College of Fellows

COLLEGE OF FELLOWS
Center for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Studies

The College of Fellows is the Tübingen model of a university-based Institute for Advanced Studies. It is addressed to all international postdocs and research fellows at the University of Tübingen. As a platform for research, networking and events, the CoF invites all university members to actively participate in shaping the international and interdisciplinary exchange within the university and with the public.
More Information about the College of Fellows

Calls for applications for fellowships

New Horizons Fellowship

Deadline: 1 December 2024

More information on the New Horizons Fellowship and the process of nomination are here

All upcoming events

► 23 November 2024, 07:15 pm: CoF Cinema: "To save a stranger, first love your home": a special screening of the indie documentary The Volunteers – at the d.a.i. Tübingen 

► 25 November 2024, 6 pm: Workshop “Rethinking Peace” by Dr. Veronica Cibotaru (zoom) 

► 28 November 2024, 12:00 pm: College of Fellows Lunch Talk: Deep Chand, Global Encounters Fellow: “How does protest shape neighbourhood cohesion? A case study of Shaheen Bagh in Delhi” 

► 4 December 2024, 6:30 pm: CoF Cinema: “Lebenswelt” with Professor Hermílio Santos

► 11 December 2024, 6:30 pm: CoF Lecture Series with Professor Pamela Klassen: “Drawing Water: Toward an Elemental Theory of Religion”

► 30 – 31 Januar 2025 Global Encounters Workshop: “The Complexities and Dynamics of Social Interaction and Encounters in Neighborhoods”

News

We have moved!

The time has finally come: In September, the College of Fellows has moved into the Villa Köstlin at Rümelinstr. 27. There we have office space for visiting scholars and our staff; in addition, we have our own seminar room and a "common room", which - besides hosting our library - will be used for meetings by and with our fellows. Villa Köstlin will be an open house for all international researchers and their colleages and friends at the University of Tübingen. Feel invited and just drop by!


Annual Report 2023

We are very excited to present our 2023 annual report to you. In it you will find interviews with some of the fellows who were with us last year in which they talk about their research and their time in Tübingen; you will also find reports on events and brief introductions to all of last year's visiting scholars. Read about the documentary films of Brazilian sociologist Hermilío Santos, Indian ethnographer and historian Ponni Arasu and her social activism, Tetjana Midjana’s analysis of presidential speech types in times of war, and many intriguing stories more. Download the Report here

Calls and Vacancies

Student / Research Assistant (m/f/d)

The College of Fellows is looking for a student assistant (unexamined) or research assistant (BA) for 15-20 hours per month, starting immediately.

We expect an interest in interdisciplinary work and in contact with international guests of the university. Furthermore, we require the willingness to work independently and project-oriented and in a project-oriented manner as well as to participate in the realisation of interdisciplinary events. Independent work, organizational skills, very good language skills in German and English, and proficiency in the use of common PC software are requirements for this position.

The tasks include in detail
- Support with organisational and administrative tasks
- Assisting with the organisation and practical implementation of events
- Communication with international Research Fellows and partners
- Supporting public relations, maintaining the website and social media channels, maintaining the newsletter and creating promotional materials - relevant experience with online media, typo3 and indesign is welcome.

The remuneration per hour is € 13.25 (unexamined) or € 14.09 (Bachelor). Severely disabled persons are given preference in the event of equal suitability. The university is committed to equal opportunities and diversity. Recruitment is carried out by the Central Administration.

Are you interested in a multifaceted job in cooperation with a committed team?
Please send your application (including cover letter, CV and references) by 1 December 2024 by email in a pdf file to infospam prevention@cof.uni-tuebingen.de, addressed to:

COLLEGE OF FELLOWS
University Tübingen
Dr Niels Weidtmann, Director
Rümelinstr. 27
72070 Tübingen

Student / Research Assistant (m/f/d) for IT and technical support

The College of Fellows is looking for a student assistant (unexamined) or research assistant (BA) for 15-20 hours per month, starting immediately.

We expect an interest in interdisciplinary work and in contact with international guests of the university. Furthermore, we require the willingness to work independently and project-oriented and in a project-oriented manner as well as to participate in the realisation of interdisciplinary events. Independent work, organizational skills, very good language skills in German and English, and proficiency in the use of common PC software are requirements for this position.

The tasks include in detail
- IT support
- Support in setting up workstations, print authorizations and PC software - previous experience is required
- Technical support for events
- Communication with international Research Fellows and partners

The remuneration per hour is € 13.25 (unexamined) or € 14.09 (Bachelor). Severely disabled persons are given preference in the event of equal suitability. The university is committed to equal opportunities and diversity. Recruitment is carried out by the Central Administration.

Are you interested in a multifaceted job in cooperation with a committed team?
Please send your application (including cover letter, CV and references) by 1 December 2024 by email in a pdf file to infospam prevention@cof.uni-tuebingen.de, addressed to:

COLLEGE OF FELLOWS
University Tübingen
Dr Niels Weidtmann, Director
Rümelinstr. 27
72070 Tübingen

Call for Contributions

Call for Contributions

Workshop: The Complexities and Dynamics of Social Interaction and Encounters in Neighborhoods

University of Tübingen, 30-31 January 2025

The College of Fellow's Focus Group Global Encounters: Neighbourhoods and the Global Encounters Platform at the University of Tübingen are organizing a two-day international workshop in January 2025 to provide an interdisciplinary platform for academics, researchers, policymakers, activists, and professionals to reevaluate the ways of doing and thinking in the neighborhood. It will sharpen the sociological, anthropological, historical, philosophical, cultural, religious, linguistic, and economic dimensions of the complexities and dynamics of social interaction in neighborhoods considering spatiality, temporality, and the agency of change and resistance.

