CFA: Global prayers - redemption and liberation in the city

Call for applications
7 research fellowships for doctoral and postdoctoral scholars for the project Global Prayers: Redemption and Liberation in the City (1. 6.—31. 12. 2010)
Closing date: 7th of May 2010

The Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, and the Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder, invite scholars to apply for seven doctoral or postdoctoral fellowships for “Global Prayers: Redemption and Liberation in the City”, a project at the Berlin-based ‘Forum Transregionale Studien’.

Aims
The research and cultural project Global Prayers aims to investigate the renaissance of religious movements and communities in the world's metropolises as it manifests itself in Pentecostal Churches, Islamization or Hindu Nationalism. We think of places where these movements are eminent and important as for example Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, Mumbai, Lagos, London, Miami, Beirut or Berlin.

Global Prayers is both interdisciplinary and trans-regionally comparative. It aims to employ interlinked case studies and scientific workshops and symposia as well as cultural productions with the goal of examining the return of the religious in the metropolises of the world. The project intends to make use of a combination of different scientific and cultural methods of investigation, analysis, production and presentation.

Its aim is to generate, on the basis of these methods, new knowledge about a key social phenomenon with huge implications for the future that has so far received insufficient attention in both the sciences and the arts: the global boom of new urban religious communities that have emerged across different religions and denominations and different state and city types and have become a central feature of urban societies (see extended project description).

The research questions focus on:
— The relationship between the political and the religious within urban religious communities and their relationship to state structures (on different scales, as urban neighborhoods and the city at large)
— The relationship of religious organizations to their social base, their modes of government (government of the self and government of others)
— The relevance to and impact of the aesthetics of religious practices and rituals of the religious communities on the respective cities
— The relationship between the transnational and local dimensions of urban religious communities
— The ways in which urban space is produced and transformed by the activities of religious communities, with the term ‘urban space’ here including both an everyday (material, social, political) and a symbolic and imaginary dimension.

Project steps

The project will start in May 2010 and is expected to last until end of 2013. To begin with, the confirmation of the grant will be assured for seven months until end of 2010. Until then each grant holder is expected to conduct a preliminary study in and on one of the respective cities of research. According to the results of a first evaluation (end of 2010) each grant might be extended until the end of 2012 and after a second evaluation, for a further year.

The grant holders are expected to elaborate different regional, theoretical and methodological perspectives, to cooperate with artists involved in the project and to offer a substantial contribution to the larger theme of the project. Fellows will be expected to devote particular attention to the question of transnational linkages, as well as to the relationship between the concrete localizations and the transnational currents of urban religious communities. The main goal is to map specific routes and intersections on the basis of the knowledge acquired in the first phase of research.

Disciplines involved

— Social and Cultural Anthropology
— Religious Studies
— Cultural Geography
— Political Sciences
— Sociology
— Cultural Studies
— Urban Studies

Applications from these disciplines are welcome.
Language: English is the working language of the project.

Requirements
— Applicants should already have worked on respective topics, city or transnational routes on which their research will be conducted.
— Applicants must be prepared to do local fieldwork, travel to workshops and come to Berlin for about one month each year, to take part in a structured workshop program.
— Applicants with experience in transdiciplinary research with cultural producers or artists are welcome.
— We especially encourage international applications.

Applications must include following documents:

— A Curriculum Vitae including a list of publications
— A work sample (recent article/preliminary works/publication with relevance for the research topic)
— A research proposal in relation to the research questions of Global Prayers (two to three pages)
— The name of one referee (no letter of recommendation)

If applicants may have a research idea (in compliance with the overall research questions of Global Prayers) involving cities other than those mentioned in the project description, a comparative research idea of two or more cities, or a research idea about a transnational route, it is possible to send in an alternative application.

Funding and institutional framework

The Forum Transregionale Studien is a new research platform of the Land of Berlin designed to promote research that connects systematic and region-specific questions in a perspective that addresses entanglements and interactions beyond national, cultural or regional frames. The Forum works subsidiarily to already existing institutions and networks engaged in transregional studies and is supported by an association of the directors of research institutes and networks mainly based in Berlin.

Global Prayers is an interdisciplinary project of the Europa-Universität Viadrina and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt at the Forum Transregionale Studien; it cooperates closely with metroZones — Center for Urban Affairs e.V., Berlin, the Freie Universität Berlin, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and other research institutions in and outside of Germany.

Successful applicants will be fellows at the Forum Transregionale Studien. Stipends consist of a basic stipend (between 1200 € and 2000 € per month) and supplements (family allowance, insurance, travel and mobility) following local regulations of the DAAD.

Closing date

Applications are to be sent in digital form (PDF) until 7th of May 2010 to wisogeo@euv-frankfurt-o.de

For further information on the project Global Prayers, the Forum
Transregionale Studien, and the other cooperating institutions please visit:
— www.forum-transregionale-studien.de
— www.hkw.de
— www.metrozones.info

Contact

Global Prayers
c/o Lehrstuhl für Vergleichende Kulturanthropologie
Europa-Universität Viadrina
Große Scharrnstraße 59
15230 Frankfurt/Oder
wisogeo@euv-frankfurt-o.de