17 Oct 2024
Its success speaks for itself: 150 projects and 40 conferences since 2014 alone. Now LMU is hosting a three-day conference on the future of the humanities.
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Irene Högner recalls the picture-postcard view from Berkeley: “From the campus, you can see right over San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge on the horizon.” But the archeologist’s research residency at the Californian university gave her much more than a pretty view. Back home at LMU, she is working on a dissertation on “Social Ties in the Mycenaean Age” in the field of bioarcheology.
This involves analyzing human skeletal remains and their burial sites to learn more about the social organization and kinship relations of Bronze Age communities. While she was a guest at Berkeley for two months last spring, she was evaluating the burial documentation of her case study in Greece – and her personal exchanges with a renowned expert in the field advanced her research considerably.
“Professor Kim Shelton is an eminent authority in the archeology of the Aegean Bronze Age,” says Högner. The archeological site Shelton is currently investigating is very similar to hers: “The burial ground I’m analyzing is located in Central Greece, while Professor Shelton’s excavation is on the Peloponnese,” says the doctoral student. “I was able to discuss the latest hypotheses with her, which have not yet been treated in detail in the research literature, as excavations and the publication of their findings are a very protracted process.”
Högner’s stay was sponsored by the “LMU-UCB Research in the Humanities” program, which has been strengthening academic cooperation between LMU and the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) since 2007. It was among the first strategic partnerships that LMU forged as part of the German University Excellence Initiative. The program funds the academic exchange of doctoral candidates, postdocs, and established researchers in the humanities.
Open to faculty members in the humanities, the program allows researchers to apply for travel allowances, for example, or financial support for conferences and workshops. In the past ten years alone, some 150 joint academic projects were facilitated in this way. This year, for the first time, an “LMU-UCB Research in the Humanities” conference on the future of the humanities is being held from 17 to 19 October, featuring cross-disciplinary events.
“The collaboration between LMU and UCB enables our researchers to acquire valuable experiences in an international environment, exchange ideas and expertise, and receive and give fresh inspiration,” explains Vice President for International Affairs and Diversity at LMU, Professor Francesca Biagini. “In the humanities, international exchange is of inestimable worth. By bringing together different cultural and scholarly perspectives, it helps create a deeper understanding of complex social and historical relationships.”
A total of 48 LMU doctoral students, like Irene Högner, and 36 postdocs in the humanities have traveled to California under the program to date. Funding covers travel expenses, administration costs – visas etc. – the tuition fees in Berkeley, and accommodation and subsistence. “Like many guest researchers, I found accommodation in the private rental market. I could walk from my place to the campus,” recounts Irene Högner.
In addition, 40 conferences and research workshops have been held as part of the partnership in the past ten years alone. Just this year, there have been joint events on the subjects of “Divination, Doubt and Uncertainty in Early Modern Drama” in the field of English and comparative literature; “Dynamics of Tradition Building in Asian Buddhism(s)” in classical Indology; and “Uneven Development in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East” in ancient history. The latter was organized by LMU historian Professor John Weisweiler together with his colleague from UCB, Professor Carlos F. Noreña.
The funding for this second conference on this subject – one taking place in Munich, the other in Berkeley – “greatly advanced” their research, explains John Weisweiler, who carries out research at his Chair of Roman and Late-Antique History. “A prominent example of such inequalities was southern Spain, which benefited considerably from the Roman Empire as of the first century AD thanks to its thriving olive oil production.” The region exported its products to Rome and to Roman military bases, generating great wealth for the local elites, while the Atlantic coast, for example, and the northern border of the Roman Empire as far as Hadrian’s wall in England, were scarcely integrated.
“The unbureaucratic and dependable support from LMU and UC Berkeley permitted us to research this topic in an intensive, long-term collaboration – something that would have been much more difficult with external funding,” says Weisweiler “This reliable cooperation creates a space in which ideas can freely develop, and fosters personal exchange, which often lays the foundation for new, creative research projects.” In this vein, Weisweiler plans to undertake a research project on the role of women in ancient economies together with an historian from UC Berkeley.
To facilitate similar collaborations between established researchers at both universities, the partnership with Berkeley also sponsors visiting professorships: More than 25 UC Berkeley professors have been guests in Munich over the past decade at the invitation of LMU colleagues, while LMU researchers have also been visiting professors at Berkeley.
The scholars are asked to present their current research projects at the host university in the form of a public lecture. Depending on the duration of their stay, they are also encouraged to contribute to teaching with a lecture or a course. In the coming year, for example, Professor Jeroen Dewulf from UC Berkeley is to take up a visiting professorship at the Faculty of Catholic Theology in Munich, while Dr. Charlotte Lerg from the America Institute at LMU will commence a visiting professorship at the English Institute in Berkeley in the spring.
Doctoral candidate Irene Högner “benefited greatly” from the personal exchange not only with the Berkeley professor, but also with doctoral students working on similar dissertation topics. Apart from her research work, she loved the wildlife of the Californian coast and the ancient ecosystems and sequoias in the national parks. Moreover, the rich cultural offerings of the Bay Area offered “exciting opportunities for intensive cultural and intercultural experiences.”
And last but not least, a green area in the middle of Berkeley prompted historical reflections: “The People’s Park is seen as an historical landmark of the protests of the late 1960s, when students demonstrated against social injustice and war,” explains Högner. “Over the past few years, due to various sociopolitical challenges, the park has again become a hotspot of the still lively local activism in Berkeley.”
More on LMU's strategic partnerships