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This two-day research workshop will explore new global intellectual histories of geopolitical thought, with a special focus on figures outside the traditional canon and crises of environmental, technological, and international orders from the 1890s to 1960s.

The deadline for submissions is 15 February 2024.

Alberto Godioli, Associate Professor of European Culture and Literature at the University of Groningen, is working on a toolkit for (and with) judges to help them adopt a balanced, systematic approach in legal cases involving inappropriate jokes, memes, or cartoons.

Agriculture, mining, and large-scale industries initiated in the colonial period have caused persistent and pernicious forms of toxicity. This conference aims to generate an understanding of how these forms of toxicity are carried over into the present as toxic coloniality. Centring on questions of environmental in/justice, agency in the Anthropocene, and unequal relationships between the Global North and the Global South, we ask what toxic coloniality entails.

The deadline for submissions is 15 January 2024.

Professor Pablo Valdivia has been appointed the new director of ICOG, from 1 November 2023 until 1 November 2027. Pablo is following in the footsteps of Professor Sabrina Corbellini.

Bettina Reitz-Joosse from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Groningen will initiate a large-scale research project on Roman manufacturing processes this fall, involving several doctoral candidates, a postdoctoral researcher, and student assistants.

Carole Hillenbrand’s seminal work, The Crusades Islamic Perspectives was published 25 years ago. In the time since its publication, Islamic experiences of the crusading phenomenon have been repositioned as a central element of crusader studies. Yet questions remain about how the field moves onwards from here. The workshop will highlight and further develop the latest advances in the study of materiality, objects and artefacts, art history, intellectual history, historiography, translation studies, the history of emotions, digital humanities, memory and remembrance, and medievalism.

The deadline for abstracts is 11 April 2024.

The Frisian Museum will collaborate with the University of Groningen (UG) on two research projects. The Dutch Organization for Scientific Research ( Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)) is funding the projects from the research programme: Museum Grants. This programme enables museums to conduct short-term research in collaboration with scientists affiliated with a university. The results of the research will be made publicly available in the coming years in exhibitions and publications.

Associate Professor in Art Sociology, Dr. Sara Strandvad , is conducting research on the position of freelancers in the cultural sector in the Northern Netherlands. How do they navigate the numerous challenges faced by independent entrepreneurs in the cultural sector, and what is their outlook for the future? The research is a collaboration with, among others, the municipality of Groningen. The municipality will consider the recommendations from the research in formulating its new Cultural Policy.

Our society is becoming more and more digitized. We apply for jobs online, follow classes online, meet each other on social media, and manage our affairs using a range of apps. What happens, though, if you don’t have a computer or don’t understand how DigiD works? You tend to slip through the cracks, which can have disastrous consequences. Marcel Broersma, Professor of Media and Journalistic Culture, and Joëlle Swart, assistant professor of Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen, are conducting research on the topic of digital literacy and inclusion. Their aim: to make our digital society more accessible to those who are digitally challenged.

The far-reaching digitization of society means these are turbulent times for journalism. News is freely available online, resulting in decreasing newspaper sales, social media taking up all of our time, and algorithms dishing up news items that are right up our – prejudiced – alley. It is high time for journalism to radically change its course! Right? Well, journalism doesn’t change that quickly, says Frank Harbers, assistant professor of Media and Journalistic Culture at the Faculty of Arts. And actually, Dutch journalism is not in that bad a state at all.

Leonardo Arriagada Beltran conducted his PhD research on the interface of computer-generated art and the constantly evolving field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). He will defend his Phd thesis on 21 September. His research offers valuable insights into how AI is redefining artistic creativity.

AI-generated artworks are often more abstract than human art, but can be considered genuine when they satisfy the requirements of Computer and Cognitive Science, as well as Art Theory. Moreover, should AI-generated art adhere to the same social paradigms as human art? Time to ask Leonardo some questions.

