Februar 26, 2018, 2:58 pm, Christoph Müller,
Creative Destruction,
Dematerialisation,
Economisation of Higher Education,
Economisation of Science,
Innovation,
New Forms of the Social,
Topics,
Transcultural analysis.
Looking back to the years from 1995 to 2010, different aspects of the so called economisation of higher education are recalled: competition, economic education management and deregulation of admission to higher edu-cation. Of special interest are some limitations in the economic approach as such: the tendency toward quantification and dichotomisation, toward instrumental rationality and toward a methodical oblivion of nature. As for the economisation of science, it is diagnosed a fundamental and accelerated pressure concerning technological innovations, according to theories of economic growth with endogenous technological change, and resulting from the dematerialisation of numerous products including scientific knowledge itself. The elites of science seem to be a new ruling class to which today´s ecological challenges are something like a legitimational windfall in the business of knowledge economy which, apart from this, has become totally self-referential.
In descriptions of Tel Aviv often occur reflections about the ideal “first Hebrew city”. A gap between real Tel Aviv and its visionary model is a commonplace. Nevertheless, links between them are plentiful, although they are discussed either with irony or with pathos. The paper gives a cursory review of some of such links.
Februar 25, 2016, 1:04 pm, Renate Dürr,
Grammar,
Misunderstanding,
New Forms of the Social,
Philosophy,
State of mind,
Topics,
Understanding.
Some remarks on Wittgenstein’s „Philosophical Investigations“, paragraph 153: „We are trying to get hold of the mental process of understanding which seems to be hidden behind those coarser and therefore more readily visible accompa-niments. But we do not succeed.“
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.
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.
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 26, 2014, 1:34 pm, Shavit Ze'ev,
Desert,
Identity-work,
Leisure,
New Forms of the Social,
Place-making,
Spatial concepts,
Tourism.
The paper focuses on images of the Negev desert in Israel among the Jewish population of Israel, presented in marketing websites of tourism and leisure resorts. The analysis of the data, focused on verbal and visual images of desert, shows a significant change in the symbolic construction of the desert compared to the first decades of Israeli statehood: from a desert conceived in light of national ideology and its imperatives, to one who’s images highlight consumerism and individual preferences, fantasies and desires. This change in the symbolic construction of the desert is treated as a part of some major changes in Jewish-Israeli collective identity thus pointing towards the link between two social processes: place-making and identity-work.
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.
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.
Februar 17, 2014, 4:02 pm, Prof. Dr. Kunze Rolf-Ulrich,
Close-reading of music and lyrics as a source of historical interpretation,
Cultural history,
New Forms of the Social,
Randy Newman,
Singer-songwriter,
Social construction,
Sociohistorical analysis,
US history.
The essay is close-reading selected songs by the singer-songwriter and film musician Randy Newman as social constructions of the American dream and the American reality since the 1930s.