently a Senior Fellow at the research forum Global Encounters of the University of Tübingen and also directeur de programme de recherche at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris (2019 - 2025). I hold a PhD in philosophy a focus on phenomenology of time from the universities of Paris Sorbonne and Wuppertal. Before coming to Tübingen, I was visiting lecturer at the universities of Toulouse and Hildesheim. I did my bachelor's degree and my first master's degree in Iran (Tehran) in the history of Western and Oriental philosophy, before obtaining the second master's degree in Franco-German European philosophy (Erasmus Mundus). I arrived in Tübingen in the summer of 2020 as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies. For two years, I had the chance to exchange with other researchers and colleagues at the University of Tübingen.

2. Which problem or question does your research address and what fascinates you about your research area?

Coming from phenomenology, I am interested in a philosophical approach to fundamental questions and phenomena (time, space, history, world, body) based on lived experience. What I address in my current research is the interculturality: How is it possible to understand the world from different cultural perspectives? How can philosophy contribute to the encounter of cultures? How can canonical Western philosophy be understood in its cultural dimension? What does an intercultural identity look like? To answer these questions, I take two methodological steps: 1) In the critical approach, I am very curious about non-European traditions of thought in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, with a focus on Iran and Persian-speaking thinkers of India and Pakistan, but also critical de- and postcolonial epistemologies. 2) Taking a phenomenological approach, I address the phenomenon of the "between" (inter-) in contemporary philosophy, cultural anthropology, and comparative literature. 
What fascinates me about my field of research are the rich possibilities for thought and insight that the intercultural approach opens up. I have participated in international conferences, meeting researchers and thinkers from different cultures.I am traveling to Cameroon in May 2023, and what fascinates me is the relationship between place/geography and thought that such an endeavour can bring to light. 

3. Please briefly outline the social relevance of your research.

I think the most important social relevance is the critical attitude towards the different forms of centrism that we take for granted uncritically (e.g. the history of thought is nothing but the canonical history of European philosophy). When this critical attitude is accompanied by an intercultural openness and curiosity, we become more aware of the hidden cultural dimensions of the world. It is not always easy to question the passive heritage that we take for granted.

4. Where do you see future opportunities for international and interdisciplinary cooperation for the university, and what role can an institution like the College of Fellows play in this

With the full support of Niels Weidtmann, I had the chance to initiate and contribute to an axis of cooperation between the Universities of Tübingen and Toulouse, which resulted in a Promotionscolleg "Neue kritische Theorien und dezentralisierte Epistemologien / Nouvelles théories critiques et épistémologies décentrées" with regular joint academic conferences in Tübigen and Toulouse. Deepening this axis and contributing to the theoretical aspect of cultural studies is where I see future opportunities hopefully. The German academy is indeed a very good place for the first postdoctoral years, but unfortunately not always afterwards. That is why, at least in the humanities, many friends and colleagues who did their PhDs and first postdoctoral years here have left Germany for northern European or English-speaking countries (applying for lecturer positions, assistant or associate professorships). I hope that the projects and cooperation do not become completely dependent on third-party funding.

1. How did you become aware of the College of Fellows?
I was contacted by the UT Welcome Center who have made me feel very welcome in Tuebingen over the years. In this time, I have attended interesting events and seminars that helped broaden my horizons.  

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?
How human speech and language evolved is one of the most intriguing mysteries. Evolution typically tinkers with preexisting phenotypes to find viable solutions to new challenges. It seems logical that human speech evolved from the non-speech vocalizations of our hominid ancestors. Unfortunately, social behaviors, the brain, and the soft tissues of the vocal apparatus do not fossilize. So, we can take advantage of the comparative method – investigating the vocal behavior and associated mechanisms of extant animals – to shed light on this question. My current research examining the vocal abilities of crows – who diverged from the primate lineage 300 million years ago – will hopefully reveal the general principles and circuits underlying flexibility in vocal communication. This would be of interest to not only comparative neuroethologists, but also the wider public.   

3. You grew up in California, USA. How do you experience Germany on this background?
Even though one of my more recent favorite pastimes is complaining about cancellations and delays of the Deutsche Bahn, I really do appreciate that there is a well-developed public transport network throughout Germany and through neighboring countries as well. Getting around via rail and buses has been much easier than in the US because of the investment in infrastructure. Relatedly, the emphasis on work-life balance and the generous holiday allowance grants plenty of opportunity for travel and new experiences.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?
I am a huge fan of long walks for clearing the mind and sparking new ideas. Additionally, I enjoy identifying edible plants and mushroom hunting. So, having the Schönbuch in such close proximity is fantastic!

5. What does the university of the future look like?
I think universities are going to undergo rather dramatic changes in the near future with recent technological advancements and transformations in pedagogy. A focus on inclusivity would be integral for the dynamic exchange and generation of interdisciplinary ideas.

1. How did you become aware of the College of Fellows?

Through introductions provided by the Welcome Center of the University of Tübingen, both via email and in a brief presentation by Dr. Niels Weidtmann at one of the Welcome Center events.    

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?  

My work focuses on the beliefs of Christians — specifically on exploring how Christians of the first seven centuries or so after Christ thought about the big “theological” questions — who God is, God’s action in the world, and how this bears upon the meaning of life.  Some of it has focused on ideas that tend to be specific to the Christian community, such as the understanding of Jesus as both God and human.  My current project is about early Christian attitudes toward newness and innovation, themes that figure in many religions, cultures, and societies.  

Through this variety of topics, all of my work focuses on how beliefs at the core of the Christian faith — beliefs about God — affected how Christians thought about everything, from the issue of how people can be motivated to do the right thing (the topic of my first book) to issues as basic as discerning when innovation is good and how to measure time.  

This focus on early Christian beliefs about God means that my work is relevant in a direct way for the Christian community as it seeks to understand who God is, and to assess its own history, identity, and present commitments to God and God’s world.  But I hope that my work’s specific focus also makes it useful to anyone interested in how Christians have approached questions about the meaning of life or in how influential approaches to big questions took shape in the past and affect our societies and assumptions about the world today.  I write for these audiences as well.

