Mainz-Bydgoszcz German Institute Partnership

Project directors:

Prof. Dagmar von Hoff, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Prof. Monika Szczepaniak, Uniwersytet Kazimierza Wielkiego Bydgoszcz (Poland)

Project assistant:

Lena Wetenkamp (M.A.)

The German Institute Partnership (GIP) programme of the German Academic Exchange Service is designed to promote German language and culture abroad by providing support to the teaching of and research in German Studies in foreign countries. In 2013, the German Academic Exchange Service approved a three-year partnership between the German Department at Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz and the Institute of German at the Uniwersytet Kazimierza Wielkiego Bydgoszcz (Poland) for the term 2013-2015.

The main purpose of this institutional partnership was the creation of a structured doctoral network. The partnership facilitated teaching and research stays for German and Polish doctoral candidates, enabling them to give academic presentations at two workshops, and providing the opportunity to acquire theoretical and practical insight into aspects of media, and offering training modules on intercultural competency. Following the first joint international doctoral workshop, held at Bydgoszcz University (13-18 May 2013, New Perspectives in German Studies I – Gender), the international symposium Media Ambivalence / Ambivalent Media was convened by Johannes Gutenberg University-Mainz (12-16 May 2014). In the third year of the partnership, a further doctoral workshop took place during a symposium on the Temperatures of Desire at Bydgoszcz University (8-16 June 2015).