Goethe-Universität — Justitia Center for Advanced Studies

Call for applications Post-doctoral Fellowships Political Theory / Political Philosophy Goethe 2026/27

Goethe University Frankfurt – “Justitia Center for Advanced Studies"

Duration and starting date: 10 months, starting on October 1, 2026.

The Research Network Justitia Center for Advanced Studies, funded by the Alfons and Gertrud Kassel-Stiftung and the Professorship of Political Theory and Philosophy, directed by Rainer Forst at Goethe University Frankfurt, seeks to appoint up to two post-doctoral fellows in political theory/political philosophy for the academic year 2026/2027.

The fellows will be hosted by Goethe University Frankfurt at its Institute for Advanced Studies (Bad Homburg) (near Frankfurt) and will be part of the Frankfurt academic community, especially the Normative Orders Research Center.

Candidates should have completed a doctorate in political theory/political philosophy and should have demonstrated potential to conduct and publish research at an international level. Candidates' research should fall within the Center's areas of focus, especially questions concerning the current crisis of democracy.

Please send your application in English in one single PDF document (a 2–3 page research project proposal, CV, and no more than two reference letters) to Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst via: sekretariat.forst@soz.uni-frankfurt.de. Reference letters may also be sent directly by the referees.

Closing date: March 15, 2026.

Announcing our Fellows

Two scholars will join us

The »Justitia Center for Advanced Studies« is happy to announce its new post-doctoral fellows for the academic year 2025/26. They are excellent theorists, and we are delighted to welcome them. Justitia is a forum for political theorists and philosophers. It is generously funded by the Alfons and Gertrud Kassel-Stiftung and directed by Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst at the Goethe University of Frankfurt. From October 2025 to July 2026, the fellows, who reside at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften in Bad Homburg, will be part of the Frankfurt academic community, especially of the Normative Orders Research Centre, and work on their individual research projects. The Center also regularly holds research workshops, conferences, and seminars.

Azizjon Bagadirov is a political philosopher with a strong interest in sociology, critical theory, and ancient ethics. He is currently researching structural inequality, the mechanisms of its social reproduction, and their consequences for human flourishing. Previously, he was a Hannah Arendt Doctoral Fellow in Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, where he earned his PhD in 2024, and a Chevening Scholar at the University of Southampton.

Henry Krahn is a philosopher whose work lies at the intersection of moral and political philosophy. Before his fellowship at the Justitia Center at Goethe University Frankfurt, he was a Hauser Post-Doctoral Global Fellow at the New York University School of Law and at the Center for Law and Philosophy at the School of Law. In May 2024, he received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. His dissertation is titled “Protest as Holding Others Accountable."