"Sensing Machines"

In the early morning hours of October 22, 1850, Gustav Fechner, a renowned German medical doctor turned professor of physics who had suffered from a mysterious illness, came to a radical realization that there must be a relationship between spiritual and physical energy, a measurable correspondence between the world external to our sense perception and the internal world of our brain processes. This revelation forms the basis of this talk-how a forgotten 19 th century scientist’s startling revelation would forever change our understanding of the human senses and how they would come to interact with machines that fundamentally alter our relationship between ourselves and our environment.

Chris Salter is Professor for Immersive Arts and Director of the Immersive Arts Space at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). He is also Professor Emeritus, Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montreal and former Co-Director of the Hexagram network for research-creation in arts, cultures and technology and Co-Founder of the Milieux Institute at Concordia. He studied philosophy, economics, theatre and computer music at Emory and Stanford Universities. His artistic work has been seen all over the world at such venues as the Venice Architecture Biennale, Barbican Centre, Berliner Festspiele, Wiener Festwochen, ZKM, Kunstfest Weimar, Musée d’art Contemporain, EXIT Festival and Place des Arts-Montreal, among many others. He is the author of Entangled: Technology and the Transformation of Performance ( 2010), Alien Agency: Experimental Encounters with Art in the Making (2015) and Sensing Machines (2022), all from MIT Press.

About the Lecture Series

This semester we focus on concepts that can critically address the ongoing crises of the digital age (e.g. information, climate, resources, discrimination) and might help to develop new critical practices, an understanding of the present and the future that we are facing. These concepts are Aesthetics & Evidence, Critique and Imagineries, (Data) Governance and Activism, (Interactive/value-sensitive) Design and Decolonialism. Even though all of these concepts deserve a lecture series on their own, we chose to have for each of these topics one lecture in order to create a kaleidoscopic and interdisciplinary perspective on what critical practices and future “Politics of Data and Semi-Autonomy” can look like.

See also:

23|11|22 – Investigative Aesthetics with Matthew Fuller
18|1|23 – Politics of Data – Politics of Semi-Autonomy with Orit Halpern
31|1|23 – Hacking into Aesthetics and Politics of (AI-)Avatarization and algorithmic facialitiy with Alexander Gerner

The workshop will be in German.

Thursday, 8.12.2022 13:30 – 18:00

Friday, 9.12.2022 9:00 – 13:00

Interoperabilität ist ein altes Thema, über das heute viel gesprochen wird. Im Kern geht und ging es dabei um die Kopplung von infrastrukturellen Netzen und Systemen, sowie die gegen-seitige Austauschbarkeit ihrer Bestandteile an und über die jeweiligen Außengrenzen hinaus, d. h. an technischen wie territorialen Schnittstellen. Interoperabilität war und ist dabei nicht einfach gegeben, sondern muss aktiv hervorgebracht und erhalten werden. Dies stellt immer ein komplexes, technisches wie rechtliches Gestaltungsproblem dar, durch das Kooperation zwischen Netzen und ihren Elementen ermöglicht, erweitert, reduziert oder gar eingestellt wird.

Ein frühes Beispiel für die Dynamik von Interoperabilität ist der „Stromkrieg“ des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Einigung auf Wechselstrom, einheitliche Spannung und Netzfrequenzen auf nationaler Ebene ermöglichte die Interoperabilität von elektrischen Geräten in einem Land, während dies international aufgrund unterschiedlicher Steckerformate und abweichender Standards nur mit einem erhöhten Aufwand möglich war.

Seit den späten 1970er-Jahren waren interoperable Infrastrukturen ein erklärtes Ziel (neo-) liberaler Wirtschaftspolitiker*innen. Interoperabilität – so die Hoffnung – sollte die technische und ökonomische Effizienz erhöhen, Handelsbarrieren abbauen und die Märkte für Netzkomponenten und -dienstleistungen vergrößern. Das Paradigma, dass Infrastrukturen wie Bahn und Telefon an territorialen oder systemischen Außengrenzen gezielt Inkompatibilitäten (Kooperationsbarrieren) aufwiesen, um nationale Produzenten und Anbieter vor Konkurrenz zu schützen, sollte überwunden werden.

