Programs
Programs
With its research programs, the Forum Transregionale Studien sets longer-term thematic priorities. They are a central instrument of the Forum, with which collaborative international groups of researchers are formed to pursue a particular thematic field over a period of three or more years. Programs are usually led by committees composed of researchers from different institutions and countries.
As part of the research programs, the Forum appoints postdoctoral fellows from around the world. The fellowships give the researchers the freedom to work on their own projects. Essential elements of the research program are shaped by the fellows. According to their professional background, they are affiliated with universities and research institutions.
Programs are organized by the Forum’s office. After successful work, they may be terminated or continue at other institutions. They can remain connected to the Forum, for example by using its infrastructures and formats.
Programs at the Forum
Europe in the Middle East—The Middle East in Europe (EUME)is a multi-disciplinary research program that seeks to rethink key concepts and premises that link and divide Europe from the Middle East.
re:constitution – Exchange and Analysis on Democracy and the Rule of Law in Europe promotes a European exchange across national and political boundaries amongst practitioners and scholars at the interface of law, politics and administration on constitutional law and its values.
Prisma Ukraïna – Research Network Eastern Europe links academics from numerous universities and research institutions in Berlin and Brandenburg who focus in their work on Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
The Forum Transregionale Studien hosts two projects funded by the European Research Council (ERC): “The Prison Narratives of Assad’s Syria: Voices, Texts, Publics” (SYRASP) and “Beyond Restitution: Heritage, (Dis)Possession and the Politics of Knowledge” (BEYONDREST).
Connected Programs
4A_Lab is the follow-up program of Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices. It is an interdisciplinary and transregional fellowship program that aims to analyse transcultural dynamics in the fields of aesthetic practices and material cultures, as well as museum and social practices. 4A_Lab emerged from a cooperation of the Kunsthistorisches Instituts Florenz and the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz.
Past Programs
Zukunftsphilologie: Revisiting the Canon of Textual Scholarship was a program initiated by Freie Universität and the Forum Transregionale Studien in 2010 and came to an end in 2023. It was directed by Islam Dayeh. The program supported critical research on the history of philological practices and textual scholarship by integrating marginalized scholarly traditions from across the world and interrogating Eurocentric and colonial paradigms.
Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices has been a research program at the Forum unteil 2019. It aimed to open art historical studies to a global horizon, beyond the traditional boundaries of the discipline. Art Histories created a space of dialogue for scholars from all continents and regions, to discuss the potential and contours of a plural art history. The new program 4A_Lab continues the work of Art Histories.
The research program and cultural project Global Prayers explored the propagation of new urban religious communities in the world's metropolises within the past three decades. It was supported by the Forum in 2010-2013.
Rechtskulturen took on the challenges of internationalization and responded to the necessity to understand law in its particular cultural contexts. One central aspect was the interest in systematic confrontations of different understandings of law, its functionalities and specific cultural techniques.
