Fellowships at the Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies (CAPAS)

CAPAS is a centre for advanced studies at Heidelberg University dedicated to innovative and socially relevant research on the end(s) of world(s). Going beyond traditional disciplinary and institutional boundaries, we bring together outstanding international scholars and scientists to contribute to the centre’s collaborative research while working on their individual projects. It is our mission to make space for a diverse knowledge collective, enriching exchanges in the humanities with insights from relevant perspectives from the social, life, and natural sciences and integrating non-academic forms of knowledge production in the arts and beyond. For further information on CAPAS, please refer to our website. 

In the 2025-2026 academic year, we zoom in on the role of Biopolitics in the construction, classification, and contention of specific spatialities, temporalities, and affects, constitutive of apocalyptic experiences. We seek proposals that apply the concept of apocalypse to the paradoxical relationship between ambitions to create, foster, augment, and optimize life and various forms of exclusion, erasure, annihilation, and death. Building on common conceptions of biopolitics in political theory, international relations, cultural studies, critical sociology and the humanities more broadly we welcome projects on disciplining individual and collective bodies through regimes of regulatory power. We further welcome approaches that bring these discussions into novel and productive exchanges with inter- and transdisciplinary efforts in the natural, social, and life sciences, exploring notions of bios, politics, and ultimately (post-)apocalypse. The biopolitics of apocalypse may function as an intellectual catalyst for creative engagements within and between diverse communities of knowledge. This includes lived experiences of activists, artists, writers, filmmakers, etc., who seek to untangle the problem of living and dying at the end of world.Potential projects may address:

• Survival, survivance, un/livability, posthuman life, alterlife, afterlife, traumatic life, wasted life, algorithmic life, etc.
• The historical, contemporary, and speculative unfoldings of a biopolitics of feeling, space, and time in the context of the apocalyptic conditions invoked by specific forms of gendered, classed, and racialised instances of colonialism, capitalism, Anthropocene modernity, nuclear threat, climate emergency, militarism, etc.
• Implications of apocalyptic biopolitics for broader conceptualisations of knowledge, scholarship, and method
• Theoretical or methodological reflections on the overall conceptual frame of CAPAS 

The Fellowships

We invite applications for 10 Fellowships for the 2025-2026 academic year. Pending approval by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany, fellowships are available for up to 12 months, including at least one academic term (April to July or October to February). During their fellowship, fellows must reside in Heidelberg and are expected to participate in the centre’s weekly activities. English is the working language at CAPAS.

Fellows who take unpaid leave from their home institution during the fellowship will receive financial compensation in the form of a stipend (approx. 5000 to 10000 EUR, calculated individually). Alternatively, if a fellow decides to keep their current salary and contract benefits, CAPAS compensates the fellow's home institution with the corresponding salary for a teaching replacement. Both options are capped by the regulations of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Fellows have access to office spaces and university resources (library, canteen, daycare, etc.). CAPAS also provides support with administrative formalities (visa application, registration, etc.). 

Eligibility

The minimum requirement for elegibility is the rank of assistant professor (or equivalent), or ideally, more than 5 years of post-doctoral research experience. Activists and artists with substantial experience collaborating with academia are also welcome to submit proposals. CAPAS is strongly committed to diversity and explicitly encourages women* and BIPOC to apply.                               

Application

Please submit the application form (available here; please use Adobe Acrobat to fill out the form) and your CV (max. 4 pages, including a list of relevant publications) to Fellowship Manager Laura Mendoza. Application documents should be submitted in English and in two PDF files (form and CV). For further queries, please refer to our website or contact Laura Mendoza at Laura.Mendoza@capas.uni-heidelberg.de

Selection Process

Criteria for the selection are the originality and relevance of the project proposal, as well as the applicant’s academic merits and other achievements. The selection is made by the Board of Directors and the centre’s Academic Advisory Board. Successful applicants will be notified by the end of July 2024.