Im Telekommunikationssektor sollten durch Standards wie ISDN oder OSI nicht länger nur internationale Telefonate möglich werden, sondern auch Endgeräte, Vermittlungstechnik und Dienstleistungen grenzüberschreitend eingesetzt werden können. Im Verkehrssektor war es der Container, der per Schiff, Bahn und Lkw und damit über Landesgrenzen und Verkehrssysteme hinweg, neue Kooperationspotentiale eröffnet hat.

Im 21. Jahrhundert ist die Interoperabilität von Hard- und Software ein zentraler Bestandteil digitaler Medienwelten und -technologien: Ein Smartphone kann auch auf Reisen in fernen Ländern eingesetzt werden, ein Textdokument kann auf einem Computer erstellt und auf einem anderen bearbeitet werden und mit einer Kreditkarte kann man (fast) weltweit bezahlen.

Dennoch ist Interoperabilität bis heute keine Selbstverständlichkeit. Noch immer schützen Staaten ihre Netze und Systeme durch technische Inkompatibilitäten und versuchen damit, Konkurrenz, Wettbewerb und unerwünschte Teilnehmer sowie Informationen unter Kontrolle zu behalten. Dies gilt ebenso für Technologieunternehmen, die nach wie vor eigene Standards – etwa für digital vernetzte Softwareanwendungen – durchsetzen und durch technische Inkompatibilitäten Monopolbildungen vorantreiben, um sich Vorteile auf Märkten zu verschaffen.

Interoperabilität auf der Mikroebene technischer Systemkomponenten wie übergreifender Systemcharakteristika sind folglich Systemeigenschaften, die vor dem Hintergrund immer neuerer Technologien, stetig neu verhandelt werden mussten und müssen, wie sich etwa an den Revisionen der Interoperabilitätsrichtlinie der EU für die europäischen Eisenbahnen gezeigt hat.

Der Workshop verfolgt mehrere Ziele:

(1) Er soll Begriffsarbeit am Konzept der Interoperabilität leisten. Was meinen wir konkret, wenn wir von Interoperabilität sprechen? Wie grenzt sich der Begriff von anderen Konzepten, wie etwa der Kompatibilität, Interkonnektivität, Integration oder Standardisierung ab? Wie hat sich die Wahrnehmung von Interoperabilität gewandelt? Ist Interoperabilität eher ein technisches, wirtschaftliches oder rechtliches Konzept? Lassen sich verschiedene Interoperabilitäten unterscheiden?

(2) Er soll nach den (historischen) Entstehungskontexten und den Bedingungen von Interoperabilität in digitalen ebenso wie analogen Mediensystemen fragen. Was macht die Attraktivität des Konzeptes aus? Inwiefern spiegelt Interoperabilität einen ‚Zeitgeist’ in der Gestaltung infrastruktureller Systeme wider? Finden sich gesellschaftliche und wirtschaftliche Kooperationsvorstellungen in der Interoperabilität wieder? Welche Ziele, Zukünfte und Visionen von Kooperation verbanden die Akteure mit Interoperabilität? Welche Kooperationsbedingungen begünstigen und behindern Interoperabilität? Welche Bedeutung haben ‚Reifegrade’ von Technologien? Wann waren Bemühungen um Interoperabilität erfolgreich und wann nicht?

(3) Interoperabilität ist keine Einbahnstraße: Genau wie sie entsteht, kann sie auch wieder vergehen. Was sind Gründe für das den Abbau oder das Fehlen von Interoperabilität? Welche Rollen spielen hierbei politische Brüche, technologische Disruptionen oder ökonomische Interessen?

(4) Die für Medieninfrastrukturen aufgeworfenen Fragen sollen vergleichend für nichtmediale Infrastrukturen, beispielsweise Verkehrs- und Energienetze diskutiert werden, sowie die vielfältigen Interdependenzen mit diesen besonders betrachten. Gibt es Unterschiede zwischen medialen und nichtmedialen Infrastrukturen? Wurden Vorstellungen von Interoperabilität von medialen auf nichtmediale Infrastrukturen übertragen und umgekehrt?

