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A report on the tour of the HSE delegation to German universities by Ekaterina Lytkina
From July, 2 to July, 13 a group of students and PhD candidates of the Faculty of Sociology of the National Research University Higher School of Economics with associate professors Rafael Mrowczynski and Ivan Klimov made a tour to German universities. Ekaterina Lytkina, research assistant of the LCSR, also took part in that study tour. Now she tells about the trip for our Website!
Leipzig, Freiburg, Bremen, Berlin – the tour was very intensive, with a lot of interesting meetings. Moreover, it also gave a wonderful opportunity of getting to know various German universities, contemporary topics and directions of research of German sociologists, and also an opportunity of telling about the Higher School of Economics, the Faculty of Sociology and the University’s laboratories.
In Leipzig the delegation of the university met with Monika Wolhrab-Sahr. Professor Wolhrab-Sahr works at the interdisciplinary Institute of Cultural Studies at the Leipzig University. The Institute unites specialists working in sociology, history, political science and cultural management who study religious and ethnic problems in the context of globalization processes using traditional qualitative methodology. Then the participants of the study tour met with professors of the Institute of Sociology. Among them were Thomas Voss, the head of the social theory chair, and Roger Berger, the head of the chair of empirical research as well as some other members and PhD candidates of the Institute. The main theoretical direction of the research of the Institute is rational choice theory. A lot of attention is also paid to quantitative methods.
In Freiburg the programme was also very interesting. The Head of the Department of Sociology Prof. Ulrich Bröckling told the members of our group about the main research fields investigated in his institute, which are social theory, gender studies, sociology of body, sociology of sport, political sociology, studies of security, cultural studies, etc. He himself guides two projects. One of them is a study of the elite in German education (“Equality and Excellence – to Simultaneousness of Opposite Rationalities in German Public Education”), and the second one is a study of heroism and the process of becoming heroes in the sociology of the 19th century (“Hero as a Tranquillity Breaker. Sociology of the Extraordinary”, «Der Held als Störenfried. Zur Soziologie des Exzeptionellen»). Prof. Baldo Blinkert told about his survey “City, Region and Social Security“ ("Stadt, Region und soziale Sicherheit"), and Monika Götsch reported results of her research. Participation of women in computer sciences and their possible contribution to the sphere in comparison with men were in the focus of Monika’s study.
Also a master Global Studies Programme was presented for us. This course of study is on the boarder of cultural geography, anthropology, political science and sociology. The courses are in English. Apart from Freiburg students are intended to spend one semester in Buenos-Aires or Cape Town and one semester in Bangkok or New Delhi.
One of the most interesting events during the journey was the meeting with Prof. Wulf Daseking, the Head of the Planning Department of the city of Freiburg, and also a professor at the Department of Sociology. He told the group from HSE about the history of the town, projects in Ecology having a leading role for the town. For example, each citizen of the town should have a tram stop no far than 250-300 meters from one’s house. In 2011 a special law was adapted that ordered that all the houses being built in the town should be the so-called “passive houses”, constructed so to save as much energy as possible. Solar energy is being used a lot in Freiburg, and a very famous “green” quarter called Vauban was created in the town.
In Bremen the participants of the study tour visited the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences. This school is an interdisciplinary and is devoted to the general topic “Changing Patterns of Social and Political Integration“. Research is conducted on three main fields: “Global Governance and Regional Integration”, “Welfare State, Inequality and Quality of Life” and “Changing Lives in Changing Socio-Cultural Contexts”. A lot of attention is paid to quantitative and qualitative methods of research. After the presentation of the programme of the School three PhD students told about their research projects on migration processes.
In the second part of the day our group met with representatives of the interdisciplinary Research Centre for East European Studies of Bremen University. They were told about the Institute, its research. Finally, a round table to the topic «Processes of Social Mobilization in Contemporary Russia and Their Causes" took place. Ivan Klimov (HSE) made an introduction to the discussion.
The Berlin part of the program of our tour was very dynamic as well. It began with the visit to Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences, where the curricula of the school was introduced, PhD students talked about their studying and research. Thematic fields of the school are the vulnerabilities of modern democratic societies, comparative analysis of problems of social inclusion, democratic performance and conflicts, as well as the role of knowledge in democratic societies. Afterwards a small excursion around the campus of the Humboldt University took place. Next day the group visited the office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation where one got acquainted with the foundation being close to the German “Green” party (Die Gruene), its research projects and scholarship programmes, also available to foreign students coming to study in Germany.
Acquaintance with the Free University of Berlin (Freie Universitaet Berlin) began with Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies. Research in the School also has an interdisciplinary character (history, economics, law, political science, sociology) and a global scope of exploration is supposed. The fellows of the graduate school have to teach and to take part in a research project. The school was created four years ago and only one generation of PhD students has graduated yet. After that a meeting with representatives of the Institute for Eastern-European studies of the Free University took place. Two master programmes in sociology were presented for our group, one of them mostly taught in English.
The most interesting meeting, however, was the one with the researchers of the Institute of Sociology of the Technical university of Berlin and personally Prof. Hubert Knoblauch. The special profile of the institute is the sociology of technology. The chairs of the institute are: Technology Studies, Theory of Modern Societies, Methods of Social Research, Sociology of Organization, Urban and Regional Sociology, Sociology of Architecture. A lot of attention within general sociology is paid to phenomenology, sociology of knowledge and communication, video analysis and visualization, sociology of religion, studies of science and sociology of death. Cornelius Schubert, a lecturer and a researcher of the Institute told the colleagues from the HSE about sociology of technology, its theoretical basis and his own projects within that field. Uli Meyer, research assistant at the chair of sociology of organizations, dwelt on the key questions of research of organizations and their impact on society.
The delegation of the Higher School of Economics also had a possibility to present its own department. Students and PhD candidates briefly told colleagues about their own research and their work within the laboratories of the University which evoked great interest from the German side. Representatives of various German universities showed their willingness upon cooperation with the HSE in different forms.
by Ekaterina Lytkina