Mittwoch, 19. Oktober 2016, 17:15 - 19:00 iCal

Lecture by Prof. Mitchell G. Ash

Scientific Changes in Times of Political Upheaval: Thoughts on Re-Starting a Long-Term Research Project

Besprechungszimmer UZA-2H360
Althanstraße 14 (Eingang Josef-Holaubek-Platz), 1090 Wien

Vortrag


During the academic year 1990-1991, while I was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg/Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin I witnessed the eventful first year of German unification, and was at times also an eyewitness to the impact of these events for the reconstruction of the higher education and science landscape in Berlin, the new German states in the former German Democratic Republic as well as the new Federal Republic as a whole. As early as 1991 I began to conceptualize a comparative historical study of the renegotiation of the relations of science and politics in times of radical political change. At that time the project was to focus only on the four breaks in German history during the 20th century, symbolized by the dates 1918, 1933, 1945 and 1990. In subsequent years I published articles and book chapters about science and higher education during and following each of these regime changes, a thesis paper with ideas about a comparison (English 1999, German 2004), and a number of discussions of the analytical and theoretical foundations of the project. Best known of these is "Wissenschaft und Politik als Ressourcen füreinander“ (2002); further discussions appeared in 2006 and 2010.

In this talk I take up this project again and offer further reflections on the "resource approach“ as well as the topic itself, including the issue of whether and how the impact on science and higher education of the numerous breaks in Austrian history during the same period might be integrated into the project.

Mitchell G. Ash is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Vienna and speaker of the Doktoratskolleg.


Veranstalter

Doktoratskolleg


Kontakt

Mag. Mag. Mag. Ramon Pils, DipTrans
Institut für Geschichte
01 4277 40872
dksciences.geschichte@univie.ac.at