Organisation: Matthias Röhr, Christian Henrich-Franke, Sebastian Gießmann, Thomas Haigh

Thursday, 08.12.2022, 9-16 o'clock
Friday, 09.12.2022, 9-14 o'clock

Coach: Dr.in Mareike Menne

This workshop enables an intensive examination of all topics that are relevant for a strategic positioning as a female leader in the university context. You will first develop principles of academic and female leadership from your work experience, which will then serve as a basis for practice transfers, for which you are invited to bring your own cases and questions. Following levels of leadership will be addressed: people leadership (e.g. goal and success definitions, team building, conflicts, motivation, individual biases), organizational leadership (e.g. design of interfaces between administration and work area, internal/external interlacing, formal basics of leadership action, structural biases), and self-leadership (e.g. personal leadership style, ethics and values, resilience, role clarity and personal growth). Within the workshop, you will get the chance to alternate between impulses and exchange, between plenary and group work. 

This workshop addresses female researchers in postdoc positions, junior professorships and leaders of junior research groups.

The workshop will take place in Siegen and is held in English.

We kindly ask for registration by Wednesday, 23 November here.

Cultural Studies – In and Outside Afghanistan

Samim Farahmand was head of the theatre department at Kabul University before the Taliban seized power and he had to leave the country. The Faculty of Fine Arts had to close and Afghanistan’s entire cultural sector came to a standstill. Many cultural workers had to flee abroad. Samim Farahmand, who now lives in Germany, reports on the collapse of the Afghan cultural scene and life as a scholar in the diaspora.

About the lecture series

In view of the current political situation, especially the war in Ukraine and the protest movement in Iran, the lecture series “Research at Risk!” is an invitation to discuss the challenges of research in media, theater and cultural studies in crises and war regions beyond national and cultural boundaries. We have invited experts from various disciplinary and geo-political situations/positions to present their research on topics related to the wars and crises in our world and how this affects their research.

The lectures focus on research practices in war and crises as well as on scientific/activist work on war and crises. Specifically, our speakers address the questions of how research, education and study can be carried out under hostile conditions and what influence war, political oppression, diaspora and other crisis-related impacts have on the production of knowledge. Which forms of knowledge and cultures receive credit in the academic world, and which are excluded? Where do scientists and students place the significance of the media when faced with these circumstances?

The event is a continuation of an initiative from within German Media Studies to support scholars at risk affected by the ongoing Russian invasion on Ukraine. We want to use the attention currently being raised by the war in Ukraine to give stage to researchers from various zones of war and risk across Europe and worldwide, including Iran, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Turkey, Kamerun, and Afghanistan.

The lecture series "Research at Risk" is a cooperation project of German media scholars and supported by: the CRC 1187 “Media of Cooperation”, the CRC 1472 “Transformationen des Populären“ and the Media Studies department at the University of Siegen, the Graduiertenkolleg 2132 “Das Dokumentarische” and the Faculty for Philology at Ruhr University Bochum, and the European Media Studies at the University Flensburg.

Guests are welcome to register via Mail ‘Send an E-mail’

Anmeldung per Email

Der Zoom-Link wird einige Tage vor der Online-Konferenz versendet.

Die Tagung wird organisiert vom Fachausschuss Alter & Technik der DGGG in Kooperation mit dem SFB 1187 „Medien der Kooperation“, Teilprojekt A05

Der gesellschaftlich-institutionelle und kulturelle Kontext übt erheblichen Einfluss auf die Entwicklung und den konkreten Einsatz digitaler Technologien zur Unterstützung sorgender Gemeinschaften aus, so lautet der Ausgangspunkt dieser Tagung. Die Nutzung der Potenziale assistiver Technologien für ein gemeinschaftsorientiertes, unterstützendes Zusammenleben von Menschen mit und ohne Pflegebedarf sind aus dieser Perspektive einerseits geprägt durch strukturelle Kontexte, wie zur Verfügung stehende finanzielle, soziale, institutionelle und infrastrukturelle Ressourcen. So wird innovativen Systemen und Technologien im Pflegebereich in Japan größte Bedeutung zugewiesen angesichts der begrenzten Verfügbarkeit von Arbeitskräften im Pflegesektor und kleiner werdenden innerfamilialen Unterstützungssystemen (Hasegawa 2022). Andererseits haben auch kulturelle Kontexte wie gesellschaftliche Werte, Normen und Überzeugungen einen wesentlichen Einfluss darauf, welche Bedeutung digitalen Technologien im Lebensalltag älterer Menschen zukommt. Ein elektronisches Personentracking bei demenziell erkrankten Menschen mit Bewegungsdrang wird in Deutschland stark kontrovers diskutiert, da der Schutz der Privatsphäre hohe Priorität genießt, die derartige Tracking Systeme aber untergraben können.