3. You grew up in New Jersey. How do you experience Germany on this  background?

In many ways German culture is more similar to my New Jersey background than is the culture of the place I currently call home—a small town on Lake Michigan called Holland, in the Midwest of the United States.  I often have the sense that people tend to communicate more tersely and directly and to be more reserved and private here than in the Midwest.  It can also be easier to discover what people really think and to talk openly.  I find that Tübingen is also similar to the area of New Jersey where I grew up in that the city is quite international and somewhat transient, making it easy to get to know a diverse array of people.  This is my third time living in Germany and these areas of cultural overlap are part of the reason, I think, why I feel comfortable here.  

One difference I’ve observed is that German society as a whole, at least as I’ve experienced it, demonstrates greater awareness in everyday life of the life of the mind, the arts, and cultivating awareness of history.  On my way to work here, I pass Ferdinand-Christian-Baur-Straße, Keplerstraße, and Hölderlinstraße.  Near where I live there are a series of streets named Brahmsweg, Brucknerweg, Mozartweg and Beethovenweg.  The nearest bus stop is Haydnweg.  Modern German life is built on the past more obviously than is contemporary life in the places where I have lived in the U.S.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?

In Waldhausen, just up the hill from where we live in Wanne, you can find open fields with beautiful views of surrounding rolling hills and barns full of cows chomping on green grass.  This is where we get our milk, refilling glass jars from a spout right next to the barn.  Nearby Heuberger Tor has great views.  My family and I enjoy walking along the paths in the woods in that area.   

Another favorite place also comes from my daily life, but the work side: the library of the Theologikum.  It’s a lovely light-filled building with walls of windows on all sides.  It makes for a beautiful work environment as well as an inspiring metaphor for theological work!  

5. What does the university of the future look like?

I tend to be preoccupied with studying the past rather than the future so speculation like this does not come naturally to me!  But I would imagine that internationalization will continue to be important.  I hope that our societies will also find a way to navigate (and in key respects to avoid!) the trend toward the commercialization of higher education, to invest in disciplines in a value- and not merely profit-driven way.  Given its leadership and its own rich history, the University of Tübingen seems poised to be a trailblazer in both regards.  I am delighted to be a part of this academic community for the year. 

1. How did you become aware of the College of Fellows?
As a Humboldt junior research fellow in Tübingen, I have been contacted by the UT Welcome Centre and asked to participate in the Humboldt Lecture series. I have consequently come in touch with the College of Fellows, which I did not know beforehand. Since then, I have discovered the captivating programme provided by the College of Fellows and participated as an audience member in many of their interdisciplinary initiatives.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?
I study the ancient Greek world, namely its literary tradition and its legacy in contemporary culture. My two main topics so far have been the works of Plutarch of Chaeronea, a Platonic philosopher and biographer known particularly for his Parallel Lives, and the classical reception studies. I always try to read the ancient culture through new lens, which intertwine with other disciplines. Nonetheless, I would also like to put emphasis on how the past and the literature that I’m basing my research on are endless sources of stimuli that contribute to our better understanding of contemporary problems and current topics, such as inter- and transculturality or power relations. I am firmly convinced that literature is a fundamental feature of the human presence in the world, since it does not represent a close system, but a space of interaction for aesthetical as well for social and political issues. The study of antiquity helps develop tools for thinking critically about culture and society: it is not just a mere acceptance of an identity or defined tradition, but on the contrary, it plays an important civic and educational role within a democratic society, since it shows that nothing of what we actually think and say can be taken for grant. The high specialisation even in the humanities has sometimes overshadowed our task of connecting knowledge and society together. We are now in charge of finding new ways and constructive perspectives to deal with the important social changes of our times.

3. You grew up in Italy. How do you experience Germany on this background?
I must say that I do not perceive any significant differences in the way of life and thinking, particularly with regard to my generation – I was born in 1989. We grew up considering ourselves as part of Europe, and figuring Europe as a part of the world – not anymore as its centre. I think that it is extremely important to avoid any nationalist issue, particularly in this time of increasing political revanchisme, as the recent elections in my country have shown. In general, I must say that the German society seems to be very inclusive, also due to the huge presence of international workers in the country. The quality of the academic work in Germany is very high, but as far as I can see even here the system is affected by the same problems as in other countries, with particular regard to the employment precarisation, which obviously makes it harder to develop mid- and long- term research projects.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?
I really enjoy walking through the town, and the view from the Neckarbrücke still impresses me after more than one year spent in Tübingen. Recently I have ‘discovered’ the Weststadt and it is a pleasure for me to wander through the little streets which surround the Jakobuskirche. The atmosphere there is enchanting. In spring and in summer I love to go for a walk to Bebenhausen, a place of a highly inspiring beauty.

5. What does the university of the future look like?
At the moment, I cannot make a prediction. I think we are experiencing a period of important social changes, whose consequences are still unpredictable. Indeed, I see two contradictory issues which coexist nowadays in the European academic system. On the one side, I perceive an increasing awareness of the democratic needs, more equality (even if often more rhetorical than substantial), more attention to avoid discriminations. On the other side I see a loss of interest for the didactic, less attention to the students, less opportunities for the PhD candidates and the postdocs to get a position, and less space for free research, independent from private interests. The risks that I see are the marginalization of the university within the competitive economic system, or its full subordination to it. My wish is that university finds new energy to play a significant role in education and in building a critical citizenship and not only in the production of self-referential speculations or of knowledge which is functional to the economic system.

1. How did you become aware of the College of Fellows?
I became aware of the College of Fellows through emails I received from the Welcome Center, and through my friend, Niels Weidtmann, who is the director.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?
I think my work is relevant for anyone concerned with the environmental crisis - so I'd say that I'm trying to speak to large portions of society. The academic community is of course inclued, and my work would be relevant to those who work in enviornmental studies, cultural studies, environmental humanities, and any humanistic discipline that interrogates the nature-human relationship.

3. You grew up in Amman, Jordan. How do you experience Germany on this background?
I am not new to Germany; I first lived here in 2002, in Berlin, where I studied German for 2 months at the Goethe Institute. Then I moved to Tübingen in 2004, and was here for three years. I was back in Germany (Lüneburg in 2009) and again in Hamburg in 2012. I came back to Tübingen in 2019, and lived here for a year, and have now been back since May... So to me Germany, and in particular, Tübingen, is like a second home. I can't say that it is foreign any more. But if I look back on my first experiences in Germany - I'd say that what most surprised me is how quiet people are, how you can be in a café, and it's very still, or in the bus, and no one makes a sound. That is very different from most of the places I've lived, where there is always music in cafes or children screaming, etc. I am still amazed by how quiet German children are!

