First advanced fellowships in HamburgCo-Research Space in Rotherbaum

9 February 2021, by Christina Krätzig

Photo: C. Höhne

Philosopher Dietmar von der Pfordten.

The Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study (HIAS), which opened at the end of 2020, funds researchers and artists living and working over multiple months in Hamburg. Sociologist Sophia Prinz and philosopher Dietmar von der Pfordten are among the first recipients. Their fellowships are financed by funds from the Excellence Strategy of the Federal and State Governments.

Dr Prinz, a cultural sociologist, specializes in the social effects of design, art, aesthics, and matters of transculturality, which she pursued as part of the 2018 exhibition Mobile Worlds in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg. She then went on to live and work in Berlin. She was a visiting professor for the theory of design and gender studies at the Berlin University of the Arts and the art history fellow of the Forum Transregionale Studien. Now, she will be researching in the Hanseatic City of Hamburg for 10 months.

The legal philosopher Dietmar von der Pfordten, her fellow resident, is professor of philosophy of law and social philosophy at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. He has written a book on human rights for the Wissen series of the C.H.Beck publishing house and regularly takes up matters like abortion, gene technology, and euthanasia. He wants to use his time in Hamburg to finish another book. “It will be a kind of opus magnum, a compendium of my knowledge of the nature of law,” he explains. “As an advanced fellow, I can concentrate soley on my work. In day-to-day life at university, between professorial duties and committees, there is little time for such pursuits.”

Knowledge transfer is an explicit goal of the fellowships, despite not being currently fully implemented as a result of the pandemic. However, Sophia Prinz is still planning workshops—for next year. She is hoping that she herself can then visit museums and exhibitions again: as she is working at the interface of research and art, contact with the Hamburg art and culture scene is important for her.

Dietmar van der Pfordten, in contrast, is looking to get involved in the Hanseatic city’s political culture. Its long, peaceful history fascinates him, and he would like to know more about the mentality that prevails here. He is relaxed about the fact that nothing much on the political stage is going to plan right now, pointing out, “I’m staying in Hamburg until next summer, so there is still hope!”