The importance of infinity for Spinoza's philosophy can hardly be overstated. Understanding Spinoza means understanding (Spinoza's take on) infinity. In this paper, I present a deflationary account of Spinoza's infinity: Infinities across ontological states (modes, attributes, substance) follow the same general trajectory: From an indeterminate essence, infinitely many things follow. And as a consequence, Spinoza's universe is infinite all the way down. Some think that to Spinoza, infinity is indeterminacy (acosmism). Others say that infinity in substance follows from the essence (...) of substance, while infinity in modes does not. I argue that both views are false. Instead, infinity in modes and infinity in substance emerges from the numerical indeterminacy of essences. I show that this view can be traced back to Descartes' famous wax example and that it is manufactured to avoid a particular contradiction. In order to specify my point, I demonstrate that both ‘absolute infinity’ (God) and ‘in suo genere infinity’ (attributes) must be read through the deflationary account of infinity. I also argue that we do not need an additional qualitative indeterminacy and that causation and conception are not always parallel (such as in reductio proofs). (shrink)

Bringing together writings on united Germany, this volume addresses the consequences of German history, the challenges and perils of the post-Wall era, and Germany's place in contemporary Europe. The author argues that 1945 - not 1989 - was the crucial turning point in German history.

The origin and the development of scientific disciplines has been a topic of reflection for several decades. The few extensive case studies support the thesis that scientific disciplines are not monolithic structures but can be characterized by distinct social, organizational and scientific–technical practices. Nonetheless, most disciplinary histories of genetics confine themselves largely to an uncontested account of the content of the discipline or occasionally institutional factors. Little attention is paid to the large number of researchers who, by their joint efforts, (...) ultimately shaped the discipline. We contribute to this aspect of disciplinary historiography by discussing the role of women researchers at the Institute for Heredity Research, founded in 1914 in Berlin under the directorship of Erwin Baur, and the sister of the John Innes Institute at Cambridge. This paper investigates how and why Baur built a highly successful research programme that relied on the efforts of his female staff, whose careers, notably Elisabeth Schiemann's, are also assessedin toto. These women undertook the necessary ‘technoscience’ and in some cases innovative work and helped increase the prestige of the institute and its director. Together they played a pivotal role in the establishment of genetics in Germany. Without them the discipline would have developed much more slowly and along a divergent path. (shrink)

History of medicine is taught in West Germany as part of the standard course offerings for medical students and is well represented at many universities. But history of science and technology unfortunately still lacks any adequate supporting system and accordingly barely continues to survive at a few institutions of the Federal Republic. Although history of medicine serves a different function than history of science and technology, closer cooperation between these groups is possible and greatly desired for the future.

Rooftop gardens, rooftop greenhouses and indoor farms have been established or planned by activists and private companies in Berlin. These projects promise to produce a range of goods that could have positive impacts on the urban setting but also carry a number of risks and uncertainties. In this early innovation phase, the relevant stakeholders’ perceptions and social acceptance of ZFarming represent important preconditions for success or failure of the further diffusion of this practice. We used the framework of acceptance (...) to investigate the stakeholders’ attitudes and to identify the key factors that might hinder or promote the introduction of ZFarming. The results are based on an analysis of 38 qualitative interviews conducted with key stakeholders in Berlin. As the results show, major perceived benefits of ZFarming include improved consumer awareness, education, and the creation of experimental spaces. Stakeholders further perceive opportunities for resource savings, new business models, repurposing of abandoned buildings and improved aesthetics. Major perceived risks are associated with growing techniques that are considered “unnatural”, health risks, conflicts with images of traditional agriculture, the rejection of animal production in urban areas, the risk of projects being too expensive and too complex or being implemented too early, i.e. before the mechanisms are fully understood. The analysis further reveals which contextual factors—political, legal, market-related, spatial or societal—might negatively or positively influence ZFarming acceptance. (shrink)