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?
I was never a café person, until I met my husband, who is very much a café person, and I've converted since. So I will have to say that my favourite places are cafes, and they are: Bota, Lunette and Hanseatica. But I also love walking on the Neckarinsel, or walking from Tübingen to Lustnau. Many years ago, I rode my bike with a friend to Rottenburg, and that was a special day... that path is gorgeous.

5. What does the university of the future look like?
I think it will be smaller, and have a more integrated education, where students are not only doing intellectual work, but also practical work, especially farming. I am more and more convinced that we all need to find our way back to our hands and to integrate our hands with our heads (and hearts) more. The university of the future should be more holistic, and bring us closer to the land, to plants and animals, and help us to understand our dependence and interconnections.

1. How did you become aware of the College of Fellows?
Actually I never heard about the College of Fellows (CoF) even if I have been a postdoc or a Humboldt research fellow in Tübingen for over two years. I’m quite happy that I got a notification about it in time. The CoF certainly provides a useful platform for scholars in multidisciplines for exchanging ideas and communication. Really amazing!

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?
My research is to investigate molecular mechanisms underlying complicated processes during plant development, especially crop development. I’m primarily using genetics and also diverse molecular biology approaches to address the questions of our interest. I think a main relevance of my research is that I can satisfy myself and my curiosity, and exercise my brain as well, because I found that genetics is really like a puzzle. The phenomenon in nature are always there, complex to understand, but you can logically and creatively provide potential principles of how or why this happens, just like Sherlock Holmes solving cases. And it is also not a routine work and I can imagine that if staying in academia I would always encounter diverse types of questions throughout my career. I can continuously exercise my brain to address them. This is fantastic to me. Besides, from an unselfish perspective, understanding crop development will provide more opportunities to improve crop production in terms of both yield and quality, which are becoming more and more important at this moment now that the war is happening and the global population is constantly growing.

3. You grew up in China. How do you experience Germany on this background?
China is still developing and nearly all people there are trying to work hard for a good living. Benefits are that the economy is very strong and everything is becoming better in China, but sometimes competition and peer pressure are unavoidably fierce. Compared to that, the majority of people in Germany are really friendly, always kind and open to help solve some of my problems, and don’t mind return of interest too much. Of course, people here sometimes are too serious to the business, but it is professional. And, people here like to keep a very good work-life balance not like in China and United States. Even so, Germany still has the most energetic academic environment in Europe and it is really not easy to achieve.

And I also like the summer in Tübingen, even though short during the whole year, not very hot only if you try to protect yourself from the sunshine. I feel the sun is too bright for eastern Asian people. But the temperature is quite cosy to do some outdoor activities. Winter is quite long, but considering that the facilities can assure sufficient heating, Tübingen is a good place to live for a long time.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?
Everywhere, but if I have to put a finger on it, I would say my corn field and the forest around that (in Heuberger-Tor-Weg).

5. What does the university of the future look like?
I’m not sure. From a Chinese perspective, a good university would always move or is moving to a big city in order to attract more excellent students and professors. But obviously it is not the case in Germany. I think the University will definitely continue to reinforce its scientific research.

1. How did you become aware of the College of Fellows?
I am in Tübingen for three months (October - December 2022) as a returning Alexander von Humboldt research fellow and was contacted by the Welcome Office about participating in the Humboldt Lecture Series and the College of Fellows. I was unaware of the CoF before I arrived in Tübingen, even though I had been at the university as research fellow off and on for the last thirty years. The College of Fellows is a welcome addition to including external scholars into the research infrastructure and providing networking opportunities, especially for junior researchers.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g., for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?
My scholarly work is in the field of German Studies with an emphasis on theory, intellectual history, gender studies, but also colonial studies and, most recently, environmental studies. When I was in Tübingen with a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation in 2003-2004, I wrote a book on the German colonial imagination which, I hope, was and still is relevant to society at large in reminding Germans about their legacy as colonial power. Nowadays, I see posters all over Tübingen that inform about the colonial history of the town and the university and its involvement with the colonial project. But it is especially my most recent involvement with the Environmental Humanities that, I assume, is relevant for scholarship and society in general. In 2011, I founded a transatlantic network of scholars working in the Environmental Humanities, including members from the University of Tübingen, with the generous proceeds from the Alumni Prize that the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation afforded me that year. The network has meanwhile expanded significantly and work in the Environmental Humanities in my field is blossoming and now represented on all interdisciplinary conferences worldwide.

3. You grew up in the Ruhrgebiet in Germany. How do you experience Germany on this background?
I grew up in Wiesbaden and Darmstadt in the sixties and seventies and Tübingen is the place I've returned to most frequently because of its excellent research infrastructure, library access, and the colleagues in my field. I am always amazed at the constantly increasing openness of German society to diverse perspectives and influences from different cultures at all levels of life. Walking through the Botanische Garten, one can hear a broad range of languages spoken from all continents, sometimes even Swabian. This is different from what I remember growing up and changes evertime I return to Germany. I spent extended research time both in Munich and Berlin recently, two cities with a large percentage of international residents, but Tübingen also has a strong record in accepting and including diversity that it can be proud of.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?
Well, that’s easy: riding my bike on the Neckar cycle path or any of he many other trails gets you outside the city pretty quickly where you have great views down into town, across the Ammer valley, or the Alb and surroundings. Walking through the Schönbuch and having lunch at Hohenentringen is another favorite; enjoying the many markets and activities the old town has to offer and then having a glas of wine and a slice of Zwiebelkuchen (onion quiche) at the Mayerhöfle (a Geheimtip!) is a rare treat.

5. What does the university of the future look like?
That’s a huge question. I grew up in a household where university politics was part of our daily dinner conversation and as a young person and then student myself I saw the university undergo a significant (and much needed) transformation from an institution steeped in tradition where male professors „professed“ the truth to a much more open academy where new topics and new approaches were tolerated, later even encouraged, and the first women were appointed to professorships. During the same time, the administrative apparatus grew exponentially and that is something that I fear might even increase in the future, not necessarily to the best of effects. As the administration has professionalized it has also become a self-serving mechanism. I hope the university of the future can find a good balance between academic personnel and administrators. The other development that I was privy to observe was a trend away from basic scholarship to „applied“ research, or research that can be translated into technology transfer or some value for a relevant application, sometimes short-term. Student interest also seems to move into this direction. I hope the university of the future can find back to its roots of producing basic research while at the same time being open to innovation and valuing diversity and inclusion.

