The second Graduate School of Global Politics (GSGP) Intensive Seminar for 2016 finished up this Friday evening. Entitled ‘Theory II: Current Macro-Theoretical Debates in International Relations and their Applicability in Research and Comparing Strengths and Weaknesses of Theoretical Approaches to Global Politics’ this seminar acquainted the PhD candidates with the most current theoretical debates on IR and global politics. In the courses, the doctoral candidates were able to identify and familiarize themselves with the body of literature that is most relevant for their dissertation. As well, the PhD candidates were given the knowledge to ensure that their research focus is not only relevant to the current academic debate but also unique enough to enable eventual publication of their dissertations.

As in previous years, the Intensive Seminar was run by Prof. Siegfried Schieder, an expert in politics, philosophy and law from the Institute for Political Science at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. Since 2010 Dr. Schieder has regularly appeared at the Center for Global Politics as a guest lecturer, and has helped share his expert knowledge with GSGP students.

One of the key functions of the GSG is to provide PhD candidate students with the knowledge and tools which they need in order to write a successful thesis. To help them with this, over the course of the year, we run a number of intensive seminars at our campus at Freie Universitaet Berlin.