Dominant agri-food systems are increasingly seen as unsustainable in terms of environmental degradation, mass production or high food waste. In an attempt to counteract these developments and foster sustainability transitions in agri-food systems, a variety of actors are engaging in socially innovative models of food production and consumption. Using a multiple case study approach, our study examines three contrasting alternative economic models in the city of Berlin: community gardens, the app Too Good To Go (TGTG), and a cooperative supermarket. (...) Based on 15 qualitative interviews, we provide insights into their transformative potential by exploring participants' underlying motivations, the changes they have experienced, and the challenges and potential for future development of these models. We find that participation in community gardens and the cooperative supermarket is similarly motivated by social aspects and dissatisfaction with existing food access options, while TGTG users are more motivated by financial reasons. Our study shows that change is experienced mainly at the individual level, e.g. by building new relationships, changing cognitive framings, and learning (new) practices, especially in community-oriented settings. The individualization of change shows that these models have a rather low potential to lead to more systemic accounts of changes. Yet, they can prefigure regime change, describe resistance, and foster cumulative incremental change that may spill over into society. We conclude that in order to sustain this role and drive transitions, it is important to up- and outscale these models; and we provide recommendations on how these models can mutually support their development, establishment, and protection. (shrink)

"This volume comprises the proceedings of the First All-Berlin Workshop on Nonclassical Logics and Information Processing, held at the Free University of Berlin, November 9-10, 1990. The scope of the ten papers in the volume is broad, covering various different subfields of logic - particularly nonclassical logic - and its applications in artificial intelligence. The papers are grouped according to the four major topics that emerged at the meeting: modal systems, logic programming, nonmonotonic logics, and proof theory. The (...) classification is only a rough guide since the four areas overlap considerably."--PUBLISHER'S WEBSITE. (shrink)

Peter Jelavich's new study pursues a double agenda: while it examines the role of radio and film in the broader context of cultural politics in Weimar Germany, it at the same time explores the transformation of Alfred Döblin's novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) into a radio play (1930) and then a film (1931). The detailed and intriguing intermedial comparison serves to demonstrate Jelavich's main thesis that the death of the innovative and critical culture of the first German Republic predates (...) the end of the democracy. Challenging the widely shared assumption that only Hitler's rise to power put an end to the…. (shrink)

This volume contains the proceedings of JELIA '92, les Journ es Europ ennes sur la Logique en Intelligence Artificielle, or the Third European Workshop on Logics in Artificial Intelligence. The volume contains 2 invited addresses and 21 selected papers covering such topics as: - Logical foundations of logic programming and knowledge-based systems, - Automated theorem proving, - Partial and dynamic logics, - Systems of nonmonotonic reasoning, - Temporal and epistemic logics, - Belief revision. One invited paper, by D. Vakarelov, is (...) on arrow logics, i.e., modal logics for representing graph information. The other, by L.M. Pereira,J.J. Alferes, and J.N. Apar cio, is on default theory for well founded semantics with explicit negation. (shrink)

Film festivals have become key agents in the movie business, with major competitive festivals enjoying outstanding importance. Based on this assumption, this paper focuses on the example of Germany and asks to what extent the Berlin International Film Festival offers a venue for domestic films, and which types of filmmakers, in particular, benefit from this springboard and gatekeeping mechanism. More precisely, given the diverging interests confronting the Berlinale as a platform for the film community, a quantitative program analysis (...) was conducted of the festival’s most significant sections (Competition, Panorama, Forum, Generation, Perspective German Cinema, Lola@Berlinale) from 1980 to 2016. The findings demonstrate that even good-faith efforts to strengthen domestic filmmaking in regard to weight and diversity have hardly changed the power structures that underlie the curatorial decision-making process. Respectively, the share of national film productions has been stagnating for many years. Moreover, female and young filmmakers are still broadly underrepresented. (shrink)

This paper falls under the rubric of the sociology of knowledge, which bridges the gap between phenomenological philosophy and the human sciences. It presents an empirical investigation of the communicative construction of psychotherapeutic reality. I examine therapeutic talk and psychotherapists' reconstructions of the transition from state socialism in Germany in 1989. In both instances I show how psychotherapists' commonly shared interpretative conventions and rules of reasoning produce typical accounts. The first part of the paper shows how certain interpretative conventions (...) and rules of reasoning organize therapeutic talk and interaction in general. The second part focuses on how the interpretative conventions typical of therapy also inform psychotherapists' interpretations of the transition from state socialism. (shrink)

The book provides a comprehensive overview on the state of the art of the quantum part of mathematical physics. In particular, it contains contributions to the spectral theory of Schrödinger and random operators, quantum field theory, relativistic quantum mechanics and interacting many-body systems.It also presents an overview on the achievements in mathematical physics since the last conference QMath11 held at Hradec Kralove, Czechia in 2010.

