The Käte Hamburger Centre for Cultural Practices of Reparation (KHK CURE) at Saarland University (UdS) is an institute for advanced study, funded by the German Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) since 2024. Each academic year, a new group of international and interdisciplinary fellows joins the centre to pursue research. For the centre’s fourth year (October 2027 to September 2028), we are pleased to invite applications for up to twelve fellowships with a duration of six to a maximum of twelve months (beginning in October 2027).
Research Programme: The Käte Hamburger Centre CURE is dedicated to studying cultural practices of reparation. We define reparation as a process of shaping the future through an awareness that past damage can never be fully undone. Repairing something always means that the traces of destruction remain – whether visible, felt, or understood – and thus gesture toward a fragility of the self. We view cultural practices of reparation as encompassing a broad range of responses to the awareness of damage: oral and written forms of narration, poetry, linguistic and non-linguistic rituals, music, visual art, films, theatre, exhibition practices, historiography, and other forms of scholarship or knowledge production. These practices aim to develop possibilities and scenarios for the future that reach beyond interests grounded in identitarian claims and the restitution of a supposedly original identity, even in the face of enduring harms. Our goal at the centre is to collaboratively develop theoretical approaches to such practices.
Application Requirements: Applications may be submitted by scholars in cultural studies, the humanities and social sciences who have completed a PhD (submitted and defended) by the application deadline. Applications are open exclusively to individuals who are currently professionally active in academia or pursuing scholarly activities, including those who are not formally employed by a research institution such as freelancer researchers, artist researchers, or independent scholars.
Application deadline: 30 November 2026.
More information: https://cure.uni-saarland.de/en/fellows/call-for-applications/