The POLY research group on premodern Christianities at Goethe University is offering five fellowships to Ukrainian academics specialised in medieval or early modern history.
The Russian attack on Ukraine is endangering the lives and work of many researchers. To help some of them to continue their research outside Ukraine, the “Polycentricity and Plurality of Premodern Christianities” (POLY) research group, a Centre for Advanced Studies in Humanities funded by the German Research Foundation, is offering five fellowships. These are intended for scholars with a doctoral degree who are dealing with medieval or early modern history and focus especially on religious diversity.
“With this initiative, we at POLY want to help colleagues from Ukraine forced to flee to safety and to give a stronger voice to Ukrainian science and research,” says Professor Birgit Emich, chair of the POLY fellowship programme, summing up the research group’s motivation. For Emich, who teaches early modern history at Goethe University, the fellowships also offer great opportunities for research in Frankfurt: “With the help of these visiting scholars, we aim to develop further partnerships in this region, which is so rich for the study of religious diversity.”
The fellowships are endowed with €3,000 per month and initially limited to four months. During the funding period, the visiting Ukrainian scholars will not only be integrated in work within POLY but also profit from other research infrastructure at Goethe University, notably, the research alliance “Dynamics of Religion”, co-chaired by Emich and Christian Wiese, theologian and professor for Jewish studies.
Applications for fellowships are now being accepted. They are conditional on a completed doctoral degree and an academic focus on religious plurality in the medieval or early modern period.