Die jeweiligen gesellschaftlich-institutionellen Kontexte müssen bei der Entwicklung und dem Einsatz assistiver digitaler Technologien für Sorgegemeinschaften immer mitbedacht werden, lautet daher unsere Prämisse. Ziel unserer Tagung ist entsprechend die Analyse der Wechselbeziehungen zwischen staatlich-institutionellen Rahmungen und Technikentwicklung und -einsatz für ältere Menschen durch eine vergleichende Perspektive. Vor diesem Hintergrund soll die Übertragbarkeit Erfolg versprechender Lösungsansätze auf andere Systeme geprüft werden. Kurz: Was können wir durch den Vergleich differierender Gesellschaftsmodelle mit Blick auf Technikentwicklung und -einsatz für Ältere lernen?

About the lecture series

In view of the current political situation, especially the war in Ukraine and the protest movement in Iran, the lecture series “Research at Risk!” is an invitation to discuss the challenges of research in media, theater and cultural studies in crises and war regions beyond national and cultural boundaries. We have invited experts from various disciplinary and geo-political situations/positions to present their research on topics related to the wars and crises in our world and how this affects their research.

The lectures focus on research practices in war and crises as well as on scientific/activist work on war and crises. Specifically, our speakers address the questions of how research, education and study can be carried out under hostile conditions and what influence war, political oppression, diaspora and other crisis-related impacts have on the production of knowledge. Which forms of knowledge and cultures receive credit in the academic world, and which are excluded? Where do scientists and students place the significance of the media when faced with these circumstances?

The event is a continuation of an initiative from within German Media Studies to support scholars at risk affected by the ongoing Russian invasion on Ukraine. We want to use the attention currently being raised by the war in Ukraine to give stage to researchers from various zones of war and risk across Europe and worldwide, including Iran, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Turkey, Kamerun, and Afghanistan.

The lecture series "Research at Risk" is a cooperation project of German media scholars and supported by: the CRC 1187 “Media of Cooperation”, the CRC 1472 “Transformationen des Populären“ and the Media Studies department at the University of Siegen, the Graduiertenkolleg 2132 “Das Dokumentarische” and the Faculty for Philology at Ruhr University Bochum, and the European Media Studies at the University Flensburg.

Guests are welcome to register via Mail ‘Send an E-mail’

Research Tech Lab "Vision API Session" on Memespector-GUI, Google Vision API and Clarifai

Memespector-GUI is a tool to enrich image datasets using computer vision APIs. This session will guide the participants to obtain access tokens from proprietary APIs, use Memespector-GUI to invoke the APIs and interpret the outputs of the APIs.

Participants may use Memespector-GUI on a computer running Windows, Mac OS or Linux (with Ubuntu 16.04/18.04/20.04 with desktop environment installed). A test dataset will be made available during the session. The participants may also use their own image dataset.

The session will be delivered online.

Academic freedom at the nexus of internationalization: Enforced or intended?

Internationalization is not only a dominant policy discourse in higher education today, but also a complex assemblage of values. These values are linked to economic growth and prosperity, global citizenship, transnational identity capital, social cohesion, intercultural competencies and soft power. The main focus in this talk is the impact of uneven opportunity structures on displaced academics. In existing literature, though limited, the category of a displaced academic corresponds to the condition of exile and resettlement, due to war, conflict, natural disaster or political instability (McLaughlin et al 2020; Salehyan 2019). Thus, internationalization is a policy intervention by governments, but how these interventions are interpreted and practiced by HEIs is also an important signifier worth a debate. This talk, further, aims to discuss the nexus of forced/intended internationalization and mobility schemes within the framework of comparative national cases in Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the UK. These cases provide insight for challenges regarding neoliberal measures, academic freedoms, life-work issues including the precarity of displaced academics in current European higher education landscape. Mapping these issues and challenges with their intersectional threads may, further, develop perspectives for breaking through the neoliberal surge in European academia.

About the lecture series

In view of the current political situation, especially the war in Ukraine and the protest movement in Iran, the lecture series “Research at Risk!” is an invitation to discuss the challenges of research in media, theater and cultural studies in crises and war regions beyond national and cultural boundaries. We have invited experts from various disciplinary and geo-political situations/positions to present their research on topics related to the wars and crises in our world and how this affects their research.