Two ICOG researches have been awarded an ERC Starting Grant: Yuliya Hilevych and Geoff Hobbis . The European Research Council's (ERC) Starting Grants consist of €1.5 million each, for a period of five years. The grants are meant for outstanding researchers with the aim of stimulating cutting-edge research in Europe.

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has decided to award Veni grants to four researchers from ICOG: Mohamad El-Merheb, Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah, João C. Magalhães and E. S. Marteijn. With the grant money, the researchers will be able to further develop their own research ideas for three years.

Co-organized by Dr. Camilla Sutherland and Dr. Bob de Jonge, the exhibition Mariana Yampolsky: Photographer of 20 th Century Mexico is on display at the University Museum Groningen until the end of September.

Five researchers from the Faculty of Arts are involved in the interdisciplinary project 'HAICu: digital Humanities - Artificial Intelligence - Cultural heritage'. The project was awarded a NWA-ORC grant of 10.3 million euros. NWO-ORC is the program 'Research on Routes by Consortia' from the Dutch Research Agenda (Nationale Wetenschapsagenda, NWA ) of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Vidi grant of up to €800,000 to Assistant Professor of Media and Journalism Studies Dr Çigdem Bozdag Bucak . With this grant, she can develop her own innovative five-year research plan.

Research into the archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Dutch West India Company (WIC) shows that the city of Groningen and several residents of Groningen were involved in the trade and exploitation of enslaved people. Historians dr Anjana Singh and Bram Tánczos, both from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Groningen, and Lieuwe Jongsma, curator of the Groninger Museum, recently presented the interim results of their research into the city's history of slavery. They are conducting their research on behalf of the municipality of Groningen.

Literature scholar Dr Konstantin Mierau talks to Chilean prisoners about literature. He asks them about the books they read, the characters they identify with, and the impact literature has on them. By doing so, he is exploring how literature can be used to reach prisoners and help them reintegrate into society. “I ask them questions that they never get asked.”

The proposed conference serves a two-fold purpose. First, it aims to uncover, discuss, and assess dissonances between the governance practices and lived experiences of human mobility and migration. Second, it turns scholarly attention to the concept of repair, i.e. subtle acts of care by which order, meaning and human value are maintained and transformed.

The submission deadline is 21 July 2023.

Dr. Julian Hanich has been awarded a research grant from NWO for research on the experience of cinematic beauty. The grant is from the Open Competition M programme, which is designed for free, curiosity-driven research within the social sciences and humanities.

Dr. Werner Distler and Dr. Eske van Gils have both been awarded research grants from the Gratama Foundation. Distler is receiving the grant for his project Hidden Archives of Peace and Conflict, Van Gils for her project on political cooperation between Turkmenistan and the European Union.

Recently, the University of the North awarded the first grants worth €75,000 from its Booster Fund. A project from ICOG was selected: ‘Digital literacy and inclusion; the basis for broad prosperity’ by Prof. Marcel Broersma , Professor of Media and Journalism Studies.

The Graduate School for the Humanities offers 3 PhD positions (for 4 years) in the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (ICOG). We invite you to design your own research project related to the research in one of ICOG’s five research centres.

The application deadline is 1 June 2023.

We are inviting applications for two fully funded, four-year PhD positions in Classical Literature within the research project Roman Making and its Meanings: Representations of Manual Creation in the Literature and Art of Imperial Rome (Acronym: FACERE), financed by the European Research Council (ERC) and led by Dr Bettina Reitz-Joosse.

The application deadline is 25 May 2023.

Dr. Kiki Santing and Dr. Suzanne Manizza-Roszak have both been awarded a research grant from NWO. This is a grant from the Open Competition SHH-XS pilot program with a maximum budget of 50,000 euro to enable proposals for curiosity-driven, fundamental research in the research fields covered by the NWO SSH.

Luis Lobo-Guerrero has been awarded a Franklin Fellowship Grant from the American Philosophical Society to conduct material research on a Portolan Chart of the Pacific coast of South America from around 1540, kept at the Library of Congress.

