Origins

The GRK has its historical roots in a number of projects in our different fields, about whose convergence we are still thrilled. In the field of American Studies, there was a small graduate program (“Mini-Graduiertenkolleg”) on “life writing”, and at the Institute for the History, Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine, there was a research project on “enhancement”, which explored the interplay between innovations in the life sciences and its social effects.

Our next step was to develop common grounds in teaching and research: We each went to the others' classes as guest speakers and thus started creating an interdisciplinary “community” of life sciences and life writing with the students and other faculty. Looking for new frameworks for interdisciplinary PhD training, we organized an interdisciplinary, international PhD conference at Roscoff, France. Set in the “station biologique de Roscoff”, a marine station, the conference was also a boundary experience in many different ways, and created a spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration that we wanted maintain and expand in our present GRK.

 

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Speakers of the GRK:

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Norbert W. Paul                                        Univ.-Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee