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Global Humanities – A Research Training Programme for the Future

In the autumn of 2022, the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Linnaeus University launched a new doctoral research training programme in Global Humanities, spanning the four disciplines of archaeology, comparative literature, history, and religious studies.

The purpose is to create a dynamic research training environment where supervisors and doctoral students meet across disciplinary, cultural, generational and geographic boundaries. By connecting traditional humanities studies with studies of global processes and expressions of human thought and creativity from all over the world, the programme aims to train researchers in the humanities who are competent to tackle some of the most important global challenges facing the world today. This aim is achieved through curiosity-based research, open and respectful scientific conversations, and collaboration with non-academic organisations and actors.

The doctoral students in the programme are trained in analysing historical and cultural processes from multivocal and intercultural perspectives by means of both traditional and novel scientific methods, including global archaeology, global history, world literature, postcolonial studies, digital humanities, human natural sciences, and futures literacy.

An important part of the four-year programme are research training courses (equivalent to 60 ECTS, corresponding to one year of fulltime study), which include both disciplinary specialisations and programme-wide courses in Global Humanities. Through the courses, the programme students are introduced to current theories and methods of relevance both to their individual discipline and the field of Global Humanities. The courses also allow the students to acquire skills in research project design and management, ethics, academic publishing, and research communication aimed at both scholarly and non-scholarly audiences.

A major feature of the programme is the emphasis on research focusing on the future and the emergence of new fields of knowledge to understand and manage change and uncertainty, based on an understanding of how past and contemporary practices are related to anticipation and future expectations.