PhD student Krina Huisman researched how we can ascribe meaning to the loss of a loved one by narrating that loss in the form of a story. She studied different types of books on grief and distinguished four ways in which bereavement literature narrates the subject. She concludes that grief is not at all as unique as we think it is. Huisman will be awarded a PhD by the University of Groningen on 13 April.

The University of Groningen’s Architecture and Urbanism invites scholars from humanities and social sciences – amongst others – to contribute with projects exploring the heritage of the state socialist architecture and urbanism and the accompanying processes. We are looking for proposals investigating the conservation and preservation of modernist heritage as well as proposals examining the historicization of modernist architectural vocabulary in the contemporary era.

The submission deadline is 15 May 2023.

During the Second World War, more Jewish residents of five municipalities in the province of Groningen were killed than previously had been estimated. This is the conclusion of research conducted by Richard Paping, a historian at the University of Groningen. It was previously thought that 15% of the Jewish residents of these municipalities survived the war. However, it now appears that less than 10% survived. The contrast with the national survival rate of 27-29% is therefore much larger than previously estimated.

Last autumn, anger over the death of Jina ‘Mahsa’ Amini led to mass protests in Iran, and there is still a lot of unrest. It was not the first time Iranians took to the streets: the history of feminist resistance goes back to far beyond the foundation of the Islamic republic in 1979. Dr Donya Ahmadi, assistant professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Arts, researches and documents the role of female activists in the political developments of 20th and 21st-century Iran.

Greek myths: exciting, mysterious, and sometimes bizarre tales from the Antiquity. They often address ethical issues and abrasive conflicts— including disagreements between men and women. Classic mythological stories have been written in a certain Zeitgeist and from a specific, often male, perspective. But how would these stories sound if we looked at them through a current lens, and from a female perspective?

This unique conference addresses critical European-Latin American relationships in the fields of history and art history before c. 1945. Groningen, as a relatively small, old university city in Europe, and São Paulo, Latin America’s largest metropolis, offer an apparent stark contrast. Yet, both cities have been defined by their leading roles in education and culture. The links between Europe and Latin America in the Humanities are often simplified or overlooked altogether. By acting as catalyser, this conference aims to bring together PhD candidates and early career researchers to discuss forgotten global synergies between our two regions from the early colonial period to modernity.

The submission deadline is 14 April 2023.

Dr. Lisa Gaufman, Assistant Professor in Russian Discourse and Politics, investigates the rhetoric of the Kremlin on social media. A story about online cartoons and polarizing troll accounts masquerading as concerned citizens.

Dr Hannah Malone, Assistant Professor in Contemporary History at the University of Groningen, will be NWIB Visiting Professor 2023 at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome. As NWIB Visiting Professor at the KNIR, Hannah will investigate what happened to Italy’s Fascist Party Headquarters ( case del fascio ) after the fall of Mussolini’s dictatorship in 1945.

Dr Benjamin Leruth, assistant professor in European Politics and Society at the Faculty of Arts, has been awarded an Open Competition XS grant for his project Exploring the Politics of Long-Termism (EXPLOT). The Dutch Research Council awards these grants of max €50.000 to researchers with a promising idea or an innovative and high-risk initiative.

Dr Anne M. Martínez, assistant professor of American Political and Cultural Theory, with four other researchers across the Netherlands has received an NWO Advancing Equity in Academia through Innovation grant for a three-year project entitled Disrupting Sameness in Dutch Academia. The project will design interventions to address individual, interpersonal, and institutional barriers to equity and inclusion for people from migration backgrounds in selected programs at the University of Groningen, TU-Delft, University of Utrecht Medical Center, and Wageningen University.

Dr Léonie de Jonge , assistant professor of European Politics and Society at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Groningen, has been appointed as a member of the Young Academy (De Jonge Akademie). The Young Academy is a platform within the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) for early-career, world-class scientists and scholars with an innovative vision on science and scholarship and related policy.