The lectures focus on research practices in war and crises as well as on scientific/activist work on war and crises. Specifically, our speakers address the questions of how research, education and study can be carried out under hostile conditions and what influence war, political oppression, diaspora and other crisis-related impacts have on the production of knowledge. Which forms of knowledge and cultures receive credit in the academic world, and which are excluded? Where do scientists and students place the significance of the media when faced with these circumstances?

The event is a continuation of an initiative from within German Media Studies to support scholars at risk affected by the ongoing Russian invasion on Ukraine. We want to use the attention currently being raised by the war in Ukraine to give stage to researchers from various zones of war and risk across Europe and worldwide, including Iran, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Turkey, Kamerun, and Afghanistan.

The lecture series "Research at Risk" is a cooperation project of German media scholars and supported by: the CRC 1187 “Media of Cooperation”, the CRC 1472 “Transformationen des Populären“ and the Media Studies department at the University of Siegen, the Graduiertenkolleg 2132 “Das Dokumentarische” and the Faculty for Philology at Ruhr University Bochum, and the European Media Studies at the University Flensburg.

Guests are welcome to register via Mail ‘Send an E-mail’

Lead by Constantina Rokos, M.A., Social Anthropologist

Research and associated research fields involve numerous diversity-facets that pose challenges. Thus, science and knowledge creation are based on the assumption that researchers move appropriately and reflectively within the research fields. Researchers must be consequently trained to reflect on their position and power relations in their field to conduct research appropriately.

Constantina Rokos, M.A. is a research fellow and decentralized equal opportunity officer at the Münster School of Business (FH Münster). She specializes in intercultural competences and DEI from an educational and research perspective. A self-reflexive and ethnological approach characterizes her work.

This workshop serves as a first approach to self-reflective and diversity-sensitive discussions to recognize one's practice and the diversity of one's field and to develop appropriate research behaviors.

The Workshop is held in English and will take place online on two days

Monday, 16 Jan 9.30 – 13.00
Monday, 23 Jan 9.30 – 13.00

Intended group: all members (m, f, d) of the SFB 1187 

We kindly ask for registration by 02 January 2023 here.

More details will follow

About the Lecture Series

This semester we focus on concepts that can critically address the ongoing crises of the digital age (e.g. information, climate, resources, discrimination) and might help to develop new critical practices, an understanding of the present and the future that we are facing. These concepts are Aesthetics & Evidence, Critique and Imagineries, (Data) Governance and Activism, (Interactive/value-sensitive) Design and Decolonialism. Even though all of these concepts deserve a lecture series on their own, we chose to have for each of these topics one lecture in order to create a kaleidoscopic and interdisciplinary perspective on what critical practices and future “Politics of Data and Semi-Autonomy” can look like.

The lecture series takes place as a hybrid event Wednesday from 2 to 4 pm c.t.. External guests can join online by registering here.

See also:

23|11|22 – Investigative Aesthetics with Matthew Fuller
7|12|22 – Sensing Machines with Chris Salter
31|1|23 – Hacking into Aesthetics and Politics of (AI-)Avatarization and algorithmic facialitiy with Alexander Gerner

Media Space as a Means of Forming Social Memory of the War: Case of Ukraine-2022

This Lecture will focus on three central points:

1. Theoretical foundations for social memory analysis. Social memory as a construct outside of time. Attributes of social memory in the theories of Halbwachs, Warburg, Assman, Tosh, Nora.
2. Media as a way of filling social memory “boxes” . A brief overview of the possibilities. Military media in Ukraine: distribution and characteristics of audiences. Redistribution of consumption. New media space: quantity and quality.
3. Media content in Ukrainian realities: substantive accents. Constructing the future: what is embedded in the social memory of the media about the war, which is not yet over…

About the lecture series

In view of the current political situation, especially the war in Ukraine and the protest movement in Iran, the lecture series “Research at Risk!” is an invitation to discuss the challenges of research in media, theater and cultural studies in crises and war regions beyond national and cultural boundaries. We have invited experts from various disciplinary and geo-political situations/positions to present their research on topics related to the wars and crises in our world and how this affects their research.

