European Graduate School

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European Graduate School
'Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien'
Established:	1994
Type:	Private Institute
Rector:	Paolo J. Knill
Students:	ca. 600
Location:	Leuk, Switzerland
Campus:	Saas-Fee
Faculty:	1 (full-time), ca. 100 (part-time)
Website:	egsuniversity.org

The European Graduate School (EGS) in Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien ("European University for Interdisciplinary Studies"). It is governed by a presidential board that includes a representative of the Swiss canton of Valais. Instruction is in English.

Contents 1 History 2 The Arts, Health and Society Division 3 Faculty: Media and Communications Division 4 Teaching Philosophy 5 Intercollegiate connections 6 See also 7 Notes and references 8 External links

[edit] History

EGS was established in 1994 as a postgraduate degree-granting school with two divisions: Media and Communications and Arts, Health and Society. Founding contributors include thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard. The setting of the campus in the Alps at an altitude of 1,800 m (6,000 ft.), with a magnificient view of some of Switzerland's highest mountains, provides a unique learning atmosphere.

It is a fully accredited school controlled by a school council ("Hochschulrat") in which the Canton of Valais is represented with at least one member. The school is supervised by representatives of the education ministry of the Canton of Valais, the Graduate School of Music and Theater, Hamburg, the Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, and the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. ^[1]

In 1999, Swiss business magazine CASH[1] reported that Schirmacher had misleadingly labeled the school "fully Swiss-state approved" and "fully recognized" at a time when the federal accreditation law was still being passed, and the canton had only approved the Ph.D. and M.A. degrees, but not the school itself. The magazine also claimed that Schirmacher had listed chaos theorist Mitchell Feigenbaum and artist Pipilotti Rist among its roster of faculty, even though both denied involvement in and knowledge of the school.^[2]

[edit] The Arts, Health and Society Division

Offers certificate programs (MAPS and CAGS) and Masters and Doctoral degrees in Expressive Arts Therapy and Expressive Arts Coaching and Consulting, Education, and Social Change. The MA Programs in Expressive Arts are designed to further training and research in the therapeutic, coaching, consultative, educational and social use of the arts. The programs encourage students to take seriously the tradition and disciplines of the arts as they have evolved over the course of human history. In all societies up to the present, the arts have played an essential role in enabling human beings to make sense of their world, to live with suffering when necessary and to be able to celebrate the joy of life. Teaching takes place in the town of Saas Fee in the Swiss Alps (State of Valais, Switzerland) in two sessions each summer from June to August. Students and faculty from all over the world meet to participate in intensive training seminars. The doctoral program (PhD)in Expressive Arts combines two Summer residential training's at EGS leading to a Certificate of Advanced Post-Graduate Studies (CAGS) with individualized dissertation research in the student's home country. The Summer training is conducted in English; dissertations can be written in English, German or French if suitable advisors can be found. The granting of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by EGS has been approved by the Ministry of Education, Canton Wallis, Switzerland.

[Faculty http://www.egsuniversity.ch/faculty/]: The format of a Graduate School for Professionals with training exclusively in Intensive Summer Seminars has the advantage that it can commit a faculty of excellent reputation who are internationally engaged leaders or founders in their field. Faculty members come from transdisciplinary practices that cross institutional boundaries. Advocate investigative learning and creative inquiry which embrace the stratified complexity of the concrete problems we face today. They are familiar with thinking that expands the horizon of established frameworks and creates networks between disciplines and institutions in both the private and public sector. Faculty that have joined EGS are enthusiastic about projects that engage the typical adult learner. They appreciate the benefit of the innovative learning that goes on between faculty, students and participants in on-going projects.

[edit] Faculty: Media and Communications Division

(Note: the Arts, Health and Society Division comprises a distinct faculty. The following faculty list is applicable to the Media and Communications Division only, with the exception of Sandy Stone who serves in both faculties).

