European Graduate School

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European Graduate School
'Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien'

Seal of the European Graduate School
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

[edit] History

EGS was established in 1994 for the purpose of providing continuing education for professionals. It is a postgraduate degree-granting school with two divisions: Media and Communications and Arts, Health and Society.

It is a fully accredited school controlled by a school council ("Hochschulrat") in which the Canton of Wallis is represented with at least one member. The school is supervised by representatives of the education ministry of the Canton of Wallis, the Graduate School of Music and Theater, Hamburg, the Endicott College in Beverly, MA, and the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. [1]

[edit] Faculty: Media and Communications Division

Jean-Luc Nancy and students at EGS, June 11, 2006
Jean-Luc Nancy and students at EGS, June 11, 2006

(Note: the Arts, Health and Society Division is comprised of 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 Judith Butler, Jean Baudrillard,[2] Yve-Alain Bois,[3] DJ Spooky [4], Christian Marclay, Sandy Stone[5] Donna Haraway, Klaus Ottmann, Tracey Emin, Christopher Fynsk, John Waters,[6] Jean-Luc Nancy, Avital Ronell[7] and Caveh Zahedi.[8] Studies are primarily via the internet; students attend two three-week summer seminars in Switzerland, during which they attend 2-3 day classes with visiting lecturers[9] and spend their final year writing a thesis or dissertation.

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 somewhat well-known philosophers and artists from the whole world, including the filmmakers Peter Greenaway and Volker Schlöndorff 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.[10]

[edit] Intercollegiate connections

EGS has established curricular cooperation with the Graduate School of Music and Theater, Hamburg as well as Endicott College in Beverly, Mass. and the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

In addition, EGS is engaging in an international collaboration with Beit Berl College and Resling Publishing House for the publishing of the translation of the book “Stupidity” by Prof. Avital Ronell.

[edit] Controversy

In 1999, Swiss business magazine CASH 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. As of 2006, the Swiss federal Center of Accreditation and Quality Assurance [1] has not listed the EGS among its accredited universitites, but only lists the school having concluded the preliminary examination for accreditation.[11] 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.[12]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Walliser Bote, Aug 10, 2001
  2. ^ Southern Atlantic Quarterly, Notes on Contributors, 2002
  3. ^ THE INTUITIVE CYBORG, by HANS-JOACHIM RUFF-STAHL, 2005
  4. ^ Im Zeitalter des Multiplen, iQ (Quartalsinfo für Uni und ETH) Nr. 44/2004
  5. ^ University of Texas at Austin, New Media Initiative - People
  6. ^ Florida Film Festival, A Conversation with John Waters, 2006
  7. ^ Blackout, by Joan Grossman, 2003
  8. ^ Zahedi blog
  9. ^ Filmmaker Magazine Blog, The European Graduate School, by Scott Macaulay, March 2004
  10. ^ Die Weltwoche 45/05, "Interview mit einem schnellen Brüter", by Albert Kuhn, 2005
  11. ^ OAQ procedures 2003–05 PDF, Concluded accreditation procedures, version: June 2006.
  12. ^ CASH German 9 July 1999, CASH German EGS? Never heard of!, 23 July 1999, retrieved via Factiva.

[edit] External links

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