The Welcome Seminar of BIGSAS is compulsory for all new Junior Fellows in BIGSAS. It provides general but crucial information around the doctoral research training in the graduate school and offers valuable insights into structures, formalities and supportive measures to enhance individual skills and unfold academic passion. How to use the library and citation freeware, how to apply for field research funding or how to organise a workshop from application to accounting will be part of the seminar. Furthermore will be explained how multidisciplinary working groups can operate and research data can be managed.

For course details and registration, please click HERE (PDF).

Start: Friday, 5 November 2021, 9 am, in presence

Media Training for Researchers (Workshop); Monika Wimmer

27 and 28 September 2021, S 18, GSP

Further information (PDF)

Proposal Writing (Workshop); Dr Anne Hamker

26 and 27 July 2021, online via Zoom

Further information (PDF)

Demystifying the publication processes: Writing for Peer-Reviewed Journals in the Social Sciences (Workshop); Prof. Dr Stefan Ouma

18 June 2021, 10 am - 12 pm, online via Zoom

Further information (PDF)

Managing your thesis as a project (Workshop); Dr Anette Hammerschmidt (Cross-Cultural Orientation)

3 and 4 May 2021, online via Zoom

Further information (PDF)

How to do a doctorate in BIGSAS (Seminar); Dr Christine Scherer

The Welcome Seminar of BIGSAS is designed to provide general but crucial information for new Junior Fellows who take up the doctorate in BIGSAS. The seminar is organised along diverse themes and offers insights into general aspects of doing a doctorate as well as specific aspects of structures of the research-oriented doctoral training in the BIGSAS in connection links to the Africa Multiple Cluster. The seminar is compulsory for newcomers who want to accomplish a doctorate in BIGSAS.

Start: Friday, 30 April 2021, 9 am, online

Epistemologies of the Global South: Contributions to Reconfiguration of African Studies (Seminar); Prof. Dr Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Dr Christine Vogt-William

Epistemologies of the Global South embody knowledges that have been silenced and displaced as a result of the unfolding of Euromodernity and its constitutive elements of racism, empire, capitalism and patriarchy. The epistemologies of the Global South are resilient and they confront the problem of cognitive injustice, that is, the practice of non-recognition of diverse ways through which diverse people make sense of the world and themselves. Therefore, epistemologies of the Global South are directly linked to struggles for re-existence of those people who were subjected to coloniality but maintain their will to live. Throughout the seminar, the decolonial analytical category of intersectionality and engendering of knowledge production is deployed as an intrinsic component of decolonization as it highlights how historically and socially produced modes life and living are aggravated by race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, able-bodied-ness, among other cultural and political identity vectors. As a decolonial critical praxis, intersectionality clears space for marginalized groups to articulate new and old realities from their situated standpoints. Therefore, the seminar series and discussions draw insights from epistemologies of the Global South and decoloniality to test their contribution and applicability to the reconfiguration of African Studies.

Start: Monday, 19 April 2021, 10 am, online. Further information HERE

BIGSAS Colloquium in the Knowledge Lab of the Cluster (Colloquium); Moderator: Prof. Dr Martin Doevenspeck

Thursday, 17 June 2020, 4-6 pm, online via Zoom

Programme (PDF)

Courses on demand

Additional courses targeting transferable skills may be requested by a group of at least four Junior Fellows. Please contact the BIGSAS administration team if you would like to learn about the application process.

Webmaster: Univ.Prof.Dr. Andrea Behrends