Wolfgang Schirmacher was the founding Dean of the Media and Communications division (which confers Masters and Ph.D. degrees). Professor Schirmacher retired from that post in the Autumn of 2006 and now serves as the Program Director. The current (as of 15 March 2007) Dean of this division is Professor Friedrich Ulfers (also distinguished faculty at New York University). Visiting faculty typically come during the 3 week summer seminar to give a 1-6 day course. Visiting faculty have included Giorgio Agamben^[3][4][5], Chantal Akerman^[6][7][8][5], Pierre Aubenque, Alain Badiou^[9][4][5], Lewis Baltz^[9], Julian Barnes^[10], Jean Baudrillard^{[11][12][13][14][8][10][9][5]}, Yve-Alain Bois^[15][9][5], Catherine Breillat^[16][9], Victor Burgin^[9][8][5], Judith Butler^{[17][18][19][9][5]}, Sophie Calle^[9], Helene Cixous^[20][9], Diane Davis^[9], Manuel DeLanda^[9], Claire Denis^[21][20][9], Jacques Derrida^[9][10], Tracey Emin^[22][9][5], Bracha Ettinger^[20][23], Christopher Fynsk^[24][9], Antony Gormley^[20][9][8], Peter Greenaway^{[25][10][26][9][4][5]}, Durs Grünbein^[9], Werner Hamacher^[9], Barbara Hammer^[9], Donna Haraway^{[27][9][4][5]}, Michael Hardt^[9], Martin Hielscher^[9], Michel Houellebecq^[10], Shelley Jackson^[28][9], Claude Lanzmann^{[29][30][9][5]}, Christian Marclay^[31][32][5], Carl Mitcham^[33][34][9], Jean-Luc Nancy^{[35][36][10][20][9][8][5]}, Klaus Ottmann^{[37][38][39][40]}, Hans Ulrich Obrist^[9], Cornelia Parker^[9], Laurence A. Rickels, Avital Ronell^{[41][42][9][5]}, Paul D. Miller^[9] a.k.a. DJ Spooky^{[43][10][44][45][5]} that Subliminal Kid, Wolfgang Schirmacher^{[46][20][9][8][5]}, Volker Schlöndorff^[9][4], Michael Schmidt^[9], Hendrik Speck, ^[47][9], Bruce Sterling^[48][9], Allucquére Sandy Stone^{[49][50][9][4][8][5]}, Elia Suleiman^[8], Friedrich Ulfers^[9], Gregory Ulmer^[9][5], Agnès Varda^[9], Paul Virilio^[10], Victor J. Vitanza^[20][9][5], Hubertus von Amelunxen^{[51][9][8][52][53][5]}, John Waters^{[54][10][55][56][57][9][5]}, Samuel Weber^[9][5], Caveh Zahedi^[58], Krzysztof Zanussi^[9], Siegfried Zielinski^[9][5], Slavoj Žižek^{[59][10][9][4][5]}, and Jan Zwicky^[60].

In 2006, Slavoj Žižek became the Jacques Lacan Professor at EGS, which has helped to further publicize the school regionally and globally.

[edit] Teaching Philosophy

Studies involve two years of coursework, including rigorous on-line writing requirements based upon a structured reading list, and two three-week summer seminars in Switzerland, during which students are evaluated for their active participation in approximately nine hours of seminars and lectures each day with visiting professors, philosophers, filmmakers, and artists^[61] and spend their final three years writing a thesis or dissertation, followed by a traditional oral defense.

Slavoj Žižek described his involvement in EGS in an interview with Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche:

There is an international summer school, the European Graduate School. It's for professionals who only have a few weeks per year for their continued education. They go there for two or three seasons, pay and get a speedy certification, a master's or doctor's. What's interesting with this school is the selection of the lecturers – there are well-known philosophers and artists from the whole world, including the filmmakers Peter Greenaway and Volker Schlöndorff, the theorists Donna Haraway and Sandy Stone, and the philosophers Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou and I. We three are friends. We meet there each year, are engaged for three weeks. I can bring my wife, do a 90 minute lecture each morning and am free afterwards.^[62]

[edit] Intercollegiate connections

EGS has established curricular cooperation with:

• Appalachian State University Boone, North Carolina.
• Beit Berl Academic College. Doar Beit Berl, (Israel)^[63]
• California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, California.
• Clemson University, College of Architecture, Arts, Humanities. Clemson, South Carolina.^[64]
• Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
• Instituto de Estudios Críticos. Mexico^[65]
• International School of New Media, Lübeck, Germany.
• Internationale Hochschule für künstlerische Therapien und Kreativpädagogik, Calw, Germany.^[66]

In addition, EGS is engaging in a collaboration with Resling Publishing House, including the translation of the book “Stupidity” by Prof. Avital Ronell.

[edit] See also

• Media studies
• New media
• Film studies

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• European Graduate School
• Media and Communications Department
• Arts, Health and Society Department

• Canton Du Valais |Kanton Wallis Department of Education
• Student website
• One student's blog entry about EGS
• EGS at gradschools.com
• Bruce Sterling's 2006 Summer Seminar Notes
• Jamming with Condoleezza. Interview with Greg Ulmer at EGS
• EGS Press: home of POIESIS journal, a forum for material emerging from EGS work