UniGR-Fellowship in the Käte Hamburger Centre (CURE)

The Käte Hamburger Center for Cultural Practices of Reparation (KHK CURE) at Saarland University is an institute for advanced study, funded by the German Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) since 2024. Each academic year, a new group of international and interdisciplinary fellows joins the centre to pursue research. For the centre’s fourth year (October 2027 to September 2028), we are pleased to invite applications—pending approval by the BMFTR—for up to twelve fellowships with a duration of six to a maximum of twelve months (beginning in October 2027).

The Research Program at the Käte Hamburger Center CURE

Questions about reparation and irreparability are at the heart of CURE’s research programme, taken up by fellows and members of the KHK CURE team from a range of disciplinary perspectives.

Many harms and damages, such as the destruction of cultural heritage in colonised regions, the trauma of war, or the consequences of climate change, cannot be undone. Such irreversible harms often trigger complex processes of negotiation that can reshape reflexive forms of cultural identity and newly imagined or created life worlds. They raise the question of how to build a shared future in which we and others can live despite a past scarred by violence, injustice, and the destruction of natural environments. Economic and legal compensation is often a prerequisite for dismantling asymmetrical situations and structures. But it is most often the case that enduring wounds suffered by individuals, and the harm done to their lifeworlds, can be addressed only through cultural and social practices.

The Käte Hamburger Centre CURE is dedicated to studying such cultural practices of reparation. We define reparation as a process of shaping the future through an awareness that past damage can never be fully undone. Repairing something always means that the traces of destruction remain – whether visible, felt, or understood – and thus gesture toward a fragility of the self. We view cultural practices of reparation as encompassing a broad range of responses to the awareness of damage: oral and written forms of narration, poetry, linguistic and non-linguistic rituals, music, visual art, films, theatre, exhibition practices, historiography, and other forms of scholarship or knowledge production. These practices aim to develop possibilities and scenarios for the future that reach beyond interests grounded in identitarian claims and the restitution of a supposedly original identity, even in the face of enduring harms. Our goal at the centre is to collaboratively develop theoretical approaches to such practices.

Call for Applications: UniGR-Fellowships in the Käte Hamburger Centre for Cultural Practices of Reparation (CURE)

Each year, up to twelve international fellows conduct research at the Center. One of these fellowships is offered as a University of the Greater Region (UniGR) Fellowship, awarded to scholars who have completed their PhD (i.e., submitted and successfully defended by the application deadline) and are employed at one of the UniGR member universities (University of Trier, University of Liège, University of Luxembourg, University of Lorraine, and RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau). For the third year of the program (October 2026 to September 2027), we invite applications for Fellowships with a residency of up to 12 months.

Applications may be submitted by scholars in cultural studies, the humanities and social sciences who have completed a PhD (submitted and defended) by the application deadline.

Artists who hold a doctorate and have experience in academic collaboration are also encouraged to apply for an academic fellowship.

In addition to the above criteria, applicants for the UniGR Fellowship must hold a current academic position at the time of application at one of the following member universities: University of Trier, University of Liège, University of Luxembourg, Université de Lorraine, or RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau. Proof of employment must be submitted along with the application materials.

The selection for the UniGR Fellowship takes place in parallel with the other advertised fellowships in the same selection process by the Academic Advisory Board.

CURE is expressly committed to diversity and welcomes applications regardless of gender, nationality, ethnic and social origin, religion/worldview, disability, age, or sexual orientation and identity.

Those without a completed doctorate, as well as members of Saarland University, are not eligible to apply.

Applications should present an independent research project that is relevant to the research topic of the centre and will be realised during the fellowship. The project should align with at least one of the centres’ three thematic fields – ‘history’, ‘experience’, and ‘nature’ – and relate to the fourth of the four designated themes for the following academic years:

• 2024/2025: Theory
• 2025/2026: Society
• 2026/2027: Bodies
• 2027/2028: Things

The designated theme of 2027/28 – “things” – foregrounds the material dimension of reparation: the focus should be on objects, artefacts, and material environments in which practices such as repair, mending, and reuse become culturally and politically significant, and through which processes of reparation are enacted both practically and symbolically.

Applications are invited only for the fellowship year running from October 2027 to September 2028. Further information on the centre’s thematic fields and annual themes can be found on the centre’s website: https://cure.uni-saarland.de/en/research/research-programme/.

The selection of fellows – carried out by our Academic Advisory Board – emphasises the proposed project’s academic quality, originality, and conceptual alignment as outlined in the project description with the centre’s shared research agenda. We also consider applicants’ qualifications, motivation, and career stage. The final selection aims to ensure a well-balanced cohort, ensuring a diversity of academic cultures.