TransHumanities / ESSCS
TransHumanities is an international network of partner institutions in the field of graduate education. It fosters interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary academic exchange as well as international networking among doctoral and postdoctoral researchers in the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences. At the core of the consortium are interdisciplinary summer schools, which serve as platforms for dialogue between disciplines in the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences; between the humanities and other scientific cultures; between academia and the arts; between theory and practice; between academia and society; and between individual and participatory, analytical and engaged forms of research. TransHumanities aims to establish and sustain discourses, initiatives, and ideas that transcend institutional, sociocultural, regional, linguistic, and disciplinary boundaries.
TransHumanities is a partnership between the GSAH and the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at the University of Giessen. TransHumanities is also cooperating with the GSAH’s regular institutional partner, the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Lucerne (GSL). Within the framework of the TransHumanities-partnership, four summer schools have so far taken place in Bern, as well as one summer school in Giessen in 2023.
Since 2024, TransHumanities has been cooperating with the European Summer School in Cultural Studies (ESSCS). The ESSCS is likewise a network-based series of summer schools dedicated to interdisciplinary academic training in cultural studies. It is organized by the doctoral programme Cultural Studies, Literature and the Arts at the University of Copenhagen, the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis, the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture at the University of Giessen, the Lisbon Consortium, the Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis Ljubljana, the University of Trondheim, and our Graduate School. The summer schools organized by the ESSCS since 2007 are hosted annually by one of the partner institutions and provide a platform for keynotes (including, where thematically appropriate, representatives of the partner institutions), as well as for 25 to 50 early-career researchers from Europe and beyond. The summer schools are primarily aimed at doctoral candidates and are organized and funded independently by the respective host institutions.
As TransHumanities and the ESSCS exist independently of one another, summer schools and other events may—depending on their thematic fit—be organized jointly for both networks or held separately.
Check out our current TransHumanities Summer School Call 2026:
Capital in Question. Imagining Work, Value, and Futures beyond Growth
31 August–4 September 2026
Hotel Seaside, Spiez
