Global Doctoral scholarship - St Andrews and Bonn - Modern Languages and German & Comparative Lit

Application period opens
Wednesday 1 January 2025
Application period closes
Friday 21 March 2025
Entry
2025

The University of St Andrews and the University of Bonn are pleased to offer a scholarship funded by both institutions, to support an exceptional student undertaking doctoral research in Literary anthropology in German literature around 2000.

Project

In view of the digitization of human culture, the Anthropocene, and the advent of posthumanism, the period around 2000 appears to represent no less significant a transition for conceptions of the human than earlier turning points. While Schings’ (1994) and Riedel’s (1996, 2014) studies have established the anthropological capacity of German literature for two thresholds to modernity ‘around 1800’ and ‘around 1900’, the purpose of this doctoral project will be to determine the extent to which the most recent German literature can be said to exercise this anthropological function in a set of discursive and existential conditions that seems fundamentally different from those obtaining in the earlier threshold periods.

Schings’ and Riedel’s studies of German literature have established that literature possesses a capacity for generating and communicating knowledge of the human condition. The aesthetic form of literary texts means that the content and form of human knowledge contained in them differs significantly from the knowledge found in medical and scientific discourses. The human knowledge contained by literature differs from that of the natural sciences in that its point of departure is not the objectified human body but subjective corporeality and the lifeworld of the human subject. As a poetology of knowledge (Vogl, 1999), however, literature is not the antithesis of scientific knowledge about man, but participates in the production of this knowledge, sharing in what Markus Gabriel has called the human “capacity for creating self-images” (Gabriel, 2020). In terms of form, the literary discourse of the human is antidualistic, holistic, ludic and nonsystematic.

Literary anthropology denotes neither a theory of literature, nor a critical lens through which to read literary texts, nor 'ethnographic' literary-cultural study in the wake of Lévi-Strauss, but the inherent capacity of literature to figure forth knowledge of the human condition by virtue of its aesthetic distance from human potentialities, strengths and weaknesses. Aesthetic distance refers to literature’s capacity to allow a disinterested, yet comprehending and empathetic engagement with such anthropological subject matter as human natality and mortality, development and growth, sickness, and old age, the imagination and the affects, and human hopes and fears. 

The project seeks to discover what has become of literary anthropology in the period ‘around 2000’. Do works by such contemporary authors as Angelika Meier, Mithu Sanyal and Julia Franck amount to a discourse of the human, and if so, can this discourse be meaningfully and productively be characterised as ‘anthropology’?

In order to answer this leading and overarching research question, the researcher will need to address a range of anthropological topics within recent German literature. This range will include:

      • the temporality of the human subject
      • posthumanism
      • new materialism and decentered human agency
      • ideas of the human in the Anthropocene
      • digital prosthetics, the internet and augmented subjectivity

Thinking the anthropological capacity of recent German literature requires interdisciplinary awareness to transcend the gap between the natural sciences and the humanities, and between scientific and philosophical anthropology. Part of the task will be to determine whether and to what extent such interdisciplinary awareness is inscribed in literature itself, a discourse strikingly characterised by its intertextual relations with other discourses, including the natural sciences, yet governed by its own principles, including aesthetic distance.

In order to overcome the dualisms of humanistic versus scientific anthropology, the researcher will employ the paradigm of embodiment (Etzelmüller, Fuchs, Tewes, 2017), assuming that human subjectivity is always already embodied and that the object of anthropology is to understand the life processes of a living organism in its environment.

Guided by the supervisors, the researcher will determine the corpus of primary works of literature for study.

The project will be managed jointly between the School of Modern Languages at St Andrews and the Department of German and Comparative Literature at Bonn. The student will be supervised by Dr Andrew Cusack at St Andrews and Professor Johannes Lehmann in Bonn.

Informal enquiries regarding this scholarship may be addressed to the co-supervisors:

Value of award (per year)

The funding comprises a scholarship equivalent of a full-fees award and stipend for a period of up to 3.5 years which can be used towards both tuition and maintenance. It is expected that the student will spend half of the scholarship term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn:

  • For the period spent at the University of St Andrews, the scholarship will comprise a full fees award and a stipend paid at the current UK Research Council rate (£19,237 each year in 2024-2025).
  • For the period spent at the University of Bonn, the scholarship will comprise a monthly maintenance grant of €1,500. The University of Bonn does not charge any tuition fees, but students must pay a so-called social contribution once per semester (currently €315 per semester).

Unless otherwise specified, the scholarships do not cover:

  • Any continuation, extension or resubmission period or fees
  • A research training grant or another equivalent award for research expenses
  • Support for travel, immigration, health insurance and related charges between the partner institutions

Duration of award

Up to 3.5 years. The student will be expected to spend approximately half of the award term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn. The successful candidate will be expected to have completed the doctorate degree by the end of the award term. The award term excludes the continuation period and any extension periods.