During the 1990s, the Berlin women’s prison was reformed to do justice to female inmates. This redesigning of space and programs was intended to meet women-specific conditions and needs. The present paper engages with this prison reform as transformation in the name of gender justice. Based on interviews with prison reformers, criminologists, and policymakers, as well as on the analysis of historical documents, we illuminate how a specific figure of the “criminalized woman” helps to translate the abstract notion of (...) social justice into situated practice. From the 1970s onward, a new knowledge of women’s crime would emerge: it constituted female offenders as victims of patriarchal oppression and victimization, allowing the prison system to be criticized as androcentric and discriminatory against women. We argue that subsequent reform pursued gender justice in the form of difference-based, gender-responsive programs and spaces targeting individual inmates’ character and mindset. Thereby, the reformers’ initial critique of social justice would be unintentionally depoliticized and so gender, economic, and political inequalities remained unaddressed. Our purpose is hence twofold: first, to review the recent history of women’s incarceration in Germany, and second, to add a social justice focus to the international criminological debate on gender, prison, and reform. (shrink)

Review of materials of the 11th International Congress of the German Society for Analytical Philosophy, as well as the latest trends in the development of analytical research.

For centuries, herbarium specimens were the focus of exchange in global botanical networks. The aim was the ‘complete’ registration of the flora, for which ‘complete’ collections in botanical institutions worldwide were considered to be a necessary basis, although this ardently sought-after ideal was never achieved. The study of colonial plants became a special priority of botanical research in the metropolises. With knowledge of the many treasures of the plant world considered the key to securing wealth and power, political and economic (...) interests influenced both the organization and the subject matter of scientific research. After the German Reich began annexing colonies in the 1880s, legal regulations established Berlin's botanical institutions as the research centre on colonial flora. They also became a clearing house for plant material from overseas. Berlin-based curators selected duplicates of herbarium specimens from the German colonies, distributing them to other botanical institutions throughout Germany. More importantly, duplicates became a form of currency in trans-imperial networks, which relied on reciprocity. In exchange for duplicate German colonial herbarium specimens, the Berlin institutions received vast quantities of botanical samples from their British, Dutch, French and American counterparts. (shrink)

For Hegel’s German-Jewish disciples, the French Revolution marked the starting point of a history of freedom, which was to include legal and political emancipation. In many cases, however, the experiences of German-Jewish migrants in Paris were disappointing. The philosophical idea of “France” was not to be confused with its political reality. Nevertheless, the image of France served as a critical antithesis to the political situation in Germany throughout the 1820 and 1830s. The article discusses the impact of France on (...) the political concepts of Jewish Hegelians with a focus on the jurist and political philosopher Eduard Gans. (shrink)

Since its reunification, Berlin has regained its reputation as a sexually liberal European metropolis, offering spaces and infrastructures for non-normative sex to become present in the cityscape. However, with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany and the concomitant measures to contain its spread, sexual practices and their open display have become highly contested and subject to increased regulation. In this article, we attend to sex work and casual sex among gay men, who, both historically and at (...) present, have been placed under particular public scrutiny and moralised governance. Yet, non-normative sex did not vanish from the city during the pandemic, but appeared in the form of both moralising media exposure and politically motivated public appearances. Attending to the intersections and divergences within these shifting presences of casual gay sex and sex work, we highlight how the biopolitical governance of pandemic sex has been evaded, contested and incorporated into efforts to normalise certain sexual activities. We therefore conclude that the pandemic had ambivalent effects on non-normative sexual practices in Berlin. It contributed to a further politicisation in the fight for their place in the city and to the emergence of normative assumptions about the respectable sexual subject for and within communities centred around non-normative sexual practices. (shrink)

Germany was famously a latecomer to colonialism, but it was a hybrid empire, centrally involved in all forms of imperial activity. Germans dominated the early Holy Roman Empire; Germany after 1870 was a Reich, or empire, not a state in the conventional sense; and Germany had a colonial empire between 1884 and 1918. Prussia played the role of continental imperialist in its geopolitics vis-à-vis Poland and the other states to its east. Finally, in its Weltpolitik – its (...) global policies centered on the navy – Germany was an informal global imperialist. Although these diverse scales and practices of empire usually occupied distinct regions in the imaginations of contemporaries, there was one representational space in which the nation-state was woven together with empire in all its different registers: the Berlin trade exhibition of 1896. Because this exhibition started as a local event focused on German industry, it has not attracted much attention among historians of colonial and world fairs. Over the course of its planning, however, the 1896 exhibition emerged as an encompassing display of the multifarious German empire in all its geopolitical aspects. The exhibition attracted the attention of contemporaries as diverse as Georg Simmel and Kaiser Wilhelm. In contrast to Simmel and later theorists, I argue that it represented the empire and the nation-state, and not simply the fragmenting and commodifying force of capitalism. In contrast to Timothy Mitchell, I argue that the exhibit did not communicate a generic imperial modernity, but made visible the unique multi-scaled political formation that was the German empire-state. (shrink)

