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Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute (TASI)
Transitions in Central and Eastern Europe: Culture, Society, Politics
Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute in European Studies—Graduate Student Fellowship Program
May 20- June 4, 2009 in Krakow, Poland
Application deadline: March 15, 2009
Presented by the Center for German & European Studies at the University of Minnesota, which is funded by the University of Minnesota and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and in cooperation with
the Institute of Geography and Spatial Management and the Institute of Sociology at Jagiellonian University.
Additional funding for the 2009 Institute is provided by the DAAD via a StADaF grant, and Pfizer Deutschland GmbH. We thank all sponsors for their generous support.
Working Schedule & Documents
Program content is available for registered participants in the Summer Institute. If you are a registered participant and need to access this page, please e-mail Anna Burger.
Overview
Since 2001 the Trans-Atlantic Summer Institutes (TASI) provide a unique forum for advanced graduate students from North America, Germany, and other European countries to explore together topics relating to Germany's and Europe's history, politics, and society. Each summer, twelve European and twelve North American graduate students work intensively for two to three weeks and explore in depth questions that will enrich their dissertations in German and European Studies. The Summer Institutes are co-taught by a multi-disciplinary team of faculty and aim to make a major contribution to the training of the next generation of experts on Germany and Europe. They introduce European students to the American university; North American students will acquire a similar familiarity with the European setting. They foster the international discussions and collaborations that are fundamental to the scholarly enterprise. As a student in the Summer Institute, you will learn how to combine the best aspects of training in both settings—the close attention to archival sources and their interpretation in Europe with the broad trans-disciplinary readings that characterize North American scholarship.
TASI is a non-credit seminar for graduate-level students in all fields; the 2009 Institute will convene in Krakow (Poland).
Topic
One of the most compelling developments in postwar Europe has been the odyssey of Central and Eastern European societies from socialism to capitalist democracies and from national independence to European integration. Scholars have grouped these profound changes under the umbrella terms "transition" or "transformation," for after 1989/91 these societies seemed to take up the task of crossing over from one system and one project to another. The process has been singularly fraught. How rigid or flexible are the new structures vis-a-vis historically grown particularities and cultures? How do we understand empirically the production of inequalities in the region? How do examinations of gender and identity help illuminate processes of transition? How does research centered on space and place bring into focus the scalar nature of transition and different logics at the regional, national, provincial, urban, and neighborhood levels?
TASI 2009 takes a strong multi-disciplinary approach. The Institute merges a dissertation workshop emphasizing close reading with group commentary as part of a broad intellectual agenda that seeks to inspire conversations within and across disciplines. Disciplines produce knowledge worlds. How do scholars' conceptual frameworks inform how policies are shaped, opinions formed, and lives unfold? The three-person team of faculty is interested in bringing together a cohort of young scholars who are eager to make connections between their own projects and complementary work in the social sciences and humanities.
Faculty
Annamaria Orla-Bukowska is assistant professor of Sociology at Jagiellonian University in Krakow. A Chicago-born Polish-American she moved to Poland in 1985 and experienced first-hand the transition from communism into postcommunism. Dr. Orla-Bukowska is the author of a chapter on Polish collective memory in The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe (ed. N. Lebow, W. Kansteiner, C. Fogu). She was a 1999 Koerner Holocaust Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies and a 2004 Yad Vashem Fellow. Her research focuses on relations between majorities and minorities.
Francis Harvey is associate professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota and visiting Professor at the Jagiellonian University. He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Washington (Seattle) and a Diplom-Ingenieur Raumplanung (Masters of Science in Planning) degree from the University of Dortmund. A prolific author, his most recent publication is A Primer of GIS: Fundamental Geographic and Cartographic Concepts (Guilford Press, 2008). Since 2004 he is involved in a larger research project in Poland on transitions in land ownership use and the use of ICT to regulate wide-spread disparities.
Thomas C. Wolfe is associate professor of History at the University of Minnesota and adjunct associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, the Institute for Global Studies, and the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. He holds an MA in International Relations from Columbia University and a PhD from the University of Michigan's Program in History and Anthropology. He is the author of Governing Soviet Journalism: The Press and the Socialist Person after Stalin (Indiana University Press, 2005) and of "Past as Present, Myth, or History? Discourses of Time and the Great Fatherland War" in The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe (ed. N. Lebow, W. Kansteiner, C. Fogu). He is especially interested in the role of disciplinary knowledges in shaping systemic change.
Fellowship Information & Application Materials
The Institute is intended for graduate-level students working toward a Ph.D. or other terminal degree at a North American or European university. The language of instruction is English. Competency in English and one other European language is required. Preference will be given to students who have already defined a dissertation topic.
Pending final budget approval, all fellows will receive a fellowship to cover most expenses:
- Institute tuition
- Housing and meal allowance for the duration of the Institute
- Access to library and archival materials and Internet resources
Fellowships for North American graduate students will also include up to $800 in support of round-trip international airfare to Krakow. This travel support will be provided on a matching fund basis with your home department providing at least $200 in additional matching travel funds. Please contact your director of graduate studies at your earliest convenience.
Complete applications for admission to the Institute must be received by March 15, 2009. Applications may be submitted electronically to cges@umn.edu. If you choose this option, please put "2009 TASI Application" in subject line. Decisions will be made by April 6, 2009.
A complete application consists of 1) a letter of interest, 2) a two-page dissertation abstract, or a two-page statement about the relevance of this topic to the applicant's research, 3) a curriculum vitae, 4) an official graduate transcript, and 5) one letter of recommendation. The letter of interest should include information on the applicant's scholarly background, interests, and career goals. The statement should address how the Institute topic fits into the applicant's program of study, and what the applicant hopes to gain through participation in the Institute. Please send applications to:
Professors Francis Harvey and Thomas Wolfe
Center for German & European Studies
University of Minnesota
214 Social Science Building
267— 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
USA