Visegrad Scholarship at the Open Society Archives

Program run in cooperation with the Open Society Archivum Budapest offers research fellowships at the Open Society Archives (OSA) at the Central European University in Budapest.

Fel­low­ships are awarded two times per year on a com­pet­i­tive basis to scholars, artists or journalists from V4 and non-V4 coun­tries who wish to con­duct research at OSA, and whose cur­rent research projects are rel­e­vant to the hold­ings and the given research pri­or­i­ties of the Fund and OSA.

The €2,000 fellowship is designed to pro­vide access to the archives, cover travel to/from Budapest, mod­est sub­sis­tence, and accom­mo­da­tion for a research period of two months. Scholarships for shorter peri­ods are pro-rated.

Altogether, 12 fel­low­ships are awarded annu­ally to selected applicants from V4 coun­tries and 3 fel­low­ships annu­ally to non-V4 applicants.

Research theme within the Visegrad Scholarships at OSA in 2020/21

Possibilities of knowing: Truth seeking in a polarized world and [in] its aftermath

We invite applicants from the fields of history, the arts, philosophy and sociology to reflect on the conditions of knowledge production during and after the Cold War. Scholars and artists are invited to analyze the documentary practices of different agencies and persons on both sides of the Iron Curtain and assess the truth value of related documents/ artifacts.

Please consider the following reflexive questions when engaging with OSA collections:

 

• To what extent one can attempt to provide a truthful account of a historical event or problem based on the OSA collections? What do the sources highlight or obscure?

 

• What kind of truth regimes archives stood for in the past and what kind of investigation they can inform in the present?

 

• In what sense the “perspective” of the source (or the metadata connected to it) contribute to the understanding of the information it presents?

 

• What is the relevance of the gathered data (and metadata) for current debates and research?

We also recommend several thematic areas:

 

• Conceptualizing and reporting about opposition or social movements (selection and support for what counts as a "movement", "dissidence" or "non-conformism")

 

• Sociological data: relevance of polls, surveys and statistics during socialism and after

 

• Circuits of communication and (anti-)propaganda techniques: information gathering and classification, textual and visual dissemination (book programs, samizdat, TV monitoring, instructional and documentary movies)

 

• Problems of documentation and verification of human rights abuses

 

• Representation and assessment of socio - economic issues: labor, standards of living, urbanization, education, religion

 

• Science and ideology: considerations regarding expert claims, efficiency, impact

 

• Intellectual debates in a polarized world and their aftermath

 

• Consequences of Cold War conceptual schemes and treatment of information on current economic and socio-political issues

 

• Reflection on the (Cold War) receptions, instrumentalizations and revisions of the history and the notion of the Revolution.

 

• The issue of historical credibility in Cold War archives

For more information click "LINK TO ORIGINAL" below.

This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:

https://www.visegradfund.org/apply/mobilities/fellowship-at-osa/?c=conditions