Graduate Week 2026 at KW - by graduates for graduates
From 26 to 28 May 2026, the Graduate Week KW, organised by the Graduate Centre KW (GKW) and Graduate Forum KW (GFKW), invites you to an interdisciplinary examination of the topic "Gender as an object, category and perspective of (cultural) scientific research". Interactive and interdisciplinary workshops, lectures and networking formats will provide an opportunity for professional and informal exchange - whether on site or digitally.
A special highlight: the pitch format, in which research ideas can be presented and discussed across disciplines regardless of the thematic focus.
If you plan to attend Graduate Week, please send us the completed registration form to: gradz@kw.uni-paderborn.de
Keynote lecture
Traditionally, the Graduate Week is always opened with a keynote speech.
This year we are delighted to welcome Prof. Dr. Antje Langer as our speaker. We are very much looking forward to her lecture on the topic Doing gender - research. Method(olog)ically through research.
Abstract
The presentation takes up the invitation formulated in the call for papers for the graduate conference to "illuminate gender in its multi-layeredness and complexity as an object of investigation, analytical perspective and/or intersectional category of (cultural) scientific research and knowledge contexts" and opens the conference with the following questions: In what ways can gender become a focus, moment or perspective in research? What knowledge of gender theory is necessary for this? And how can this be 'translated' into practical research approaches and sensitising questions in gender-reflective research? To illustrate this and to set the mood for later thematic discussions, these questions will take up references to 'gendering', which the conference programme suggests: historical transformations of social gender relations, relations to institutions, education, aesthetics, sexuality, violence and, last but not least, gendered working alliances in research, which not only shape research processes, but often also provide information about the constitution of the research object. At best, the lecture thus serves as a resonance space for further discussions and leads to irritations of one's own research.
Graduate Conference
The Graduate Conference of the GFKW offers graduate students of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Paderborn University the opportunity to present their research projects in the light of a cross-disciplinary topic and to discuss them with an interested and sympathetic audience.
The aim of the Graduate Conference is, on the one hand, to obtain content-related suggestions for one's own research project from different specialist perspectives and to gain presentation experience. On the other hand, the event serves to build and expand one's own academic network.
Pitch format
As part of the Graduate Week 2026, there will be a format for peer exchange on emerging research projects. For this purpose, we have allocated 20-minute slots per scientist, which are available for a short presentation of the research question/work hypothesis (5-10 minutes) and a subsequent discussion . For this open format, there is therefore no binding topic or form of presentation. Rather, we want to enter into a transdisciplinary exchange , enable collegial feedback and, for example, discuss initial research ideas. Participation in the discussion following the presentation is open to all participants of the Graduate Week.
We look forward to the exchange!
Workshops during the Graduate Week
Workshops will once again be held during this year's Graduate Week.
Science and everything else - how do they fit together?
Led by: Professor Katrin Klingsieck
The workshop provides impulses on how personal demands, expectations and goals (in) science can be reconciled with those from other areas of life (e.g. family, friends, hobbies, interests). It is about finding, developing and living your own personal compatibility. You can try out the impulses directly. Like all ProLernen offers, they are based on current psychological research and tried-and-tested approaches from systemic and resource-oriented counselling and coaching practice.
Tracing gender dimensions in your own project
Guided by: Dr Susanne Richter
Gender is such a socially relevant category that it should always be considered (not only) in social research. However, the epistemological possibilities behind it are manifold and have the potential to intensively enrich the research perspective - even in projects in which gender is not the focus. In this workshop, we will take a look at the various dimensions that a research perspective inspired by gender can have and the possibilities of applying them in your own project. In doing so, we will explore the spectrum of the "bare minimum" of gender sensitivity on the one hand and the knowledge-generating potential that an explicit focus on this category can have on the other. At the centre is the question: How can the participants' projects benefit from gender perspectives?
Programme of the Graduate Week
Time of day | Programme item |
| 9.30 to 10.00 a.m. | Arrival |
| 10:00 to 10:30 a.m. | Opening of the programme Prof. Dr. Dominik Rumlich (Director of GKW) Dr. Larissa Eikermann (Vice-Dean Equality) Michelle Ginder (Postgraduate Representative) Dr.in Anda-Lisa Harmening (Managing Director of GKW) |
| 10:30 am to 12:00 pm | Lecture Professor Antje Langer: Doing gender - research. Method(olog)ically through research |
| 12:00 to 13:00 | (Joint) lunch |
| 13:00 to 14:30 | Lectures Lea Biere: The role of gender in the research fields of artificial intelligence and education - A bibliometric literature review Denise Großkrüger: Perspectives of grammar school art teachers on gender and sexuality at school and in subject teaching |
| 14.30 to 15.00 | Coffee break |
| 15:00 to 16:15 | Lecture and pitch Vivienne Hanft: Performing gender on stage - On the productivity of cross-casting in Daniela Löffner's LULU production Timothy Kroupa: PandemicStorytelling - COVID Fiction as Pandemic Sensemaking |
| 16:15 to 17:15 | workshop Dr Susanne Richter: Tracing gender dimensions in your own project |
Time of day | Programme item |
| 9.30 to 10.00 a.m. | Arrival |
| 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. | General meeting GFKW |
| 11.00 to 12.30 | Lectures Leandra Ulrike Oles: Emancipation through public participation of women in Duisburg Rheinhausen during the industrial structural change Anastasiya Bobrova: Ambivalences of female modes of existence - demands of femininity in the changing feminist achievements of the second women's movement |
| 12:30 to 13:30 | (Joint) lunch |
| 13:30 to 15:00 | Lectures Caroline Bonhage: Autonomous women's* emergency calls as a form of feminist social work and their relationship to racism Lara Venghaus: Why Friedrich Schleiermacher envied women |
| 15:00 to 15:30 | Coffee break |
| 15:30 to 17:00 | Pitches Miriam Frings: Between workshop space and research field: On ethnographic research into one's own profession Anne Gottwald: Child protection (not) a topic of university teacher education |
| from 17:30 | GFKW Dinner/Stammtisch at the Pizzeria & Paninoteca “Bei Salva” |