The lectures focus on research practices in war and crises as well as on scientific/activist work on war and crises. Specifically, our speakers address the questions of how research, education and study can be carried out under hostile conditions and what influence war, political oppression, diaspora and other crisis-related impacts have on the production of knowledge. Which forms of knowledge and cultures receive credit in the academic world, and which are excluded? Where do scientists and students place the significance of the media when faced with these circumstances?

The event is a continuation of an initiative from within German Media Studies to support scholars at risk affected by the ongoing Russian invasion on Ukraine. We want to use the attention currently being raised by the war in Ukraine to give stage to researchers from various zones of war and risk across Europe and worldwide, including Iran, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Turkey, Kamerun, and Afghanistan.

The lecture series "Research at Risk" is a cooperation project of German media scholars and supported by: the CRC 1187 “Media of Cooperation”, the CRC 1472 “Transformationen des Populären“ and the Media Studies department at the University of Siegen, the Graduiertenkolleg 2132 “Das Dokumentarische” and the Faculty for Philology at Ruhr University Bochum, and the European Media Studies at the University Flensburg.

Guests are welcome to register via Mail ‘Send an E-mail’

Continuation of Part I (16.1.)

Lead by Constantina Rokos, M.A., Social Anthropologist

Research and associated research fields involve numerous diversity-facets that pose challenges. Thus, science and knowledge creation are based on the assumption that researchers move appropriately and reflectively within the research fields. Researchers must be consequently trained to reflect on their position and power relations in their field to conduct research appropriately.

Constantina Rokos, M.A. is a research fellow and decentralized equal opportunity officer at the Münster School of Business (FH Münster). She specializes in intercultural competences and DEI from an educational and research perspective. A self-reflexive and ethnological approach characterizes her work.

This workshop serves as a first approach to self-reflective and diversity-sensitive discussions to recognize one's practice and the diversity of one's field and to develop appropriate research behaviors.

The Workshop is held in English and will take place online on two days

Monday, 16 Jan 9.30 – 13.00
Monday, 23 Jan 9.30 – 13.00

Intended group: all members (m, f, d) of the SFB 1187 

We kindly ask for registration by 02 January 2023 here.

The talk unfolds mundane events in the light of the members' methodical responses to pressing tasks. It discusses the practical as well as analytical status of climate change as an omnipresent existential problem, questioning the reproduction of society. This is why the events implicate the sociologists in various membership categories: as bystander, participant, and contemporary.

Thomas Scheffer is professor for sociology with an emphasis on interpretative social research. He worked and published on asylum, law policing, political work, and, recently, on sociology and climate change. His research methods cover CA, MCA, studies of work, ethnography, and discourse analysis. He developed the trans-sequential analysis for linking events and processes of meaning production.

See also:

15|11|22 The normative order of sensing – Lecture with Lorenza Mondada
1|2|23 Dances with Categories: Technodiversity and the Anthropology of Technics and Technology – Lecture with Ludovic Coupaye in Cologne

The talk unfolds mundane events in the light of the members' methodical responses to pressing tasks. It discusses the practical as well as analytical status of climate change as an omnipresent existential problem, questioning the reproduction of society. This is why the events implicate the sociologists in various membership categories: as bystander, participant, and contemporary.

Thomas Scheffer is professor for sociology with an emphasis on interpretative social research. He worked and published on asylum, law policing, political work, and, recently, on sociology and climate change. His research methods cover CA, MCA, studies of work, ethnography, and discourse analysis. He developed the trans-sequential analysis for linking events and processes of meaning production.

*As the workshop is an internal event, external guests please contact Dr. Johannes Schick by email for registration, indicating their academic title, full name, their institution, their official email address and the title of the event they wish to attend.

The Deal of the Century: Towards the Genealogy of Fossil Fascism.

In 1970, a contract was signed between the USSR and the Federal Republic of Germany, envisioning the deliveries of Siberian natural gas in exchange for German technology. This ‘Deal of the century’, as dubbed by the Soviet media, is known in the West under a humbler name ‘gas in exchange for pipes’. The presentation looks at the afterlife of this deal between Russia and Germany and discusses the impact on the Russian Invasion of Ukraine as well as ideological implications of extractivism and trade with Russian fossil fuels and how this affects Russian (and German) politics. Taking 1970 as a point of departure, it’s worth asking: What if the Pipe is the new Wall, an infrastructure of oppression that’s fluid rather than rigid, dissecting and transversing the continent with invisible energy flows that help authoritarian economic models dominate over democratic politics?

