GHF Gerda Henkel Fellowships

A residential fellowship is available to postdoctoral researchers who wish to participate in research tandem teams undertaking joint projects on Global Intellectual History at the Gotha Research Centre in Germany.

Gerda Henkel Stiftung (GHF – Gerda Henkel Foundation) promotes science at universities and research institutes, primarily by supporting specific projects in the field of the humanities that have a specialist scope and are limited in time. It is particularly interested in the advancement of postgraduates. Support is concentrated on the historical humanities, mainly on history, archaeology, the history of art and other disciplines with a historical component. GHF has its headquarters in Düsseldorf, Germany and is active both within Germany and worldwide.

Forschungszentrum Gotha der Universität Erfurt (FZG – Gotha Research Centre of the University of Erfurt) is concerned with the history of culture and knowledge in the modern era, focusing on both elaborate forms of knowledge (philosophy, scholarship, natural history, arcane knowledge), as well as on practical forms of knowledge. Its research ranges from the classical history of ideas to the cultural history of collecting to current new approaches in historical science research.

The GHF Gerda Henkel Fellowships (Gerda-Henkel-Tandemstipendien für Globale Ideengeschichte) is a new fellowship programme of the Gerda Henkel Foundation at the Gotha Research Centre. It offers research tandems on Global Intellectual History to teams of two postdoctoral researchers to take place in Gotha, Germany. It is aimed to create synergies between subject- and language-bound bodies of knowledge, and to help bring expertise from the global south and so-called minor disciplines into research projects at the research centre.

The Global Intellectual History deals with transnational and transcultural linkages of bodies of knowledge. The Fellowships allow two researchers with complementary expertise on a particular research question to collaborate on a joint project eg a Sinologist and an expert on eighteenth-century Europe, a specialist in Islamic studies and a Renaissance scholar, or an Africanist and an expert on Latin America. In this way, questions will be addressed that will render far-reaching transmissions or interconnections visible.

The FZG enables competent guidance in research and the combination of different types of sources thanks to three institutions in one place:

1. One of the largest early modern libraries in Germany.
2. An early modern residential palace with extensive collections of objects and art from all over the world.
3. A university research centre with expertise in the history of ideas, culture and knowledge.

Working with the sources provided by the FZG should serve as a basis for a collaborative publication or research proposal.

Residence in Gotha is compulsory for the duration of the scholarship.