1. Why did you apply to the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies and how had you heard of it?
I heard of the College of Fellows through the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung. I applied to broaden my horizons and diversify my academic network. I come from a very small discipline (Egyptology), and I therefore find it especially important to seek interdisciplinary contact, not just with colleagues in closely related fields, such as Archaeology or Assyriology, but in a wide range of fields. The College of Fellows seems like the ideal platform to facilitate this kind of exchange.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g., for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?
I heard of the College of Fellows through the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung. I applied to broaden my horizons and diversify my academic network. I come from a very small discipline (Egyptology), and I therefore find it especially important to seek interdisciplinary contact, not just with colleagues in closely related fields, such as Archaeology or Assyriology, but in a wide range of fields. The College of Fellows seems like the ideal platform to facilitate this kind of exchange.

3. You grew up in the Ruhrgebiet in Germany. How do you experience Germany on this background?
In many ways Germany is similar to Denmark, and I have a definite advantage because the languages are relatively close (not grammatically, but lexicographically). So, in some ways I feel at home in Germany. But there are also many differences to what I am used to from Denmark, and I find the language, history, and culture of Germany endlessly fascinating.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?
I have not yet had time to explore the city, as I arrived only on October 31st. But I have visited the city previously on a short trip, and I absolutely loved walking along the Neckar. Tübingen is a very idyllic place.

5. What does the university of the future look like?
Having been employed at a Danish university for the past 6 years, I have seen the troubling developments there, where academic knowledge is valued less and less, and knowledge is seen to only carry true value if it has an economic worth. Especially disciplines in the humanities have been widely criticized, being essentially regarded as inconsequential by the politicians, who have even attacked freedom of research. I therefore hope that the university of the future is one that values all disciplines, that stands by its employees’ right to freedom of research, and that does not seek only to capitalize on research but to promote it for the sake of research itself.

1. Why did you apply to the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies and how had you heard of it?
I have a very long association with the University of Tübingen because I started studying as an undergraduate student here in 1991. So, my association with the university extends over 30 years altogether. I first became aware of the respective opportunities through Niels Weidtmann (director of the College of Fellows, who at that time was the director of the former Forum Scientiarum) during a Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship at the University of Tübingen between 2015 and 2017. Niels Weidtmann and I collaborated for a workshop in 2019 and are currently editing the respective book together.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g., for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?
I am a Palaeolithic and anthropological archaeologist and have published widely on Palaeolithic art and archaeology as well as general theoretical aspects of archaeological and rock art research. Relocating from Europe to Australia more than ten years ago has allowed me to develop new ways to interrogate the processes of archaeological reasoning and interpretation with a focus on the significance of Indigenous knowledge systems, the construction of heritage, and social justice. Because of my previous employment at two museums in Germany I also have experience in related non-academic fields. I have, consequently, always been particularly interested in the interrelationships between academic knowledge, archaeological evidence, and political and social processes. Even though I am very interested in social theory and the processes of knowledge production, my work also has a very important application-oriented dimension, particularly in the context of cultural heritage and intercultural communication.

3. You grew up in the Ruhrgebiet in Germany. How do you experience Germany on this background?
I am a German citizen, born in Nordrhein-Westfalen. But I have now been away from Germany for almost 14 years and have been based in Western Australia with my family. I have kept my connections with Germany throughout this period, though, and my parents are still here. The main difference to living in Western Australia is incredible amount of work that is going on in Germany and Europe in my field and the number of researchers. This is obviously just a reflection of the greater pool of people in Europe, but it is also a consequence of a different attitude towards higher education and the funding that flows into the sector. Overall, I continue to be inspired by all the things that are happening around me when I am here.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?
I have a special relationship with the Schloss Hohentübingen, because that is where the archaeological and social anthropological institutes were located when I started studying. When I was an undergraduate student, specializing in Palaeolithic archaeology, I even received a key to the castle gate, because the professor had the policy of allowing all his students access to the departmental library 24/7. In the city itself, the Hanseatica café is my favorite place to have a great coffee and watch people walk past for a while.

5. What does the university of the future look like?
I have experience with the university sector in Germany, Australia, and the UK. I am quite critical of recent developments of the increasing corporatization of the higher education sector, which is particularly prevalent in Anglo-American countries. University education should not be a business and the success of research should not foremost be evaluated through metrics and cash income. Universities should be places of learning and the critical engagement with social, economic, and political problems and challenges. Universities should also be safe places to develop socially critical and responsible research that should also speak truth to power. Therefore, universities must play important roles in the democratic process and are not simply places to produce job-ready graduates. During the Covid-19 pandemic, I developed a new appreciation of online teaching methods, but I see these more in a complementary fashion and classroom teaching is still more effective and fun for everyone. My most successful classes always involve extensive group work, lots of paper and marker pens, and a large whiteboard.

1. Why did you apply to the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies and how had you heard of it?
I’m in Tübingen as a Humboldt Research Fellow for Experienced Reseachers. My academic host here, Prof. Holger Zellentin, told me about the College of Fellows and spoke positively of it, and encouraged me to look into it. When I found out more about it, it seemed like a very good way to meet and interact with other researchers here in Tübingen.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science’s sake)?
My current research focuses on reassessing early Jewish attitudes toward Christianity, as expressed in texts of classical rabbinic literature from the third century CE. Scholars, as well as the wider public, have tended to assume a more conflictual relation between representatives of rabbinic Judaism and those of Christianity. In various Christian texts from the second and third centuries, one finds a negative attitude expressed toward ‘Judaism,’ and scholars have frequently assumed that rabbinic Judaism viewed followers of Jesus in an equally negative way during this same time period. My research indicates that, in fact, third-century rabbbinic texts (in contrast to subsequent Jewish-Christian polemics) do not display an inherently negative attitude towards Jesus-followers. Many topics associated with the Jesus-movement do not appear to have evoked negative responses for the authors of the rabbinic texts -- including topics such as claims that the messiah has already come; the idea of calling someone ‘son of God’; and the ways the Synoptic Gospels criticize the Pharisees. Assumptions of a mutual, two-way hostility between rabbinic Judaism and Christianity during this time period need to be fundamentally rethought. This research is relevant both for historical understandings of the early centuries of development of rabbinic Judaism and Christianity, as well as for creating new frameworks for understanding and conversation between Jews, Christians, and Muslims today. It also has broader implications for thinking sociologically about the ways in which one group can engage in non-hostile ways with groups that differ from it in terms of practice or belief.

