The Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies (FSGS) is a structured doctoral program that was funded under the Excellence Initiative of the federal and state governments from 2007 through 2019. The Graduate School is a part of Freie Universität Berlin and and has counted Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as an important partner institution since 2012.

Prospective doctoral candidates may apply with a research project in literary studies. As of 2018, the FSGS offers PhD positions as well as 9-month starting grants to develop doctoral projects. PhD candidates completing their research within the Cluster of Excellence 2020 “Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective” are also members of FSGS.

Our members benefit from excellent infrastructure. They are part of an international and interdisciplinary network of research and teaching, and can put together a tailor-made program to support their project from the Graduate School’s offers. In cooperation with the Graduate School’s faculty, they organize conferences and workshops, invite international guests and thus help create your own curriculum.

The interdisciplinary colloquia during the winter semesters are mandatory, as they serve to introduce everyone’s projects and their research progress. Associates and guests of the school present their research at a weekly lunch forum for discussion.

A one-semester visit to an international partner university is part of the program. Furthermore, the Graduate School invites several doctoral candidates from partner universities for a visiting semester each year.

Antidiscrimination and diversity

The socio-political developments of the past years have highlighted the importance of implementing institutional mechanisms to prevent discrimination. Aware of these developments, the FSGS has been committed to furthering antidiscrimination and diversity in higher education since 2021.

In early 2022, doctoral candidates, the management team, and board members of FSGS participated in a workshop by Ayla Satilmis “Diversity and Protection from Discrimination in Higher Education”, which inspired several initiatives that aim at implementing these values at the graduate school’s structural level. The active involvement of doctoral candidates in the selection of the ombudspersons and the regular inclusion of the topic of antidiscrimination in the FSGS lunch forum are initiatives that have already been successfully implemented. Furthermore, the organization of an advanced seminar with a theoretical focus on diversity in the humanities is planned in the FSGS curriculum.

An in-depth workshop in February 2023 was dedicated to the development of a Code of Conduct for the FSGS. Thanks to the active participation of PhD students, the PIs of the Graduate School, the ombudspersons and the Board of Directors, all members of the FSGS agreed on the joint Code of Conduct [German], which was revised in 2024.