Objectives

The Summer School’s offering addresses approximately 30 participants from Germany and abroad, especially doctoral students whose research is related to the subject matter of the Summer School. They should be capable of debating theories and research methods with acclaimed experts on the outlined topics; however, equally important is a willingness to become acquainted with the next generation of scientists of the international academic community and to present and further develop their own methods from new, perhaps unfamiliar perspectives. The participants should learn to deal with related and yet differently oriented questioning and to introduce their own approaches. Thus, they will be able to take their academic work to a new level and, through necessary contextualisation, refine their own enquiries; furthermore, they will be given an insight into German academic research. Moreover, it should be made possible to expand personal and institutional contacts to a common network that connects the research traditions of different locations and countries.

Program

The Summer School involves three different types of events. In two public presentations renowned academics will on one hand outline the horizons of the subject matter, as well as giving contentual stimulus.

On the other hand, the four main lecturers will present the subject matter of their respective seminars, in regard to their relationship with the common theme of the course, in internal plenum presentations. More plenum presentations will follow so as to deliver interim reports from the seminars, thus making the partially developed results beneficial for both of the other seminars.

In the seminars themselves, the participants will introduce their twenty-minute presentations prepared in advance, which will be discussed under the direction of the four main lecturers. A final presentation prepared by the participants will attempt to present the conclusion of the seminar.

Of high interest is in the correlation of the subject matter is a visit to the Mother-and-Child-Centre (Mutter-Kind-Zentrum) in the University Hospital Marburg-Gießen, situated in Marburg. Prof. Dr. Stephan Schmidt (Director of the Clinic for Obstetrics and Prenatal Medicine), who is jointly responsible for the summer school, will give some insight into the technical capabilities of modern ultrasound imaging systems, in order to question their anthropological limits.

The scientific work will be complemented by various excursions. A program examining geography, history, and culture will be on offer, with guided tours and trips to culturally or historically meaningful places in Marburg and the surrounding area. Second, there is a subject-specific side program including a trip to the Frankfurt Sculpture Collection, dealing with the subject of “Images of Humanity”, or the Kassel Museum for Sepulchral Culture. Finally, optional tutorials are scheduled, in which, taking Marburg as an example, insight into the practice of academic work will be given (visit to the university library, and much more).