Master's in Dependency and Slavery Studies

The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn or, simply, University of Bonn is an elite public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the Rhein-Universität (English: Rhine University) on 18 October 1818 by Frederick William III, as the linear successor of the Kurkölnische Akademie Bonn (English: Academy of the Prince-elector of Cologne) which was founded in 1777. Since 2019, the University of Bonn is one of only 11 German Universities of Excellence and the only German university with six Clusters of Excellence. With a strong record of disciplinary excellence and a number of Transdisciplinary Research Areas, the University of Bonn supports the achievement of excellence - since 1818.

Dependency and Slavery Studies is an international and interdisciplinary master’s degree program designed for a study period of four semesters. It is taught entirely in English and aimed at students with a focus on or interest in the fields of history, material and/or social sciences. Based on the new research concept of “strong asymmetrical dependency”, this program opens up new approaches to studying and researching slavery and other forms of strong asymmetric dependency from an interdisciplinary perspective. In investigating deeply entrenched relationships of social dependency such as slavery, serfdom or debt bondage in different epochs, geographies and cultures, the focus of this program is not the modern world but its multifaceted historical origins in Asian, American, African and European societies. The overarching objective is to break free of the binary opposition “slavery versus freedom“. To a lesser extent, this degree program also offers insights to present-day phenomena of extreme asymmetrical dependency in order to explore this subject in various contexts of today’s world. Students learn to classify research questions across disciplines and independently solve complex problems while expanding their methodological and analytical competencies. In this context, transcultural comparison is seen as a central aspect in the research of slavery and other forms of dependency.