3. You grew up in Birmingham. How do you experience Germany on this background?
I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. Tübingen in August can sometimes be pretty hot, although not as hot as Alabama! 

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?
I’ve really enjoyed getting a chance to go hiking on the various beautiful trails and nature areas in the area around Tübingen. I’ve also enjoyed walking around in the Aldstadt -- I currently work in Cambridge, UK, another ancient University city, but Tübingen has its own unique look and feel. This month, I’ve worked most days in the library in the Theologicum, which has been a really excellent place to read and think. 

5. What does the university of the future look like?
My picture of an ideal university environment would be one in which students learn how to think for themselves, discuss ideas openly, critically question assumptions, and in which students and teachers learn from one another.

1. Why did you apply to the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies and how had you heard of it?

I received an email inviting international researchers to the Opening Ceremony of the College of Fellows in late April, and I came along because I hadn’t been able to meet many academics in other disciplines at the University of Tübingen. I ended up having a lovely evening and meeting Sara Bangert there, who put me in touch with Yanti Hölzchen, and this resulted in my being invited to give a Lunch Talk Presentation in July, which I also greatly enjoyed. I am in Tübingen as a Fellow in the Teach@Tübingen programme, having previously spent thirteen years in the UK studying English Literature and philosophy, so the College of Fellows has already been a great way for me to make connections with other international and interdisciplinary scholars here at Tübingen. I am very grateful and honoured to be named the ‘Fellow in Focus’ for August and I am proud to represent the College of Fellows in this capacity.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?

My research focuses on speculative fiction – particularly science fiction, utopian literature and the Gothic – and on how people use literature to critically engage with reality in deep and creative ways. I am especially interested in how speculative genres may serve as transforming ‘mirrors’ or ‘crucibles,’ in the words of Dark Suvin, and thus provide a ‘dynamic transformation rather than a static mirroring of the author’s environment’ (Suvin, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction). In my PhD research, I used systems theory and analytic philosophy to investigate how a particular group of feminist utopian novels from the 1970s, the ‘critical utopias’ of Joanna Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin and Marge Piercy, can be seen as providing radically open and sustainable approaches to this dynamic transformation within utopian thought experiments. In my current work, I am applying related systems-theoretical lenses to look at Gothic literature and climate fiction and understand their own unique transformative functioning at a deeper level. As such, I think that my work is certainly relevant for the academic community, given that utopian literature in particular has recently been undervalued and my interdisciplinary approach should help us understand its creative potential in a new light. However, I also think it is relevant for society at large, particularly in these times of great change and upheaval, as we are socially once again at a point of great potential transformation and thus have a lot to learn from creative social re-imaginings in literature if we take the time to understand their true critical potential.

3. You grew up in Germany. How do you experience Germany on this background?

I grew up in Munich, Germany, in a bilingual household (with a German father and an American mother) and moved to Scotland right after my Abitur to study at the University of St Andrews, completing an undergraduate degree and two master’s degrees (in English literature and philosophy) at St Andrews before going to Durham University in England for my PhD. As such, it is quite interesting for me to be living back in Germany and working at a German university after thirteen years in the UK, having never actually studied at university level in Germany before. There are many things I like about the German university system, in particular – the relative freedom that students have to choose their own path, the lack of high fees – but I also appreciate the student community cohesion and support that comes with 3- or 4-year undergraduate degrees in the UK. As such, I am happy to be teaching a course here next semester in which I will help international students re-orient themselves in the German system and find the support they need. Regarding Germany as a country in general, I am glad to be in a somewhat more politically stable place again after experiencing the initial effects of Brexit in the UK, though I do now also have UK citizenship and still feel a deep affinity for the country. In any case, wherever I end up, I will always value my friendships and connections in the international academic community – we have so much to learn from each other in international and interdisciplinary networks, including institutions like the College of Fellows, and I think their existence is crucial for the future of dynamic and impactful research.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?

I’m vegan, so I’m a big fan of our local veggie-friendly restaurants and cafés like Speicher, Vegi, Africa and Manufaktur – I’m very happy that Tübingen is showing the way forward with much-needed ‘utopian’ steps in the real world, providing food options that are not only kind to our non-human kin but also crucial for the survival of the planet. I’m also a very outdoorsy person and I’m lucky enough to live right by the Schönbuch forest, so I spend a lot of time walking in the woods and fields, which I absolutely love. Tübingen and its surroundings are beautiful and I’m grateful for every spare minute that I have to enjoy them.

5. What does the university of the future look like?

I think that the university of the future must be connected internationally and across disciplines so that we may all learn from one another and spark research ideas in urgently needed new directions, particularly in these times of global crisis and transformation. Moreover, I think that the university of the future can only function in these crucial new ways if it is fundamentally inclusive across arbitrary divisions such as gender, ethnicity, economic background, and age, as well as including structural support such as flexible working hours and childcare facilities. This is absolutely vital to the dynamic exchange of ideas, and we cannot imagine and work towards better futures together if we are still stuck in the rigid systems of the past.

1. Why did you apply to the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies and how had you heard of it?

I was told about the College of Fellows by a colleague, and I also received an information about it in an email from the university. Since I am a guest researcher who has a relatively long scholarship here in Tübingen, I thought it would be nice to join the College and meet other colleagues from various research fields. 

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?

My research interests lie in the field of language comprehension. So the general research question of my research endeavor is How do we understand each other? Of course, the individual research projects I have been taking part in touch this question only from specific perspectives. For example, in a relatively recent project, we have shown that immediately after people read a non-complicated sentence, they are able to recall certain pieces of information to a higher extent than other. This points out that we have a tendency to code information selectively - we tend to ignore certain information when reading, but in a rather systematic way. This has potential consequences not only for the research of language comprehension, but also for other related research fields and maybe even for the society as such. 

3. You grew up in Czechia. How do you experience Germany on this background?

I grew up in a neighboring country which has a long and historically complicated relationship with Germany. My first time in Germany was when I was around 16 - my high school in Prague had an exchange program with a high school in Bonn so we went to Bonn and then students from Bonn came to Prague. I think this was very important moment both for me and for other students from both countries (we actually still meet from time to time). At that time (around 2000), the difference between (West) Germany and Czechia was striking (it started already in the train which was super comfortable in comparison to what we then knew in Czechia). Nowadays, I think the difference is not that pronounced anymore. In my eyes, Germany is still sort of a model country for Czechia. Many things work better here than by us and many improvements in Czechia have been driven by German examples. Funnily enough, there are also things which stroke me as considerably worse here than in Czechia - for example, the administrative is much faster and efficient in Czechia than here and also, our beer is way better. Altogether, I have to say that I enjoy my stay in Germany a lot. 