We seek submissions from scholars, activists, and policymakers whose work addresses the following conceptual, theoretical, and practical questions: What are the factors of social change in the neighborhood? What is the role of agency that shapes social interaction within the neighborhood? How did colonialism transform contemporary neighborhoods? How do people utilize temporal and spatial dynamics to (re)organize neighborhood encounters and sociality? How do migration, international mobility, industrial capitalism, urbanization, and technological developments affect neighborhoods? How do neighborhoods resist the changes occasioned by heterogeneity? How do neighborhoods communicate with each other? What guarantees cohesion in a neighborhood? And how do neighborhoods deal with conflict and contradictions?

Interested participants are invited to submit a title and abstract of not more than 300 words in English and institutional affiliation to global-encountersspam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de by 13 November 2024.

The full text of the call can be downloaded here.

Publications

Porr, Martin und Weidtmann, Niels (Hrsg.): "One World Anthropology and Beyond. A Multidisciplinary Engagement with the Work of Tim Ingold" London: Routeledge.

This edited volume offers a multidisciplinary engagement with the work of Tim Ingold, one of the most influential anthropologists in recent decades. The contributions are drawn from fields such as social anthropology, archaeology, rock art studies, philosophy, and science and technology studies, and critically engage with Ingold’s approaches and ideas. The volume includes contributions from participants in the Masterclass "One World Anthropology" with Tim Ingold, hosted by the CIIS in September 2019.

Past Events

17 October 2024

Semester Opening with Prof. Noam Leshem

“Edges of Care. Living and Dying in No Man's Land”

The ceremonial semester opening of the College of Fellows took place on Thursday, October 17, 2024. In his talk, Noam Leshem from the University of Durham presented excerpts from his cutting-edge research, in which he takes a closer look at areas and their inhabitants that seem to have been forgotten by the government as well as society for which no one feels responsible. In his book of the same title, “Edges of Care. Living and Dying in No Man's Land,” Leshem brought together his years of research from conflict and crisis areas and thus devotes himself to a topic that is currently extremely politically explosive: what happens to spaces and people - entire cultures even - when no one cares about them and they are left to their own devices and forgotten. 


16 October 2024
New Horizons Workshop

"Action, Body, and Space"
On Wednesday, 16 October 2024, from 09:30 am.– 5pm, the New Horizons Workshop “Action, Body, and Space” took place at the Villa Köstlin (Rümelinstr. 27, Tübingen) with a keynote by New Horizons Fellow Professor Patrick Haggard titled "Is Space Motoric?" and with further lectures by an interdisciplinary group of Tübingen scientists. The programme can be found here.


9. – 11. May 2024: SIP Annual Conference

From 9 to 11 May 2024, the annual conference of the Society for Intercultural Philosophy (SIP) "Topoi, Places, and Spaces in an Intercultural Perspective" took place at the University of Tübingen and online via Zoom. The conference, organised by the Society for Intercultural Philosophy in cooperation with the University of Tübingen and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), featured keynote speakers such as Augustin Berque, Edward Casey, Nathalie Depraz, Tao DuFour, Workineh Kelbessa Golga, Anke Graness, Tim Ingold, Ikechukwu Anthony Kanu, Kwok-ying Lau, Rita Segato, and Jaroslava Vydrová. The conference focused on the study and intercultural comparison of topoi, places, and spaces, emphasising their importance in intercultural philosophy and other disciplines. 

For more detailed information, please go to our events archive.


7 – 8 February 2024: Workshop "Kenosis and Its Ethics"

In February 2024 the Workshop "Kenosis and Its Ethics in a Contemporary and Intercultural Perspective" took place at the College of Fellows. It was organized by  Dr Norihito Nakamura, Dr Niels Weidtmann.  Find the full programme here


27 October 2023: Semester Opening

At the beginning of the winter semester, The College of Fellows invited all international fellows and interested university members to the semester opening in the Alte Aula on Friday, October 27. The College of Fellows presented its activities and offers for international scientists. Following the guest lecture by Professor Dr Jan Willem Duyvendak (Director of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, Amsterdam) entitled "The Return of the Native. Navigating between nostalgic nativism and hopeful liberalism", Professor Dorothee Kimmich and Professor Boris Nieswand took to the podium to talk to Professor Duyvendak and the audience. The concluding reception offered the opportunity to exchange ideas and to network with other fellows and Tübingen scientists over a glass of wine.


New Horizons Fellow 2023: Professor Rita Felski

In October 2023, the College of Fellows welcomed Professor Rita Felski, who visited the University of Tübingen as part of a New Horizons Fellowship. From 23 to 26 October 2023, the New Horizons Workshop "Postcritique, Recognition, Life World" took place as a closed event. The College of Fellows also  invited all members of the university and the interested public to Rita Felski's public lecture entitled "How Not To Talk About Experience" on Wednesday, 25 October 2023.


28 September 2023: Public lecture by Professor Eduardo Viveiros de Castro

On 1 June 2023, renowned Brazilian anthropologist Prof. Eduardo Viveiros de Castro gave an evening lecture entitled "Indigenous Multinaturalism from a Cosmopolitan Point of View". The lecture, as well as the related one-week masterclass with international doctoral students, was organised as part of the CoF's Focus Group "Interdisciplinary Anthropology" and provided an insight into de Castro's anthropological research on Amerindian perspectivism.

You can find detailed information in our events archive.