"Eva Besnyö was not only an exceptionally gifted photographer but was also politically active during her lifetime: she acquired her photographic skills in the studio of József Pécsi in Budapest, became aware of the aesthetics of modern photography in the early 1930s in Berlin and became a respected master photographer in Amsterdam. Eva Besnyö's life and work were not only influenced by Modernism the arts but also by the dramatic political movements and events of 20th century Europe such as (...) Fascism, National Socialism, immigration and persecution. By the time the Hungarian-Jewish photographer arrived Berlin in 1930, she had made the two most momentous decisions of life: to make photography her profession and to leave Fascist Hungary forever. Modern art was a passion for her. She produced true masterpieces with her Rolleiflex during her expeditions around Berlin. When Besnyö immigrated to Amsterdam in 1932, she was one of the outstanding representatives of "New Photography" together with László Moholy-Nagy and Erwin Blumenfeld: her portraits, architectural views and landscapes have retained their intensity to this day. She worked as a photographer until the 1980s, and among her other roles as a chronicler of the "Dolle Mina" feminist movement. In the 1990s she won prestigious awards Germany and The Netherlands for her outstanding body of work."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

The last kilometers of the Berlin Wall were finally torn down during this last week before Christmas, but mentally, socially, economically it continues to exist, and for some in what used to be East Berlin it isn’t so clear anymore whether the actual wall made of concrete wasn’t easier to bear. To be sure, the wall that once separated the largest cities in each of the two Germanys is still present as a scar of empty space; but distances (...) have shrunk, and old views of the city have been reestablished—at least geographically, Berlin, no doubt, is slowly becoming one again. However, the social and economic differences as well as the mental walls erected in forty years of separate existence still divide the eastern from the western part. Now that the euphoria of unification has finally subsided, gains and losses are being counted, and many East Germans are beginning to ask themselves whether the price they paid for political freedom was not too high after all. The moral and economic bankruptcy of the old regime daily becomes more apparent: its structures of corruption and repression, its system of total surveillance that had become a part of everyday life and made use of even those whom the state had marginalized. And yet that system, corrupt as it was, had also provided a measure of stability, a predictable life that, although it had restricted individual choice, can now evoke nostalgic memories of warmth and security. Heinz Ickstadt is professor of American literature at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at the Free University in Berlin. He has written and edited books on Hart Crane, Thomas Pynchon, and the 1930s, and has published widely on American literature and culture in the late nineteenth century, American modernism, postmodern fiction, and on the relation of literature and painting. A book on the changing functions of the American novel, coauthored with Winfried Fluck, is forthcoming. (shrink)

Clanak je posvecen kratkom pregledu istorijata Spomenika ubijenim evropskim Jevrejima u Berlinu kao veoma dobar primer toga koliko dugo moze proteci od ideje do njene realizacije, kao i koliko zucna moze biti rasprava oko toga kako i koga se secati. U nadleznosti Savezne fondacije?Spomenik ubijenim evropskim Jevrejima? takodje su i Spomenik ubijenim Romima, Spomenik posvecen homoseksualcima progonjenim tokom nacionalsocijalistickog rezima i Spomenik masovnom ubijanju pacijenata dusevnih bolnica. Osim toga, autor analizira inicijative i resenja za druge spomenike u glavnom gradu Nemacke (...) Neue Wache, kao i spomen-podrucje koncentracionog logora Zaksenhausen nadomak Berlina. (shrink)

Claude Bernard (1813–1878) and Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896) rank as two of the most influential scientists of the nineteenth century. Renowned for their experiments, lectures, and writing, Bernard and du Bois-Reymond earned great prestige as professors of physiology in a time when Paris and Berlin reigned as capitals of science. Yet even though they were equals in every way, du Bois-Reymond’s reputation has fallen far more than Bernard’s. This essay compares aspects of the two men’s attitudes to philosophy, history, (...) and biology in an attempt to explain why Bernard remains the better known. The answer lies less in the value of du Bois-Reymond’s contributions than in the way that science is remembered in France and Germany. (shrink)

