Luise Dorothea Scholarship for Court Culture Research from the Fritz Wiedemann Foundation

The namesake of the scholarship, Duchess Luise Dorothea of Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg (1710–1767), was regarded by her contemporaries as one of the most educated princesses of her time. She was particularly committed to promoting the French Enlightenment and maintained an extensive network of correspondence, including with Rousseau and Voltaire and the Saxon Count Ernst Christoph von Manteuffel, the "patron of the Enlightenment" and supporter of Christian Wolff. It is therefore exemplary of modern research into early modern court culture with the explicit inclusion of cultural studies and gender history research approaches.

The Gotha location, with the universally orientated collections of the Friedenstein Foundation Gotha, the Gotha Research Library and the holdings of the Thuringian State Archives - Gotha State Archives, is one of the outstanding collection and research locations for the cultural history of the early modern period and the modern era. During their stay on site, scholarship holders are linked to the Gotha Research Centre. In recent years, the research centre has provided various impulses for research into Gotha's court culture, including the conferences on the "Palace as Lecture Hall" in 2017 and on the 300th birthday of the Franco-German cultural mediator Friedrich Melchior Grimm in September 2023 and two summer schools on "Africans at European Courts in the Early Modern Period" (2022) and "Gotha's Africa. Courtly perceptions of the continent in the early modern period' (2025). The Luise Dorothea Scholarship from the Fritz Wiedemann Foundation and accompanying project applications will be used to continue and intensify these projects in the coming years.

The scholarship, which is funded by the Dr Fritz Wiedemann-Stiftung at the “Stifterverband”, amounts to 2,000 euros per month. This may be supplemented by a family allowance of 400 euros per month and a one-off travel allowance of 500 euros. The research centre will assist in arranging childcare. Residence is compulsory for the entire scholarship period (3–4 months, from 1 October 2025).

Further information can be found on the scholarship website.