Jan Patočka Fellowship

Fellowship Programs

Call for Applications 2024–2025

Objective

The Jan Patočka Fellowship Program aims to foster research inspired by Jan Patočka’s legacy and his intellectual endeavor to rethink Europe under Post-European paradigms. It welcomes scholars working on the manifold philosophical, societal, economic, geopolitical, or historical dimensions of this challenging topic.

As a name-giver for this program, Patočka’s critical investigations into the history of philosophy, the meaning of modernity, (post)colonialism, war, technology, and the dialectics of enlightenment offer exemplary––though by no means exclusive––fields of research. The call invites project applications that offer inspiring perspectives on the idea of (Post-)Europe and its critical reflection in contemporary debates.

The fellowship is open to all academic disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Conditions

Jan Patočka Junior Fellows will be invited to spend five months between September 2024 and July 2025 at the IWM to pursue their research projects.

Postdoctoral candidates––i.e., those who have defended their PhD by the date of the fellowship application deadline––will receive a stipend of EUR 3,000 per month; candidates currently pursuing their doctoral degree will receive a stipend of EUR 2,500 per month to cover accommodation, living expenses, travel, health insurance and any incidental costs related to their stay in Vienna. In addition, the IWM provides fellows with office space and Internet access, in-house research and administrative facilities, as well as an in-house lunch and other services free of charge.

The visiting fellows will join the scholarly community and participate in the activities of the Institute. Generally, fellowships start on the first day of the month and end on the last day of the month.

Eligibility

Applicants to the Patočka Junior Visiting Fellowship must be currently pursuing their doctoral degree or have obtained a PhD not longer than four years ago at the time of application. 

Jan Patočka Senior Visiting Fellowships are granted by invitation only.

Application

Applications must be submitted through the IWM's online application form; we will be unable to consider applications sent via email.

Application materials consist of the following:

  • Project description (max. 550 characters)
  • Project proposal (max. 7,500 characters incl. spaces) containing a) a description of the project’s objectives, b) a discussion of the current state of the art, c) methods, and d) a work plan
  • Curriculum vitae, including a list of publications
  • A brief letter of motivation that addresses how the project would benefit from time at the IWM, the connection to the IWM’s mission and research, and concrete research/writing goals during the fellowship
  • Two letters of recommendation from scholars familiar with the applicant’s academic work (has to be submitted by the applicant together with the other application materials)

All application materials should be in English.

Important! Attached documents must be combined into a single PDF, as the online submission form only allows for one attachment. File names of attachments must use Latin characters. 

Applications are now closed. The next call is planned to be published in winter 2024.

Selection

The finalists will be selected by a jury of experts. Applicants will be notified of the jury’s decision in the spring semester of 2024.

The jury is not required to publicly justify its decisions, nor to provide applicants with individual feedback on their applications.

Contact

Franz Graf
Fellowship Program Coordinator 
fellowships@iwm.at

The Czech philosopher Jan Patočka (1907–1977) is considered one of the most important Central European thinkers of the twentieth century. With a few short exceptions, Patočka was banned from teaching and publishing in communist Czechoslovakia. However, he became an intellectual and moral authority, most notably through his legendary underground seminars.

Patočka was a co-founder and speaker of the civil rights movement Charter 77. He died in March 1977 after a series of police interrogations. This program is dedicated to commemorating his name and work.

Fellowships

  • How Liberal are Human Rights? Dissident Political Languages in East Central Europe on the Eve of 1989 , -
  • Problematic Totality: Literary Realism in Twentieth Century Theory , -
  • Architecture and Emancipation: Specifics and Paradoxes of Socialist Women's Emancipation Using the Example of Women Architects , -
  • From Crisis to Catastrophe: Czech Philosophy of History between Patočka and Petříček , -
  • Thanatography and the Modes of Grief , -
  • Everyday Mnemonic Practices of Populist Voters , -
  • The Crisis of Political History–The Crisis of Politics , -
  • "Aus dem Schatten der Geschichte heraustreten:" Das aktuelle Vermächtnis der Dissidenz , -
  • Karl Jaspers and Ladislav Hejdánek on Objectifying and Non-Objectifying Thinking , -
  • Insane Narrators of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature , -
  • Philosophy of German Enlightenment , -
  • Underground Universities in the 1970s and 1980s: The Transformation of Tertiary Education in the Czech Republic after the Collapse of Communism , -
  • The Phenomenology of Human Animality and Disease: The Discussion between Jan Patočka, Jiří Němec and Petr Rezek , -
  • Ideologien des Slawentums , -
  • Milena Jesenská, Vienna, and Fake News Through the Spanish Flu and Covid-19 Pandemics , -
  • How to Magically Edify a Nation? Occultism and Nationalism in Central Europe, 1890-1939 , -
  • Prague, Red and Black: Early Cold War Journeys, Networks, and Poems , -
  • Commissioning Parents , -
  • Difficulties with the Political Thought of Christian Democracy in Central Europe , -
  • “Dispute about Hope” in Selected Writings of Post-Kantian and Existentialist Philosophers , -
  • Analysis of Construction of Dis/Continuity Between the Pre- and Post-1989 Regimes in Czechoslovakia Through Czech Literature , -
  • Interwar Architecture of Prague-based German-speaking Architects , -
  • Victimisation and Heroization: The Post-1989 Retelling of 20th Century National History in Central and Eastern Europe , -
  • Jan Patočka as a Political Thinker and Charter 77 as a Social Movement: The Origins of a New Politics in a Non-Western Context , -
  • Reading Plato’s Philosophy Rhetorically and Plato’s Rhetoric Philosophically , -
  • Resuscitating a Non-Conformist Revolt After 1989 , -
  • Woman Without a Name , -
  • Hegel as a Philosopher of the Post-Communist Condition , -
  • Guest , -
  • An Aristotelian Foundation for Contemporary Moral Theory , -
  • Justice in Daimonion: On the Ethics of Dissent, Systems Theory and Political Existentialism , -
  • Rousseau and Compassion—The Phenomenon of Compassion in the British and French Enlightenment Tradition , -
  • The Meaning of Politics in the thought of Václav Havel and Hannah Arendt , -
  • Gegenwart und Wahrheit , -
  • Exclusion and National Identity: the Czech Case , -
  • Christianity beyond Athens and Rome-The Retrival of Patočka’s Philosophy , -
  • The Intellectual History of Czech Democratic Left (1968 – 1998) , -
  • Die Wurzeln Europas in der Reflexion der Phänomenologie , -
  • Socialist Retro: Discourses of Post-Socialist Nostalgia in the Czech Republic , -
  • Jan Patočka’s Concept of “Rational Civilization” , -
  • Das Problem der Freiheit in der Philosophie von Jan Patočka. , -
  • Studies related to Jan Patočkas Writings on Art, Literature, and Culture , -
  • Czech phenomenology , -

Fellows