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

Announcements

New Horizons Fellowship

Deadline: November 30, 2025

More information on the New Horizons Fellowship and the process of nomination can be found here

 

 

 

 

Early Career Rescue Fellowship

Application Deadline: January 9, 2026

You can find more information about the Early Career Rescue Fellowship, including eligibility and application details, here.

 

 

 

Fellowships in "Intercultural Studies"

Deadline: November 25, 2025

For further information regarding the Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in 'Intercultural Studies', please refer to the official call for applications. The application form can be downloaded here.

Press Release

Baden-Württemberg Research Institutes Receive €3.6 Million for “Global Fellowships”

Institutes for Advanced Studies at the universities of Freiburg, Konstanz, and Tübingen are creating 14 positions for visiting researchers whose work is under pressure, using funds provided by the Ministry of Science.
You can read the full press release here.

All Upcoming Events

December 4, 2025 | 8.15 pm | Prof. Dr. Naomi Thurston | New Horizons Fellow | Academic Memorial Event for Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Jürgen Moltmann | Book Launch 

December 12-13, 2025 | New Horizons Workshop | “Historiographies of Christianity in China  – A Symposium of Current Voices in the Field”

December 16, 2025 | CoF Cinema | Film Screening and Discussion | “Hölderlin und der heilige Fluss” with the director Dr. Fabien Jégoudez

News

With great enthusiasm and an array of exciting projects, we are starting in on another semester full of opportunities for exchange, networking, and collaboration. We have planned exciting events with our long-term and short-term fellows, which will provide an excellent opportunity for developing new ideas and engaging in a fruitful academic exchange – both within individual disciplines but especially, in a cross-disciplinary dialog. We are excited to see what the upcoming weeks will bring and what this semester has in store for us! You can find more information in our program flyer to the winter term of 2025/26. We look forward to welcoming you in person at one of our events soon.



Annual Report 2024

We are very excited to present our 2024 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. Our annual report is available for download. 


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

October 24, 2025

Semester Opening with Prof. Megan Fieser

“Strategies to Address the Circularity of Plastics,” the formal semester opening of the College of Fellows took place on October 24, 2025.
Professor Megan Fieser, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Southern California Dornsife, delivered an impressive and accessible lecture on the profound impact plastics have on all of our lives.

She highlighted the complexity of the challenges surrounding sustainability, recycling, and the durability of plastics, and presented the innovative solutions her research in inorganic chemistry offers to address these issues. Prof. Fieser emphasized that the future of plastics lies in the circular use of materials—through new chemical processes that make plastics not only recyclable, but also environmentally friendly and resource-efficient.


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.