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?

I live with my family in the French Quarter which is a really fantastic place where to live with kids. My favorite places in the city center are probably Café Südhang and Freistil Brewery where they have good craft beer and a very nice outside seating next to Neckar river. I also really enjoy eating in the restaurant Africa which is just next to the Brechtbau where my office is. 

5. What does the university of the future look like?

I think I can mention three things which seem to me to be rather important. The university of the future is forward-thinking and not bound by tradition on any level of its existence. The university of the future is a place of thorough interdisciplinary discussion without professional prejudices of any kind (either towards ways of thinking or towards different subject areas). And the university of the future is a pleasant place where to be for any person independently of their origins, gender, race, or language.

1. Why did you apply to the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies and how had you heard of it?

I came across the Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies when I was about to complete my doctoral thesis at the University of New South Wales, Australia. I attended a lecture by the Society for Intercultural Philosophy organized (hosted by Dr. Niels Weidtmann), where a prominent scholar of Ubuntu (Professor Mogobe Ramose) presented his works on ubuntu. It was through the lecture hosted by Dr. Niels that I became fully aware of the Center and its deep-seated activities and contributions to global scholarship, particularly through the college of fellows. Since I was particularly working on interdisciplinary and intercultural philosophy, I consider the Center the best fit for my future research on ubuntu and the environment.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?

My research is importantly relevant in today’s world, particularly to laypeople, students, environmentalists, and policymakers across the globe. In my work, I draw attention to the need for critical engagement with power relations, particularly socio-ecological power relations, as this frames many contemporary lives across all nations and thus is central to how people use and alter the environment where they are. In setting out the philosophical landscape of my work, I draw on ubuntu scholarship, demonstrating that non-Western traditions have important philosophical insights that are applicable to any person and location in the global context. While my work presents an alternative way, an ubuntu-inspired way, to think about humanity, sustainability, and the earth environment, the appreciation and enactment of the recommendations should not be restricted to only those of ubuntu heritage since my work comparatively explores ideas on sustainability and biodiversity loss in Western and non-Western traditions, using the framings in each tradition to interrogate the other, so as to crave new pathways. My research motivates humans to act responsibly towards nonhumans beings and the environment and advances ways to decolonize indigenous moral epistemologies that are applicable to the global environment.

3. You grew up in Nigeria. How do you experience Germany on this background?

I must say that Tuebingen is a beautiful and lovely environment to be in. I love the fact that most things are well-organized, and people are always happy to support newbies. This resonates with the feelings of home away from home when I newly arrived in Bebenhausen. As someone who is fascinated by architecture, landscape, and cultural material heritages, I could say I am so happy to be here, particularly not only because there is a mix of built and natural environment where people live, but also that Tuebingen creates a sense of calmness with a valuable historical posture. I have lived in a very busy environment both in Nigeria and in Australia, however, Tuebingen helps create a sense of calmness, one which provides a sense of balance, fitness, and privacy. I also love the fact that I am working with a wonderful team of experts in phenomenology.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?

I live close to Schönbuch natural park, which is one of my preferred places in Tuebingen. I also spend my weekends sometimes at the Botanical gardens, Hagellock Park, or historical sites such as NeckarBrucke bridge, where I relax with some friends.

5. What does the university of the future look like?

University is not merely a place for the transmission of knowledge but also an environment for knowledge creation. I think that the important questions that would (or should) drive the university of the future must include the ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘who’ questions of knowledge creation. The ‘what’ question concerns the issue concerning the things that universities should invest in, in terms of knowledge creation. In this case, I believe that we face multiple problems in the world that require deep-seated solutions from all academic disciplines. I think engaging the ‘what’ question will help to shape the trajectory of the future of our universities across the globe. The ‘how’ question deals with the practical ways in which we might address whatever problems we face. It involves how we think about the problems we face, and the ways in which we might address them. The ‘how’ question requires we pay attention to the different pathways to address a single problem. In this case, I think the university of the future requires an interdisciplinary lens since the contemporary problems we face require an interdisciplinary gaze. A good example is the problem of environmental sustainability which has political, economic, cultural, and technological angles to it. Focusing on the aspects in an interdisciplinary and intercultural way would provide a better picture of the world and the problem, thereby prompting us to turn our gaze away from simplistic foci to a more illuminating pathway.  The ‘who’ is an important side to look at in knowledge creation. Traditionally, the university is organized around lecturers. Now, things are beginning to change. The impact of Covid-19 has presented us with an alternative way of viewing education and the place of the university in knowledge creation. I imagine that the university of the future will be student-oriented and problem-driven, which will allow for more flexibility and practicality in knowledge creation. I believe the university of the future will also focus on who creates knowledge. In which case, knowledge creation would likely shift to whosoever can create it, be it women, students, or non-Western people and regions. Why the question about what the university of the future would look like can be addressed in various ways, I believe that the prospects of the university in years to come would rest on innovative learning across all fields, among all people (regardless of their gender).

1. Why have you applied to the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies and how have you heard of it?

Well, I consider my research to be intercultural and interdisciplinary. The College of Fellows, thus, becomes a natural place for me to conduct my research. Dr Niels Wiedtmann, the Director of the institute hosts several colloquiums online. I must have stumbled on him advertising the institute in one of those, as he does every time. It is a wonderful place for research. I am really glad to be here. I was here in 2021 and contributed to the tink tank at the Center for designing the activities of the college of fellows. This is my second visit to complete my book on conversational thinking.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?

My research is relevant for society everywhere in the world today. Most importantly, it is relevant in hotspots of conflict, racism, coloniality and all forms of marginalisation, whether economic, political, social, geographic or intellectual. I propounded the theory of conversational thinking and its framework called the conversational method. Both are grounded in a truth-glut type of three-valued logic called Ezumezu, which I also formulated. These form a structure for addressing issues arising from binary opposition and rival the bivalent orthodoxy in the Western intellectual space, from Plato and Aristotle to Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant. 