About the lecture series

In view of the current political situation, especially the war in Ukraine and the protest movement in Iran, the lecture series “Research at Risk!” is an invitation to discuss the challenges of research in media, theater and cultural studies in crises and war regions beyond national and cultural boundaries. We have invited experts from various disciplinary and geo-political situations/positions to present their research on topics related to the wars and crises in our world and how this affects their research.

The lectures focus on research practices in war and crises as well as on scientific/activist work on war and crises. Specifically, our speakers address the questions of how research, education and study can be carried out under hostile conditions and what influence war, political oppression, diaspora and other crisis-related impacts have on the production of knowledge. Which forms of knowledge and cultures receive credit in the academic world, and which are excluded? Where do scientists and students place the significance of the media when faced with these circumstances?

The event is a continuation of an initiative from within German Media Studies to support scholars at risk affected by the ongoing Russian invasion on Ukraine. We want to use the attention currently being raised by the war in Ukraine to give stage to researchers from various zones of war and risk across Europe and worldwide, including Iran, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Turkey, Kamerun, and Afghanistan.

The lecture series "Research at Risk" is a cooperation project of German media scholars and supported by: the CRC 1187 “Media of Cooperation”, the CRC 1472 “Transformationen des Populären“ and the Media Studies department at the University of Siegen, the Graduiertenkolleg 2132 “Das Dokumentarische” and the Faculty for Philology at Ruhr University Bochum, and the European Media Studies at the University Flensburg.

Guests are welcome to register via Mail ‘Send an E-mail’

More details will follow

About the Lecture Series

This semester we focus on concepts that can critically address the ongoing crises of the digital age (e.g. information, climate, resources, discrimination) and might help to develop new critical practices, an understanding of the present and the future that we are facing. These concepts are Aesthetics & Evidence, Critique and Imagineries, (Data) Governance and Activism, (Interactive/value-sensitive) Design and Decolonialism. Even though all of these concepts deserve a lecture series on their own, we chose to have for each of these topics one lecture in order to create a kaleidoscopic and interdisciplinary perspective on what critical practices and future “Politics of Data and Semi-Autonomy” can look like.

The lecture series takes place as a hybrid event Wednesday from 2 to 4 pm c.t.. External guests can join online by registering here.

See also:

23|11|22 – Investigative Aesthetics with Matthew Fuller
7|12|22 – Sensing Machines with Chris Salter
18|1|23 – Politics of Data – Politics of Semi-Autonomy with Orit Halpern

The workshop is a pre-discussion of the lecture on the same topic exploring how “Technology” is a category vernacular (emic) to modernity which, when used, inscribes the phenomena it refers to within an utilitarian, rationalist and Eurocentric frame. Building on the works of the Francophone Technologie Culturelle, the paper suggests going back to Marcel Mauss’s definition of “technical acts”, focalising on the issue of “efficacy”. The paper claims that it is by taking seriously the efficacy according to the actors themselves, whether computer engineers, long yam growers or shamans, that one can built a methodological frame able to empirically analyse technical (or ritual or aesthetic) phenomena, and their profound axiological import, without sacrificing their material or conceptual diversity, or their spatial or temporal complexity. It opens up with a call for an anthropology of technicity and technodiversity which analyse the different modalities of actions and relations between humans and their milieus.

*As the workshop is an internal event, external guests please contact Dr. Johannes Schick by email for registration, indicating their academic title, full name, their institution, their official email address and the title of the event they wish to attend.

This lecture explores how “Technology” is a category vernacular (emic) to modernity which, when used, inscribes the phenomena it refers to within an utilitarian, rationalist and Eurocentric frame. Building on the works of the Francophone Technologie Culturelle, the paper suggests going back to Marcel Mauss’s definition of “technical acts”, focalising on the issue of “efficacy”. The paper claims that it is by taking seriously the efficacy according to the actors themselves, whether computer engineers, long yam growers or shamans, that one can built a methodological frame able to empirically analyse technical (or ritual or aesthetic) phenomena, and their profound axiological import, without sacrificing their material or conceptual diversity, or their spatial or temporal complexity. It opens up with a call for an anthropology of technicity and technodiversity which analyse the different modalities of actions and relations between humans and their milieus.