Application restrictions

Study level

Available to students studying at:

Postgraduate

Subjects

Available to students studying:

School of Modern Languages (St Andrews) and Department of German and Comparative Literature (Bonn)

Domicile for fee status

No restrictions

Schools

Available to students in the following Schools and Departments:

Modern Languages

Application assessment

Academic merit

Available to

Prospective students

Mode of study

Full time

Geographical criteria

No restrictions

Additional criteria

Eligibility – University of St Andrews

Admission and scholarship criteria of both universities must be met.

For St Andrews, please refer to details of how to apply and of entry requirements.

Applicants must not already hold a doctoral degree or be matriculated for a doctoral degree at either the University of St Andrews or the University of Bonn, or another institution.

How to apply

Submit an application to indicate the names of supervisors to whom applications for the scholarship should be submitted, or a School contact if preferable. Please note applications at this stage are for the scholarship only, successful scholarship applicants must also apply for and be admitted to each institution through the normal routes, and you may wish to use selection criteria for your scholarship selection process that ensure normal School or institution requirements for admission can be met.

Expressions of interest should include the following documents:

  • CV including information about publications
  • Transcripts of most relevant or recent degrees
  • Information about thesis components, including thesis mark, word count, weight and length in comparison to the degree overall
  • Statement of suitability as a candidate for the project with a preliminary list of recent works of German literature (max 500 words)
  • Two academic references
  • A sample of written work in English of no more than 3000 words

Following a successful application for the scholarship, candidates may be invited to submit an application to both universities for admission into the programme and award of the scholarship.

Please indicate in your application that you wish to be considered for this scholarship - the Global Doctoral Scholarship Lehmann-Cusack. Applications should be submitted to the co-supervisors by email to Dr Andrew Cusack at atc4@st-andrews.ac.uk and Professor Johannes Lehmann at johannes.lehmann@uni-bonn.de

Please read the terms and conditions for scholarships at St Andrews.

Please email us at pgscholarships@st-andrews.ac.uk if you have any questions regarding the scholarship.

Terms and conditions

Please read the University of St Andrews scholarships terms and conditions.

These are applicable during the St Andrews duration of the award. Please consult the partner institution for their terms and conditions relating to scholarships.

Awards are subject to final signatures of contractual relationships between the parties, and are not an indication of admission to the doctoral programme. Successful scholarship applicants must apply to both institutions and meet all relevant entry requirements for admission including any immigration requirements that may be in place.

Students will enrol at both institutions from the outset. It is expected that the successful student will begin the programme of study at Bonn to initiate the research and move to St Andrews at a later date, full details to be agreed with the supervisory team and the respective institutions. Overall, the programme of study will include 50% at each institution. The student may start their degree at any point in the academic year 2025-2026 prior to a final entry date of 27 May 2026 subject to agreement with the supervisory team.

Doctoral Research at St Andrews

As a doctoral student at the University of St Andrews you will be part of a growing, vibrant and intellectually stimulating postgraduate community. St Andrews is one of the leading research-intensive universities in the world and offers a postgraduate experience of remarkable richness.

St Leonard’s Postgraduate College is at the heart of the postgraduate community of St Andrews. The College supports all postgraduates and aims to provide opportunities for postgraduates to come together, socially and intellectually, and make new connections.

St Leonard’s Postgraduate College works closely with the Postgraduate Society which is one of the most active societies within the Students’ Association. All doctoral students are automatically welcomed into the Postgraduate Society when they join the University.

In addition to the research training that doctoral students complete in their home School, doctoral students at St Andrews have access to GRADskills, a free, comprehensive training programme to support their academic, professional and personal development.

Doctoral Research at the University of Bonn

As a doctoral student at the University of Bonn you will be part of a vibrant and intellectually stimulating academic community. The University of Bonn is one of the leading research-intensive universities in the world. It is one of only 11 German Universities of Excellence and the only German university with six Clusters of Excellence.

In addition to the research training that doctoral students complete in their home Department, doctoral students at the University of Bonn have access to the Bonn Graduate Center, which is the central service department for doctoral candidates. It offers guidance on training and funding opportunities and offers a free and comprehensive training programme to support their academic, professional, and personal development.

When will I know the outcome?

By mid April 2025. Awards are subject to final signatures of contracts between the parties and successful admission to both institutions.

Successful scholarship applicants will be invited to apply for admission to both Universities from the end of March 2025, and then formal outcomes of the position will be made, subject to provision of full application details and materials for entry to the programme at the agreed entry point in 2025-2026.

Successful scholarship applicants must meet all relevant entry requirements for admission including any immigration requirements that may be in place. Please see the advice on applying for research degree programmes at St Andrews and the PhD application guidelines at Bonn.

Contact

Scholarship queries: pgscholarships@st-andrews.ac.uk

Informal enquiries: Dr Andrew Cusack at atc4@st-andrews.ac.uk and Professor Johannes Lehmann at johannes.lehmann@uni-bonn.de