News-Board-Eintrag:
A Finn in Giessen. Again.
| News-Kategorie: | |
| Eingestellt von: | Angela Harter |
| Eingestellt am: | 29.01.2011 |
Giessen – the Sequel, or: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Cotuteller  I am what you might call a Cotuteller. What I mean, is that I am engaged in a ‘Cotutelle’ agreement between two universities – my “home” university in Helsinki and my “partner” university in Giessen – to pursue a bi-national PhD degree. One of the criteria for this Cotutelle is to stay in the “partner” country and to enroll in the partner university for at least nine months. This I did in 2010. And I liked it so much that I did not want to leave. In effect, I stayed. After talking things over with my Finnish supervisor, I was shown the green light and was allowed to return to the even greener pastures of Hesse – as long as I would come back eventually to fulfill my duties for my “home” institution. These duties are the stuff you cannot do long-distance such as teaching classes or doing clerical work for the department. It comes down to stuff other than your research. After all, you can write your dissertation anywhere, at least when you are studying contemporary Anglophone literature, like I am. Then why continue to do it here? This is a question I get asked quite often. Surprisingly often. As if I were some seedy minor character from a first installment of a 1980’s police thriller who, upon returning to appear in the sequel film, is confronted with the inevitable question: “Didn’t you die?” I do not take it personally. Rather, I think this skepticism has to do with an inferiority complex Giessen as a town seems to harbor to a pathological degree. I know all about regional inferiority complexes; I am, after all, a Finn, and if there is anything we Finns are proud of, it is our inherent inferiority to Swedes and Russians. But even then, the Giessener variety of self-proclaimed lowliness seemed oddly extreme. But as an outsider, let me give you an “objective” opinion: I like Giessen. That is why I stayed. Of course, a cynic could unearth less sentimental reasons for why a Finnish doctoral candidate might want to extend her stay in a German university town for, basically, indefinitely. These reasons are financial. In Germany, as opposed to Finland, a graduate student is still considered a student and as such is given the same discounts that hold good for an undergraduate, such as those concerning bus and train tickets and meals in the student cafeteria. The latter is something I take an almost daily interest in, as it is a great excuse for meeting colleagues. Dissertation or no dissertation, we all have to eat. To return to the question “Why did I stay?”, I have to give an answer that might sound more sentimental than cynical but is nevertheless the truth: it is the people. It is an absolute thrill to be included in a community of people who feel passionate about what they are doing and who, despite the fact that they come from places as diverse as Belgium and Kazakhstan – or because of it –, manage to touch upon the very real “academic” issues that concern us all. Even Finns. And that’s Giessen for you. Text: Hanna Mäkelä Foto: Hanna Mäkela and Vincenzo Martella (another Giessen “cotuteller”) |
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