Milena Jesenská Fellowships for Journalists

The Fellowship Programme was established by the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) as well as by the European Cultural Foundation and is supported by Project Syndicate and ERSTE Foundation. The call for applications 2008/2009 was directed towards cultural journalists, with the term ‘cultural’ interpreted in a broad sense to encompass a wide variety of artistic and intellectual fields.

Milena Jesenská fellows are invited to spend three months at the IWM in Vienna, Austria. Recipients of the fellowship are given a stipend of € 7,630 and are provided with office space, a PC with broadband Internet access, and the use of the IWM’s in-house research facilities as well as other relevant resources in Vienna. Travel grants of up to € 1,820 are available for research visits to neighbouring countries.
Candidates for the Milena Jesenská Fellowships must have several years of experience in professional journalism. Their work may deal with any topic related to cultural issues of European relevance, especially having to do with the issue of European integration. Fellowships are not intended for entry-level journalists or students.

Milena Jesenská (1896-1944) was an outstanding journalist and mediator between the Czech and German cultures in Bohemia as well as an astute political commentator. She was detained in the Nazi concentration camp in Ravensbrück for her political involvement and resistance, where she died in 1944. She is widely known for her famous correspondence with Franz Kafka.

2010/2011  Milena Jesenská Visiting Fellows

Irina Nedeva
Senior editor, Bulgarian National Radio, Sofia
(October – December 2010)
Translating the West – The Case of Tzvetan Stoyanov and the Bulgarian Intellectual Dilemmas

Vladimir Arsenijević
Columnist, contributor, weekly Novosti (Croatia) and web magazine Pescanik (Serbia)
(January – March 2011)
Between a Rock and a Hard Place – The Ever-Changing Face of Europe

Zsuzsa Balazs
Journalist, HVG Magazine, Budapest
(January – March 2011)
Cultural ‘Guerilla’ Movements for Regaining Public Places in the Cities of Europe

Slawomir Sierakowski
Editor-in-chief, Krytyka Polityczna, Warsaw
(April – June 2011)
From ‘Antipolitics’ to ‘Postpolitics’ in the ‘New Europe’