RTG Minor Cosmopolitanisms

The Research Training Group (RTG) minor cosmopolitanisms establishes new ways of studying and understanding the cosmopolitan project against and beyond its Eurocentric legacies. Specifically designed as a training programme for early career researchers, it offers an international framework connecting Berlin and Potsdam with partner universities in Australia, South Africa, India and the Americas to pursue PhD and Postdoctoral projects in a diverse, decentral, collective and convivial environment. Individual and joint projects within the RTG examine concrete critical, artistic as well as everyday practices which challenge the divide between cultural relativism and humanist universalism haunting the humanities and social sciences. They jointly strive to develop and promote an understanding of cosmopolitanism in the plural which combines visions of transcultural justice, peace and conviviality with an ethical commitment to difference and alterity.

The RTG took up its work in October 2016 with its first generation of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers. Some of the major outreach events organised by the team have since been a public lecture series in spring 2017, and two international winter / summer schools in Delhi and Sydney respectively. In December 2018, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin hosted the Minor Cosmopolitan Weekend, a spectacular event invovling three days of panel discussions, lectures, exhibitions, performances and concerts.

The spokespersons of the RTG are Lars Eckstein and Anja Schwarz.

For more information, see: www.uni-potsdam.de/minorcosmopolitanisms/