See also:

15|11|22 The normative order of sensing – Lecture with Lorenza Mondada
24|1|23 ‚One last round!‘ Towards a Critical Ethnomethodology of Climate Change – Lecture with Thomas Scheffer

Translanguaging, a strategic tool for teaching and learning in the German classrooms: The case of multilingual Cameroonian immigrants.

Translanguaging is a pedagogical program where two or more languages are simultaneously used in the classroom. One language is used to teach and instruct the students, but the student’s output is sometimes allowed to be in their L1/Mother tongue. This practice gives the students” a time to shine”. Students can be encouraged to communicate and make meaning by drawing on and intermingling linguistic features from the different languages in their repertoire.Translanguaging helps students and teachers fully understand the communicative repertoires they bring to the learning arena. It also helps the teacher identify how to draw on those repertoires for successful educational practices for the students concerned. This thesis, therefore, recommends translanguaging in the educational process of immigrants. “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart”- Nelson Mandela.

About the lecture series

In view of the current political situation, especially the war in Ukraine and the protest movement in Iran, the lecture series “Research at Risk!” is an invitation to discuss the challenges of research in media, theater and cultural studies in crises and war regions beyond national and cultural boundaries. We have invited experts from various disciplinary and geo-political situations/positions to present their research on topics related to the wars and crises in our world and how this affects their research.

The lectures focus on research practices in war and crises as well as on scientific/activist work on war and crises. Specifically, our speakers address the questions of how research, education and study can be carried out under hostile conditions and what influence war, political oppression, diaspora and other crisis-related impacts have on the production of knowledge. Which forms of knowledge and cultures receive credit in the academic world, and which are excluded? Where do scientists and students place the significance of the media when faced with these circumstances?

The event is a continuation of an initiative from within German Media Studies to support scholars at risk affected by the ongoing Russian invasion on Ukraine. We want to use the attention currently being raised by the war in Ukraine to give stage to researchers from various zones of war and risk across Europe and worldwide, including Iran, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Turkey, Kamerun, and Afghanistan.

The lecture series "Research at Risk" is a cooperation project of German media scholars and supported by: the CRC 1187 “Media of Cooperation”, the CRC 1472 “Transformationen des Populären“ and the Media Studies department at the University of Siegen, the Graduiertenkolleg 2132 “Das Dokumentarische” and the Faculty for Philology at Ruhr University Bochum, and the European Media Studies at the University Flensburg.

Guests are welcome to register via Mail ‘Send an E-mail’

The writing workshop addresses the practice of academic writing. We will deal with writing strategies, writer's block, argumentation structures and rhetoric of different scientific formats (journal articles, anthology contributions, reviews, monographs), and rules of good scientific practice, such as recognizing and avoiding scientific plagiarism. Additionally, the workshop will provide basic skills in time and project management which will help you in organizing your writing process.

Organized by the House of Young Talents exclusively for MGK members

Intended group: all docs & postdocs of the SFB 1187

The Workshop will take place online and is held in English.

We kindly ask for registration by 20 January 2023 here.

The workshop will address German and international publication strategies of different disciplines within the Humanities and Social Science discuss the review of ‘in progress’ texts by peers. We will focus specifically on the various publication options for the second qualification thesis (e.g. habilitation). In addition, the workshop will deal with alternative publication formats such as blogs and the challenges of interdisciplinary publications which are common in the context of collaborative research centers. Accordingly, the workshop addresses the following topics:

• Publishing in a team (e.g. with PI and possibly other colleagues of the subproject) or in single authorship
• planning a strategy (implementation) individually or in a team (e.g. subproject)
• Publication strategy and career planning: how to occupy research area(s)
• German and/or English?
• Monograph(s) and contributions to/editing of edited volumes
• Journals (incl. thematic issues/guest editorships) and peer review as quality measures and visibility instruments
• Visibility metrics (citation frequency, impact factors, rankings, indexing, other reputation criteria)
• Open Access (at the University of Siegen) and Predatory Journals
• Working papers as a form of pre-publication
• Reverse engineering to improve opportunities for prestigious journals for maximum visibility

Following the workshop, individual consultations on publication strategies can be arranged.

Organized by the House of Young Talents exclusively for SFB 1187 members

The Workshop will take place online and is held in English.

Intended group: all postdocs of the SFB 1187 

We kindly ask for registration by 23 January 2023 here.