The Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (german: Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) is an interdisciplinary institute founded in 1981 in Grunewald,

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

, dedicated to research projects in the natural and social sciences. It is modeled after the original IAS in Princeton, New Jersey and is a member of

Some Institutes for Advanced Study The Some Institutes for Advanced Study (SIAS) consortium organizes ten "institutes for advanced study" founded on the same principles as the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The members are: * Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, ...

. The purpose of the institute is to offer scholars and scientists the opportunity to concentrate on projects of their own choosing for one academic year, free from administrative duties. The institute embraces a balance of both distinguished senior scholars and promising younger researchers, drawn from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. The institute has been headed by historian Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger as rector since September 2018.

Principals of the institute

Fellows at the Wissenschaftskolleg are chosen with no restrictions on country of origin, discipline, or academic position. With the help of an international advisory board, invitations to scholars and scientists, are designed to promote exchange across disciplinary boundaries and among researchers from different cultures. At the heart of the Wissenschaftskolleg is the idea that researchers must be free to choose their own distinctive research projects. The fellows' only obligations are to reside at the Wissenschaftskolleg, and to meet once a day for a meal and each Tuesday for the weekly colloquium. At each Tuesday colloquium, one Fellow presents his or her work to the other Fellows followed by an hour of rigorous discussion.

Alumni/alumnae

Among the alumni/alumnae of the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin are Carolyn Abbate,

Svetlana Alpers Svetlana Leontief Alpers (born February 10, 1936) is an American art historian, also a professor, writer and critic. Her specialty is Dutch Golden Age painting, a field she revolutionized with her 1984 book ''The Art of Describing''. She has als ...

Philippe Ariès Philippe Ariès (; 21 July 1914 – 8 February 1984) was a French medievalist and historian of the family and childhood, in the style of Georges Duby. He wrote many books on the common daily life. His most prominent works regarded the change in ...

, Peter Burke, Lorraine Daston,

Jon Elster Jon Elster (; born 22 February 1940, Oslo) is a Norwegian philosopher and political theorist who holds the Robert K. Merton professorship of Social Science at Columbia University. He received his PhD in social science from the École Normale Supe ...

, Ute Frevert,

Clifford Geertz Clifford James Geertz (; August 23, 1926 – October 30, 2006) was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decade ...

Carlo Ginzburg Carlo Ginzburg (; born April 15, 1939) is an Italian historian and proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for ''Il formaggio e i vermi'' (1976, English title: '' The Cheese and the Worms''), which examined the beliefs of an It ...

Anthony Grafton Anthony Thomas Grafton (born May 21, 1950) is an American historian of early modern Europe and the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, where he is also the Director the Program in European Cultural Studies. He i ...

Hans Werner Henze Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as ...

, Albert O. Hirschman, Stanislaw Lem,

Hilary Putnam Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, and computer scientist, and a major figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He made significant contributions ...

Elaine Scarry Elaine Scarry (born June 30, 1946) is an American essayist and professor of English and American Literature and Language. She is the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. Her interests inc ...

Quentin Skinner Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner (born 26 November 1940) is a British intellectual historian. He is regarded as one of the founders of the Cambridge School of the history of political thought. He has won numerous prizes for his work, including t ...

Sa'diyya Shaikh Sa'diyya Shaikh (born 1969) is a South African scholar of Islam and feminist theory. She is an associate professor of religion at the University of Cape Town. Shaikh studies Sufism in relation to feminism and feminist theory. Shaikh is kno ...

, and

Bernard Williams Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, FBA (21 September 1929 – 10 June 2003) was an English moral philosopher. His publications include ''Problems of the Self'' (1973), ''Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy'' (1985), ''Shame and Necessity' ...

References

External links

Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, website
Research institutes in Germany Research institutes established in 1981 Organisations based in Berlin Institute for Advanced Study {{Sci-org-stub