3. You grew up in Nigeria. How do you experience Germany on this background?

It is a well-organised society. Tubingen is peaceful, calm and lovely. Anyone who appreciates nature must love it here. In fact, most people here seem to be quite close to nature, perhaps even closer than they are to fellow human beings. You get the impression that people cherish their privacies, which is not the same where I come from. In much of Africa and specifically in my country, Nigeria, everyone is interested in everyone’s business. It could irritate you atimes, but it excites you most of the time. So, we are talking two societies with different orientations. When you are in a new society with an orientation that varies from what you are used to, it may seem strange at first, but I guess that is perfectly normal.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?

I am not sure I have identified one yet. But I like the terrain and the gardens. As a lover of nature, the environment is appealing to me.

5. How does the university of the future look like?

University is not merely a place for the transmission of knowledge but also an environment for knowledge creation. I think that the important questions that would (or should) drive the university of the future must include the ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘who’ questions of knowledge creation. The ‘what’ question concerns the issue concerning the things that universities should invest in, in terms of knowledge creation. In this case, we face multiple problems in the world that require deep-seated solutions from all academic disciplines. Engaging the ‘what’ question will help to shape the trajectory of the future of our universities across the globe. The ‘how’ question deals with the practical ways in which we might address whatever problems we face. It involves how we think about the problems we face, and the ways in which we might address them. The ‘how’ question requires we pay attention to the different pathways to address a single problem. In this case, I think the university of the future requires an interdisciplinary lens. A good example is the problem of environmental sustainability which has political, economic, cultural, and technological angles to it. Focusing on these aspects in an interdisciplinary and intercultural way would provide a better picture of the world and the problems we encounter, thereby prompting us to turn our gaze away from simplistic foci to a more illuminating pathway.  The ‘who’ question is an important side to look at in knowledge creation. Traditionally, the university is organized around lecturers and Western thought. Now, things are beginning to change. The impact of Covid-19 has presented us with an alternative way of viewing education and the place of the university (and Western scholarship) in knowledge creation. I imagine that the university of the future will be student-oriented and problem-driven, which will allow for more flexibility and practicality in knowledge creation. I also believe the university of the future will focus on who creates knowledge. In which case, knowledge creation would likely shift to whosoever can create it, be it women, students, or non-Western people and regions. Why the question about what the university of the future would look like can be addressed in various ways, the prospects of the university in years to come would rest on innovative learning across all fields, among all people (regardless of their gender).

1. Why have you applied to the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies and how have you heard of it?

I first heard of the CIIS in Bucharest, where I was doing my first post-doc in philosophy by working with Prof. Bogdan Mincă, who participated at some of the activities of the center. At that time, I was also broadening my research by completing a master’s course in Islamic studies. Thus, since I was looking for a place where I could pursue my work both in phenomenology and in the area of interculturality, the CIIS just seemed the place to be.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?

I believe that whoever does philosophy can say that his or her work is relevant for every human being and for society as such. But given the fact that philosophy has also turned itself into an academic field, my work also inscribes itself in the results of the academic community of philosophers, while being at the same time open to anyone who is interested in the question of language, translation and foreignness.  

3. You grew up in Romania. How do you experience Germany on this background?

It’s very interesting that your question relates the foreignness of Germany with the place in which I grew up and on the background of which I would be supposed to experience it. To some extent, you’re right to address the question in this way: our first perceptions open our sight forever, and the home country is one of these doors. But given the fact that we are historical beings subject to change, I could also say that a very important role in the way in which I perceive life in Germany is played by some other countries where I studied, namely France, Brazil and Turkey. On the background of these countries, which have in common with Romania a certain general openness and warmth, as well as a certain lack of order and a taste for improvisation, Germany appears rather as a cold place, in which everything functions very well – but where there’s hardly someone enjoying it. At the same time, nonetheless, what I enjoyed was the absence of cultural pressure that one experiences in countries where the foreign is placed under the urge of being assimilated. In Germany, on the contrary, there is room for you as a foreign, there is room for dialogue. But since not only spatiality, but also temporality influences our way of being, a major aspect of my stay in Tübingen is the fact that we find ourselves in the pandemic, which brings to light, as an exceptional historical stance, some cultural features that would otherwise be less blatant. What stroke me during this time in Germany was the way in which most of the people complied to the social rules imposed by the government and, also, the way in which it became socially unacceptable not to comply with them. A certain “have to” transformed itself very quickly in “man macht das”. Many people with whom I discussed thought that these rules were unjust or that they were founded on frail grounds, yet they continued to obey by them. This is something that I would find difficult to imagine in Romania, which is rather a country which resists the political power in place, the authority of the institutions, and where one would rather complain for a lack of predictability. During the pandemic, nonetheless, that was felt rather as a space of freedom.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?

My favourite place in Tübingen is Tübingen itself. I enjoy its nature and especially the river, its narrow streets and the fact that one can easily walk from one place to another, but also some of the cafés in which I can sit and have a drink with my friends or read. I wish, actually, that Tübingen had more of these places of sociability, as well as more sunny terraces or Biergärten.

5. How does the university of the future look like?

I would start by saying what the university of the future is not – namely, a digital university. The pandemic has also changed much of what we think of as acceptable in academic terms: if a couple of years ago the fact of participating online at a conference was perceived as a lack of implication, for the standard of action was given by the embodied meeting, now, on the contrary, people have the expectation of being able to participate online as well, and if one organizes an event, one has to additionally mention that it takes place “in presence”. Even the fact that there has appeared a “name” for something which before was unnamed, because it went literally without saying, should make us become aware of the change. But the pandemic has also shown us, like in a negative film, how important our embodiment is in the process of sharing ideas, and especially our social embodiment. Therefore, I believe that if the university can indeed take advantage of the possibility of organizing some remote classes for people from different countries, this should be just a way to make them connect in view of a personal meeting. At the same time, I see the university of the future as a less rigid structure in terms of international cooperation, academic jobs and curricula.

1. Why have you applied to the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies and how have you heard of it?

I applied to itthe CoF certainly because of its international reputation and the cutting-edge scientific event organized here but also because of the great disciplinary openness it promotes. I heard of it through the network of Advanced Studies Institutions across Europe which I had the honor to be part of in the past decade.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?

I think that my scientific work as a social anthropologist specialized in the diverse collectives of the South American highlands could be relevant for Andean societies in their struggles for survival and recognition, for any nation dealing with indigenous peoples in their territories, and finally for the scientific knowledge of human diversity and its multiple possibilities of our relations with non-humans in the times of the Anthropocene.

