Preparation of third funding phase - Concept teaser and invitation for participation

New Guiding Theme "Energy Cultures in Transition" 

At the Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden, artists, and scholars from the social sciences and humanities engage with the relations between technology, natural sciences, and society. Preparations are currently underway for the third funding phase (Start: April 2027) with the new guiding theme "Energy Cultures in Transition".
The energy transition represents far more than a solely technological shift; rather, it requires a fundamental transformation of cultural practices, societal values, and socio-ecological relations. The guiding theme "Energy Cultures in Transition" understands energy as a cultural phenomenon deeply inscribed in aesthetic, historical, political, ecological, economic, and socio-technological practices and systems. Building on the dynamically growing research fields of the Energy Humanities, Science & Technology Studies, and the Digital Humanities, the aim is to examine how modern energy regimes— from petromodernity, to nuclear culture, and post-carbon futures—have shaped not only material infrastructures but also subjectivities, power relations, progress narratives, geopolitical orders, ecologies, and knowledge systems, while simultaneously being shaped by them. Interdisciplinary perspectives from the social sciences and humanities represented at the Schaufler Kolleg@TU Dresden enable the analysis of the multifaceted entanglements of energy, culture, and society. The focus encompasses historicizing questions about the representation, communication, and aesthetics of energy transitions and resource paradigms as well as continuities between resource economies and information economies, the relationships between energy, labor, environment, and consumer culture, and the role of colonialism, gender, nationalism, geopolitics, education, and social justice in deciding energy futures and navigating collective transformation processes.
The guiding theme of the third funding phase is equally relevant and integral to the Lab’s second pillar, the Schaufler Residency@TU Dresden. Contemporary artistic practices play a vital role in addressing questions of resources, sustainability, and energy transition through speculative, critical, and aesthetic engagements with global transformation processes.

Subject to a positive funding decision, the third funding phase will again include seven doctoral positions. Unlike the two previous phases, these positions will be linked to specific disciplines and supervisors in the call for applications and will be funded for 4 years in total. Against this background, we would like to encourage participation from colleagues at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and invite brief expressions of interest from potential doctoral supervisors by March 6, 2026 to schaufl.