Cluster of Excellence: The Formation of Normative Orders
Goethe University Frankfurt/ Main
We are living at a time of profound and rapid social changes. These changes are bound up with social conflicts, both within states and beyond them. Whether it is a matter of a just social order under conditions of “globalization” and new technological possibilities or a just “global order” in the face of scarce resources, climate change and armed conflicts –we are confronting challenges of a new kind that cannot be met with traditional conceptions of order. In a world of different cultural self-understandings and traditions, transnational norms and institutions are emerging whose validity is being – and must be – placed in question.
The researchers in the humanities and social sciences united in the Frankfurt Cluster of Excellence have made it their task to analyze these processes from the perspective of the “formation of normative orders.” Normative orders are understood in this context as historically grounded “orders of justification” based upon “justification narratives.” They privilege certain legitimations, where norms and values of very different kinds (moral, legal and religious, to name just a few) are interconnected or give rise to tensions. Such orders derive their legitimation from specific norms and themselves give rise to norms, though always in a dynamic sense.
Researchers from a wide variety of disciplines, such as philosophy, history, political science, and legal studies, as well as ethnology, economics, theology, and sociology, collaborate within this research alliance. Their goal is to be able to reach conclusions, informed by all of these perspectives, on the extent to which we live in an era of the formation of new normative orders.
Our graduate program comprises a three-year course of training. The primary focus of the program is on the students’ independent work on their dissertations. In addition, in the first year of the program, all doctoral students are required to take part in an interdisciplinary introductory course on the unifying theme of the cluster and to take courses on methodology and research design. In the second year, additional courses on methodology, theory, and key skills are offered, depending on the specific needs and preferences of the doctoral candidates.
Contact Information
Rainer Forst, Professor
Klaus Günther, Professor
Max-Horkheimer-Str. 2
HPF EXC 5
Frankfurt am Main, Hesse
Germany http://www.normativeorders.net/en/
office@normativeorders.net
0049 (0) 69 798-31401
Region
Europe
Western Europe
Academic Program
Ph.D.
Year Established
2007
Fellowships and Potential Scholarly Affiliations
The Cluster of Excellence: The Formation of Normative Orders Postdoctoral Fellowships