The Research Focus Group ‘Enlightenment – Religion – Knowledge‘ based at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg is offering a 1-year postdoctoral fellowship under the title “Kritik im Widerstreit” (criticism in contest), beginning on October 1, 2025.
The research focus group is dedicated to the historical Enlightenment and its continued legacy up to the present. This includes, not least, the concept of “criticism,” which was first emphatically formulated during the Enlightenment and is currently again the subject of intense debate—particularly with regard to its political implications.
Where does criticism stand today, what is it still capable of, and how must we rethink it? What forms of practice are associated with it, what does it mean in different fields—politics, art, the public sphere—how is it shifting under new media conditions, and what political significance does it have in each case?
Today, criticism itself is under criticism: it is said to be elitist, exhausted, and outdated, to defend particular interests, and to serve self-promotion more than its apparent cause. Particularly disturbing is the fact that critical arguments seem to be easily appropriated by their opponents: Today, prohibitions on thinking are proclaimed in the name of “freedom”; exclusions in the name of “equality”; and questionable dogmas in the name of “criticism”. What remains of criticism if one does not want to abandon it entirely but has given up belief in a “critique of critical criticism” (Marx)?
The scholarship is intended to serve as a means of investigating and discussing political figurations of criticism between appropriation and dismissal together with other scholars involved in research focus group. Applicants should propose an academic project (aimed at publishing an academic article) and, within this framework, organize and host an academic event; accompanying formats such as readings, panel discussions, exhibitions, guided tours, etc. are also conceivable and can be financed with ARW funds.
Deadline for applications is 27 June, 2025.
More information on the fellowship and application procedure can be found here.
Theo Jung 