The Center for Global Studies (CGS) is part of the Walter Benjamin Kolleg in the Faculty of Philosophy & History of the University of Bern. It is a research center that concerns itself with the current and historical processes of the interweaving and disentangling of human areas of life, over great geographical distances and different cultural contexts. In an interdisciplinary framework - formed in particular by the subjects of history, literature, music and religion, as well as by the history of art - research on these developments takes place primarily with an intellectual, cultural and social sciences approach. In addition various research areas are supported by working together with experts from other fields, such as law or economics.
The CGS does not equate global studies with globalization research. Indeed, the processes of expanding, consolidating and accelerating global relationships in various areas of social life form core topics of research conducted at CGS. At the same time, however, there is also interest in the inequality of these processes, the exclusion and fragmentation that they produce the parts of societies that are more or less affected by them, and by opposing developments. Correspondigly, our analytical guiding categories are transfer, interlacing and comparison.
The main areas of research at the CGS lies in the following:
- The theory formation of human, cultural and social sciences in Global Studies,
- Of knowledge production and circulation in global interrelationships,
- Questions of justice within the context of globalization,
- The representation of and dealing with climate change, and
- Intercultural exchange processes and identity constructions in global contexts.
The CGS is also a center of studies, under which students can undertake five interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary Master study programs - Latin American Studies, Eastern Europe Studies, Religion in the Global Present, World Arts and World Literature - and one Bachelor program in Eastern European Studies.
The Center also has a doctoral program in Global Studies.
