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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
German Research Foundation (DFG) awards grant worth around 1.5 million euros
The German Research Foundation (DFG) has announced it will be supporting philosopher Deborah Mühlebach in establishing an Emmy Noether Independent Junior Research Group at Freie Universität Berlin with funding worth over 1.5 million euros. The research group will conduct its work on the project “Critical Agency – An Ethnographically Informed Political Epistemology of Critique.” It is scheduled to begin in April 2025 and continue for the next six years. The project examines the circumstances in which the critical agency of individuals is promoted or inhibited.
The Emmy Noether Program supports outstanding researchers in achieving independence at an early stage of their scientific careers, providing them with the opportunity to lead their own independent junior research group and gain the qualifications required to become a professor.
This Emmy Noether Independent Junior Research Group will investigate the social complexity of critique as a phenomenon that involves two different aspects: analysis and resistance. The project asks how these aspects manifest themselves in critical encounters and how they determine both the form and content of critique. “Critique does not always land as critique. Some critics are systematically ignored, some talk past each other, and sometimes people have limited access to the resources needed to develop a critical stance,” says Mühlebach. In these cases, critical agency, or the capacity to form and put forward critique that is actually taken up as critique, is limited.
Mühlebach’s project will explore the nature of critical agency and what circumstances promote or inhibit it. Her proposal argues that the ability to understand a variety of interacting elements on the part of critics, addressees, and bystanders is key to critical agency. The project aims to develop a political epistemology of critical agency that systematically studies the interaction between socio-political and epistemological aspects of critical agency. “Ethnographic resources such as thick descriptions, fieldwork, and interviews will prove essential in helping to develop a political epistemology of critical agency that is informed by real-world circumstances and does not just brush past them in favor of further theorizing” explains Mühlebach.
Deborah Mühlebach has been carrying out research since 2021 within the research training group (GRK) 2638 “Normativity, Critique, Change” – which also receives funding from the German Research Foundation – at the Institute of Philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin. She also acts as a mentor and currently supports fifteen doctoral candidates involved in this research training group. Mühlebach earned her doctorate in philosophy on the subject of “The Politics of Meaning – A Non-Ideal Approach to Verbal Derogation” at the University of Basel under supervisors Professor Markus Wild, Professor Sally Haslanger (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA), and Professor Jennifer Saul (University of Sheffield, United Kingdom).
Dr. Deborah Mühlebach, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Freie Universität Berlin, Email: d.muehlebach@fu-berlin.de
http://Deborah Mühlebach’s profile on the research training group (GRK) 2638 “Normativity, Critique, Change” web page: https://www.normativitaet-kritik-wandel.de/en/team/Post-DocsListe/Muehlebach/ind...
http://The German Research Foundation’s description of the Emmy Noether Program: https://www.dfg.de/en/research-funding/funding-opportunities/programmes/individu...
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