November 18, 2015, 10:10 am, Christoph Müller,
College admission,
Neoliberalism,
New Forms of the Social,
Random selection,
Social engineering,
Sociohistorical analysis,
Topics.
It will be demonstrated on the basis of deregulation of university admission in Germany that neoliberal inspired reforms can show characteristics of an ideology – if “ideology” is understood as the willingness to ignore historical experience, scientific results, expert opinions and common sense based on political and economic fundamental convictions. This even holds true for the universities’ conduct. It will also be questioned if random student admission could be a deliberate part of social engineering of admission procedures even only as a symbolic act of acknowledging limits in the rational administration of educational biographies and in the vindicatory policies of selection procedures.
August 11, 2015, 12:00 pm, Friedrich Trenkle,
19th century historiography,
Evolution,
Foundation of historism,
Jena and the early Romanticism,
Romanticism,
Sociohistorical analysis,
Topics,
Wilhelm von Humboldt as an originator of historism.
The question about the beginning of history as a science, i.e. the transformation of historiography into historical research is close connected to the appearance of historism in the nineteenth century. In particular the attainment and the remarkable feat the German historian Leopold von Ranke achieved is generally recognized as a milestone in the history of science. All in all historism founded in 19th-century Germany as well as Rankes work is scarcely conceivable without the contributions of the writers associated with German Romanticism. The following article is an attempt to show the correlation between them.
Mai 21, 2015, 5:16 pm, Dennis Nitsche,
City of Wörth am Rhein,
New Forms of the Social,
Social space,
Society,
Sociohistorical analysis,
Space,
Topics.
Everyday life in human society is severely influenced by geographic settings, since individual and social ac-tivities as well as interactions unfold in specific places. They define the real space of a “Lebensraum”. The geographic or structural dissection of this space can hamper the evolvement of a civil public spirit – society then appears as dissected as the space. The city of Wörth am Rhein with four geographically completely separated municipal areas serves as an example for geographically complex urban spaces with the respective social, public and administrative challenges. The author provides an in depth analysis of the problem and shows possible approaches to overcome social dissection.
Januar 14, 2015, 8:44 am, Prof. Dr. Kunze Rolf-Ulrich,
20th century railroad history,
Failing innovation,
Featured Articles,
Historical analysis of technology acceptance,
Historical assessment of technology,
History of transport,
Mobility,
PRR T1 duplex class,
Sociohistorical analysis,
Topics.
The essay presents the brief history of the last technological development of the steam age on US railroad tracks: the T1 duplex class of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1942–1951. Referring to the methods of today’s technological assessment, the article is questioning a teleological interpretation of the last US passenger tratin steam locomotive as a failing innovation.
Naturally, there is a difference between men and women. But there is no masculine or feminine technology and no genuinely masculine or feminine approach to technology. What we do have are attributions, that is, ascriptions of different ways in which men and women view and use technology, and judgments that reflect how technical or technological developments are perceived by majorities of men and women, and the extent to which such attributions and judgments influence the lives of members of those groups and play a role in everyday life.
November 4, 2014, 9:26 am, Steffen Krämer,
Contemporary Architecture,
Dubai,
Ionic Building,
New Forms of the Social,
New urbanism,
Sociohistorical analysis,
Topics,
Town Planning.
Similar to the warehouse in the 19th century the so called “consuming city” receives a building boom since the end of the 20th century. But its urban character is only virtual, because there are neither public or municipal buildings nor appartments. No one lives in this city, and every evening it is hermeticly closed until the morning. The design of every house is based on an expressive façade, influenced by historicism, and an indifferent building volume. This specific forming derives from Robert Venturi’s concept of a “decorated shed”, explained in his publication “Learning from Las Vegas” of 1972. The ability of postmodern architecture to communicate with the recipient was the reason to elect this architectural language. Finally the visitor of this city shall primary be encouraged to consume. Therefore the contemporary consuming city is an example of the continuity of postmodern architecture at the millennium, closely combined with the current idea of urban virtuality.
Mai 15, 2014, 11:13 am, Andreas Vasilache,
Borders,
Foreign policy,
Globalization,
International relations,
Political science,
Spatial concepts,
Spatial Cybernetics,
State theory,
Topics.
In order to challenge the widespread identification of political inter-, trans-, and supranationalization with the disappearance of boundaries, the following heuristic reflections will concentrate on a few selected phe-nomena and changes of boundaries under conditions of increasing and intensified cross-border politics. While concentrating on boundaries that are constitutive with regard to state theory, the focus lies on par-ticular modes of appearance of these boundaries in times of intensified inter-, trans-, and supranational relations. In doing so, boundaries will be understood as social and political phenomena, while at the same time taking their epistemic significance into account. It should be considered if we are really dealing with the dissolving of traditional boundaries in cross-border politics or rather with the volatility of boundaries, i.e. with flexible boundary lines, whereas the boundary’s political and epistemic quality and function are not necessarily modified or weakened.
April 2, 2014, 1:47 pm, Alexa Maria Kunz,
Diary research,
Ethnographic fieldwork,
Logbook,
New Forms of the Social,
Qualitative empirical social research,
Self observation,
Sociohistorical analysis,
Topics.
The following article is based on a lecture held at the ESA Conference ‘Innovating Qualitative Research: Challenges and Opportunities’ in Bayreuth on September the 22th 2010. Opening with the relevance of the logbook for social research alongside the example of the ‘My Campus’ project, methodic and methodological insights in the use of logbooks are presented. Operating with paper pencil logbook to observe students’ pat-terns of spatial use, the advantages and disadvantages of the logbook as a research instrument and the dif-ferences towards electronic logbooks are illustrated here. Further it is taken a closer look on aspects regarding the researcher as well as the user of this instrument to close with an outlook on its further development in social research.
April 1, 2014, 2:01 pm, Ulrich Gehmann,
New media,
Recent human conditions,
Sociality,
Space, and the World as Network,
Spaces and the world as a network,
Spaces as networks,
Topics,
Transformations of spaces,
Transformations of the idea of the communal.
Networked spaces are crucial for understanding our recent life worlds. Networked spaces of different kinds not only mold sociality today, but also that what has been called formerly the conditio humana, or human condition. Moving and living inside the terms provided by such spaces not only transforms our basic conceptions of spatiality, but also of the social, the communal, and of the Self. Being networked is not only a metaphor but evolved into a prime mode of existence, and comprehension. In this topic, different perspectives of that phenomenon shall be discussed in this topic.
September 27, 2013, 9:24 am, Steffen Krämer,
Consuming cities,
Decorated shed,
Learning from Las Vegas,
New Forms of the Social,
Postmodernism,
Postmodernism revisited,
Sociohistorical analysis,
Topics,
Urban virtuality.
Similar to the warehouse in the 19th century the so called “consuming city” receives a building boom since the end of the 20th century. But its urban character is only virtual, because there are neither public or municipal buildings nor appartments. No one lives in this city, and every evening it is hermeticly closed until the morning. The design of every house is based on an expressive façade, influenced by historicism, and an indifferent building volume. This specific forming derives from Robert Venturi’s concept of a “decorated shed”, explained in his publication “Learning from Las Vegas” of 1972. The ability of postmodern architecture to communicate with the recipient was the reason to elect this architectural language. Finally the visitor of this city shall primary be encouraged to consume. Therefore the contemporary consuming city is an example of the continuity of postmodern architecture at the millennium, closely combined with the current idea of urban virtuality.