Young Scientists Week 2022
The second and hybrid week of young academics with integrated graduate conference (07.-09.06.2022) - a cooperation between the Graduate Centre KW (GKW) and the Graduate Forum KW (GFKW ) - took place during the reading week. The event featured lectures and pitches by doctoral students and postdocs from the Faculty of Cultural Studies, information offerings, networking rounds, a workshop, a panel discussion and a keynote lecture on the topic of Data, Culture, Society: Understanding and Shaping Complex Transformations.
The aim of the graduate conference was to throw different perspectives on the numerous forms and processes of transformation. The diversity of the processes of understanding and shaping the transformation of data, culture(s) and society(ies) from cultural studies perspectives as well as in different fields of action were the focus and were considered from different methodological and disciplinary perspectives. With a nuanced view, the speakers highlighted specific dimensions of meaning and negotiation processes within this context. Thanks to the conceptually broad approach of the conference, it was possible to impressively demonstrate the multifaceted negotiations during and as a result of the transformation process of data, culture(s) and society(ies), which are always based on interaction. Overlaps and interactions have become just as clear as the manifold scopes of action and attributions of meaning.
The opening keynote lecture of the Week of Young Scientists on the topic of Human-AI Teaming by Prof. Dr. Katharina Rohlfing (Psycholinguistics) illuminated the complex interrelationship between human and machine actors for social and professional cooperation and located cultural scientists within the process as designers of artificial intelligences. The lively discussion that followed reflected the relevance of the topic (in cultural studies, among others) and was also a successful start to the week of events.
The newly designed pitch format enabled doctoral researchers and postdocs to present research projects in the process of development and to discuss them in an interdisciplinary manner.
At the Market of Opportunities various actors from the field of graduate funding presented their offers for graduates and were available to answer individual questions.
The workshop on knowledge communication, led by Nadine Lux(science ³), conveyed the basics of the topic and presented tasks and challenges of and for scientists in the context of a desired transfer of their respective projects.
In the digital panel discussion, Dr Hendrik Huthoff, Dr Anne-Christin Warskulat and Dr Maik Goth discussed mental health in qualification phases and corresponding possibilities for action. In particular, the illumination of the data revealed the extent to which the precarious work situation in qualification phases can have an impact on mental health and consequently the relevance of support services at universities. The speakers reported on successful initiatives at universities (UniWind) and where there is still a need to catch up.
Following this year's Week of Young Academics, presentations from the conference will also be published in an anthology of the wbg series Interdisciplinary Studies of the Paderborn Graduate Centre for Cultural Studies will be published.
After intensive discussion, the circle of graduate students has decided to reject the term "junior researchers" due to genealogical and hierarchical dimensions, which is why the next Week of Young Researchers will be called Graduate Week.
We would like to thank all participants for this productive week of events, during which we were once again able to experience and productively discuss the diversity of academic projects at the Faculty of Cultural Studies.