3. You grew up in France. How do you experience Germany on this background?

I did grow up in Peru but let me add that I come from the most vulnerable and exploited part of its society: son of a single mother with indigenous ancestors raised in the shantytowns where dispossessed peasants looked for refuge from the then on-going political violence in the highlands. I mention this particularity of my background because one of the main features of my particular experience of Germany is almost the perfect opposite either of that background or of its consequences for any society: the peace of mind, the time and the freedom of thought I have been able to receive here.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?

The city center is really amazing and quite unique, along with the rivers and its botanical garden. My most favorite place for my interest in the Americas is obviously the Cotta-Haus. I like pretty much everything actually!

5. How does the university of the future look like?

I am not sure if I would be able to say something relevant about this particular topic, but I would think that it is essential to safeguard in any possible future the freedom of thought, the capacity of analysis and, as suggested in a well-known Argentinian film, the "merciless lucidity" needed for any truly scientific work.

1. Why have you applied to the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies and how have you heard of it?

I have graduated from the University of Vienna in the research program “Philosophy and non-Western traditions – Intercultural Philosophy”, which is, together with the College of Fellows, one of the few Centers researching on Intercultural Philosophy in the German-speaking world. I have been aware of the activities in Tübingen for several years through the Society for Intercultural Philosophy (GIP), for which I edit the Newsletter.

2. For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?

I want my work to be relevant for students and researchers who cannot accept that philosophy is just what they have always been taught: German, French or American-British, of a certain colour, privilege, or gender. There are several layers to the problems, but one thing is sure: philosophy ought to be broadened, and I want to point at philosophers who have been excluded of the canon, to reflect on what the margins of philosophy tell us, and how they are constituted, and working on expanding the corpus. I also want my work on contemporary Indian philosophy not only to be usable as comparative introductions for scholars in Europe but engage students and researchers in India and create materials that can be included in their own research and teaching, for not only using their intellectual resources, but serving their own purposes.

3. You grew up in France. How do you experience Germany on this background?

What I enjoy the most about Germany is actually its regionalism – a source of endless jokes! For example, you just need to mention ‘Schwaben’, ‘Maultaschen’, some words of Schwäbisch or some cultural clichés (like your neighbours spying on your garden, which is not only a cliché…) in front of (preferably) listeners from various parts of Germany, for the game to start – something much less present in the Frenchs’ centralised spirit.

4. What are your favourite places in Tübingen?

I came to Tübingen during the Covid-19 crisis and began my stay with 10 days of quarantine; shortly after, all the shops, restaurants and University buildings closed. Hence, first out of necessity, and later maybe out of habit and enjoyment for my normally rather urban self, my favourite Tübingen is ‘outside’ and in the ‘nature’: I started discovering the Österberg, the Käsenbachtal (and after it reopened, the Botanical Garden), and the beautiful and varied path of Schönbuch natural parc – the way through the forest to Bebenhausen (a classical, admittedly) is my favourite long sunny weekend leisure.

5. How does the university of the future look like?

The transition to online conferences, workshops, lectures and so on make it now possible to have truly international and diverse research and reading groups, to discuss and exchange with scholars all over the world. This opens an exciting range of possibilities, in particular for the places that could not afford attracting (and paying for) far-away professors or large-scale global conferences (and its cumulated costs). Yet, I hope this will not only lead to the ‘super-stars’ of the scholarly world to be even more famous, but also for students in less ‘rated’ academic structures to create their own research groups with peers that receive better institutional supports, for learning from professors and students in more secluded parts of the world, and in general to listen to those for whom it was so difficult to get funds to travel to the big academic gatherings in America or Europe. In other terms, I hope the University of the future and its hybrid/online possibilities will create more diversity rather than a more homogenised global world.

Why have you applied to the College of Fellows – Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies and how have you heard of it?

After finishing my PhD in Australia in May 2020, I was informed about the upcoming opportunity of doing research with a focus on ‘belonging’ at the Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies. The call for application sounded completely fit to my research interest and my academic proficiency which is Phenomenology and Post-colonial Studies.

For whom or what is your scientific work relevant (e.g. for society, for a certain community, for science's sake)?

While there is an unprecedented increase in the forceful displacements of people around the globe due to various environmental, political and social calamities, the notion of ‘belonging’ and ‘home’ have gained an inimitable attention by both the newcomers and the host communities/societies. Between different philosophical, sociological and political engagements with the phenomenon of displacement and its related issues, it seems that phenomenology holds an advantage point. Phenomenology as the rigorous science of experience, enables us to inquire into the conditions of possibility of having such experiences of ‘being at home’ and ‘belonging’.

You grew up in Iran and lived in Australia. How do you experience Germany on this background?

Moving to Germany is my third major intra-continent move and I still cannot claim that dealing with the experience of ‘leaving behind’, in any rate gets simpler or less challenging. Due to all these border crossings, I believe that the concept of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’ gained new dimensions and importance for me. However, Germany provided me with a distinct perspective to engage with the phenomenon of ‘belonging to’ a community; CoF-CIIS is where I belong to the most.  

What are your favourite places in Tübingen?

Walking in Tübingen, you can wander about places that Hegel and Schelling once passed through, the breeze that gently brushed Hölderlin’s face, fills your lungs; you can tell the time looking at the clock designed by Johannes Kepler, located in the city centre. Then the natural beauty of the place; the surrounding charming villages to visit and Schönbuch natural park with its endless paths to walk- and merely allowing yourself to be enchanted by the magic of the forest.  

How does the university of the future look like?

With the development of social media the concept of teacher-student interaction surpassed far beyond the classroom where only certain authorised audience had the opportunity to participate in learning and knowledge production. Where some extraordinary events used to be exclusive to famous auditoriums of Ivy League, US, now one can attend unlimited lectures, given by great figures only from their room. Thus, if universities are going to be more than elegant and nostalgic lecture halls, they are to be performed as intersections of ideas, of languages, of cultures, of epistemologies. Instead of instructing teachers to be merely as knowledge transmitters, universities should cultivate them as facilitators who engage with endless ideas which are out there. Facilitation is not knowledge production, but it is creating opportunities, situations and spaces of productive encounters. The idea of interdisciplinarity only will be born out of the space of facilitation which leads to further knowledge production.