Description

Supported by the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the British Academy, the Newton International Fellowship scheme aims to "select the very best early stage post-doctoral researchers from all over the world, and offer support for two years at UK research institutions." The Fellowships cover the natural and social sciences, engineering and the humanities. Fifty Fellowships were available in this first round of competition, across all UK universities and all academic disciplines. The criteria of adjudication include the candidate's track record, the excellence of the proposed research project, and the track record of the UK Sponsor and the host organisation—in this case the History Dept at LU—in the area of proposed research. For further details follow the link below.

A Newton International Fellowship has been awarded to Dr Dariusz Gafijczuk. I am theUK sponsor. Dariusz (PhD Alberta 2007) was my former doctoral student at the University of Alberta in Canada, and is currently a temporary lecturer in sociology at Trinity College, Dublin. His PhD dissertation was on Freud, Schoenberg and fin de siècle Vienna. Unlike many who theorize culture, Dariusz is an accomplished practitioner of the art form he studies: he is a violinist who has toured internationally with the University of Alberta chamber ensemble, as well as a promising young scholar who has published in such journals as History of the Human Sciences.

The project for which Dariusz has been awarded the Newton International Fellowship, entitled "The Ruins of Mitteleuropa: an Investigation into the Cultural Blueprints of the Centre," once again uses music—in this case that of the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok and the Czech composer Leos Janacek—as a means of exploring cultural identity. The context of his investigation is the necessity to rethink the meaning and memory of "Central Europe" in the wake of an expanded EU. Dariusz's work will complement not only my own research into modern Czech history (I amcurrently completing a large book on Prague and surrealism for Princeton University Press, which is supported by AHRC research leave), but also other research currently being undertaken in FASS, notably that of the "Dynamics of Memories" group.