The University of Bergen (UiB) is an internationally recognised research university with more than 14,000 students and close to 3,500 employees at six faculties. The university is located in the heart of Bergen. Our main contribution to society is excellent basic research and education across a wide range of disciplines.
(1) PhD Position in the project ‘Religion in Public Spaces in Mumbai’ and (2) PhD Position in the project ‘Religion and Violence in Mumbai’
How did comparative philosophy evolve in the last sixty+ years? What is the difference between intercultural philosophy and comparative philosophy? All the answers can be read in the introductory essay to the first number of a new journal dedicated to comparative philosophy, namely Confluence.
The long and learned introductory essay, by Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, Geeta Ramana and James Maffie (who are also the journal’s editors)
“Religious Materiality in the Indian Ocean World, 1300-1800” John E. Sawyer Seminars on the Comparative Study of Cultures
2015-2016 Andrew W. Mellon Visiting Postdoctoral Fellowship
University of Toronto
I just received the unofficial (but wonderful) news that the Elise Richter project I submitted to the FWF has been accepted!
You can read the general abstract below:
I received this email from Constanze Pabst von Ohain and Marco Walther
Within the scope of the Doctoral Program in Buddhist Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany, we announce our upcoming workshop “Yogācara Buddhism in Context: Approaches to Yogācāra Philosophy throughout Ages and Cultures”.
Please find attached a call for papers for PhD students/postdocs and further information that you can forward to any parties that might be interested.
We are looking forward to receiving applications.
Abstract submission deadline: 31. December 2014.
…among the ones selected at 3quarksdaily, here. Scroll down for more details.
The Gonda Fund for Indology awards fellowships to promising young Indologists at post-doctorate level, that enable them to spend one to six months at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) in Leiden, the Netherlands.
The Gonda Fund also offers funding for publications and research projects in Sanskrit or other Indian languages and literatures, and in Indian cultural history.
The deadlines to apply for a fellowship or for funding of a research project or publication are 1 April and 1 October of every year.The Gonda Fund is a foundation of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
More information is available at www.knaw.nl/gonda-fund.
SANSKRIT LECTURER, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PROGRAM IN SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES
The Program in South Asian Studies at Princeton University is accepting applications for a full-time, three-year lecturer position in Sanskrit (with possibility of renewal) beginning September 1, 2015.
Where should one publish one’s book? What are advantages and disadvantages of each venue? I will start sharing my views and would be glad to read yours (PLEASE NOTE that I cannot be exhaustive and in this sense I depend on my readers —suggest further venues or important points, if you deem them relevant).
Please remember that I am speaking about young authors (well-known ones will not need me).
(This post is a continuation of my post of last week and gives some better grounded data.)
If you are a scholar active in Europe, you will most probably depend on funding for your projects in order to survive, given that surviving out of teaching alone is infrequent and a tenure is not foreseeable. Thus, it becomes essential to know what one’s chances are.
A short comparison shows that among European countries,
This is however still not enough, since a lot depends on how many funding agencies there are in each country, so that, e.g., the situation may look different in Germany if one takes into account also the Humboldt scholarships, the Max Planck foundation, etc.
Moreover, the amount of money available per inhabitant still does not say much, since it is not said how many inhabitants apply for that money. In this sense, it seems that the acceptance rate of the German DFG is much lower than expected, whereas the Swiss acceptance rate is high, as expected:
Still more interesting, especially for prospective peer reviewers are the following data:
Why this huge difference in a few years? Because the number of application has been incredibly growing (from 1,000 in 2001 to 2,386 in 2013).
This means that the lower acceptance rate is not due to the lower quality of post-2008 projects. Rather, after 2008 the FWF Jury (and I imagine that a similar situation applies to the DFG and similar fundings) just had to look for weak points in each project in order “not to go bankrupt” (precise quotation of what I heard at a recent FWF roadshow).
Given that the decision about a project is taken in Austria, Germany and Italy (I guess that the same applies to the other EU countries, but I cannot be sure) by a jury or committee on the basis of peer-reviews, much burden lies on the peer reviewers themselves.
Again, as I heard at the same roadshow:
We are forced to look for anything which looks like a critique, if we want not to go bankrupt. We know we are turning down projects we would be funding in better financial conditions.
There is nothing blamable in that, but I am convinced that peer reviewers should be informed about the weight of their decisions. Anything less than “enthusiastic approval” amounts to good news for the committee, who can turn down the project. It is fine, if you think the project not to be worthy, but I, for one, will send my further suggestions directly to the applicant and not include them in my peer review the next time I am asked to review a project.
What will you do? What have you done until now?
Source: FWF