The graduate school offers a structured doctoral training program for 15 young researchers per year. In close exchange with the supervisory team and with Languages of Emotion scholars and scientists, doctoral candidates are able to complete their dissertations in a three-year period.

Interdicisplinary Research

Projects are pursued within individual subject areas, and candidates profit from the expertise of various disciplines, hence becoming integrated from the very start into cutting edge emotion research. Graduate students were selected by an interdisciplinary committee in a multistage process.

Since the field of study is neither a separate discipline nor restricted to a particular department, doctoral degrees are awarded in cooperation with the academic departments of Freie Universität Berlin. 

Doctoral candidates benefit from a wide range of resources to enhance their academic performance and achieve their professional goals at the Dahlem Research School, the overarching framework for structured graduate education at Freie Universität Berlin.

From 2008 to 2014 more than 50 Ph.D. candidates in four years pursued their individual dissertation project or are still working on it. 

Program

During the first year of the doctoral program, students attend courses that concentrate on selected theoretical models and methodologies of emotion studies in the respective disciplines. All seminars are co-taught by professors from at least two disciplines. In addition, candidates take part in a Ph.D. colloquium to discuss their individual dissertation project. 

In their second year students attend an interdisciplinary seminar focusing on one of the major research fields of the research center Languages of Emotion. Candidates focus on research for the individual dissertation. 

The third year is dedicated to research and writing. 

Moreover, during their time in the doctoral program, students will be given the chance to teach at least one regular seminar for undergraduate students in their respective disciplines.