This biography of Emil du Bois-Reymond, the most important forgotten intellectual of the nineteenth century, received an Honorable Mention for History of Science, Medicine, and Technology at the 2013 PROSE Awards, was shortlisted for the 2014 John Pickstone Prize (Britain's most prestigious award for the best scholarly book in the history of science), and was named by the American Association for the Advancement of Science as one of the Best Books of 2014. -/- In his own time (1818–1896) du Bois-Reymond (...) grew famous for his groundbreaking research in neuroscience and his provocative addresses on politics and culture. His discovery of the electrical transmission of nerve signals, his innovations in laboratory instrumentation, and his reductionist methodology all helped lay the foundations of modern neuroscience. -/- In addition to describing the pioneering experiments that earned du Bois-Reymond a seat in the Prussian Academy of Sciences and a professorship at the University of Berlin, this book also recounts du Bois-Reymond’s family origins, private life, public service, and lasting influence. In talks that touched on science, philosophy, history, and literature, du Bois-Reymond introduced Darwin to German students (triggering two days of debate in the Prussian parliament), asked on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War whether France had forfeited its right to exist, and proclaimed the mystery of consciousness, heralding the age of doubt. The first modern biography in any language, "Emil du Bois-Reymond" recovers an important chapter in the history of science, the history of ideas, and the history of Germany. (shrink)

The German Democratic Republic was in existence for 41 years. A single generation spent its whole professional life there – namely those born in the early 1930s who carried this state’s hopes. With Karl Mannheim’s notion of generations as a unit in the sociology of knowledge in mind, this article describes this generation’s typical experiences from the point of view of a particularly telling group: economists at the Humboldt University of Berlin. I present their socialization in Nazi Germany, (...) their formative years in the aftermath of the Second World War that led to their choice of a politically driven profession, their studies during the first years of the GDR, when Stalinism was still the dominating dogma, and their commitment to a state career when writing their dissertations and habilitations. Ready to shoulder Honecker’s regime, their daily lives as professors were characterized by continuing attempts to reform teaching and research. In 1989 the ultimate reform transpired, and it encompassed the end of the state as well as of their professional careers. This narrative historicizes, on an experiential level, a tension often noted in GDR research, that between the ideological and productive functions of knowledge in socialism, that is, between loyalty and relevance. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of the development of Jewish studies in Germany since reunification. After a brief historical review of the subject in the nineteenth century with the development of modern Reform Judaism and the science of Judaism created by Jewish religious and secular scholars, it focuses on the development of the past thirty years, in which not only the Jewish community but also Jewish studies have increased in importance. The growth of the Jewish community was largely due (...) to immigration from the Soviet Union, but also partly to young Israelis who moved to Berlin. In line with these different backgrounds, a new interest in diaspora research emerged. The paper also deals with the difference between German Jewish studies and those of most other countries, where Jewish studies are mainly designed by Jewish scholars. (shrink)

The acceptance of Newton’s ideas and Newtonianism in the early German Enlightenment is usually described as hesitant and slow. Two reasons help to explain this phenomenon. One is that those who might have adopted Newtonian arguments were critics of Wolffianism. These critics, however, drew on indigenous currents of thought, pre-dating the reception of Newton in Germany and independent of Newtonian science. The other reason is that the controversies between Wolffians and their critics focused on metaphysics. Newton’s reputation, however, was (...) that of a mathematician, and one point, on which Wolffians and their opponents agreed, was that mathematics was of no use in the solution of metaphysical questions. The appeal to Newton as an authority in metaphysics, it was argued, was the fault of Newton’s over-zealous disciples in Britain, who tried to transform him from a mathematician into the author of a general philosophical system. It is often argued that the Berlin Academy after 1743 included a Newtonian group, but even there the reception of Newtonianism was selective. Philosophers such as Leonhard Euler were also reluctant to be labelled ‘Newtonians’, because this implied a dogmatic belief in Newton’s ideas. Only after the mid-eighteenth century is ‘Newtonianism’ increasingly accepted in the sense of a philosophical system.Author Keywords: Natural philosophy; Mathematics; Metaphysics; Isaac Newton; Newtonianism; German Enlightenment. (shrink)

Summary The aim of this paper is to analyse the scientific relations between Germany and Spain during the Entente Boycott (1919–1926) and the German academic policy that fostered it. The study of the international relations of German science during the 1920s has been carried out using as a basis the archives of scientific institutions. Personal initiatives by individual scientists to establish relations have therefore not been taken into account. The relations between the scientific communities of Germany and Spain (...) during the 1920s indicate the importance of such personal relationships and from their transcendence at a political level. They also offer an example of how political strategies could dictate the politics of academic recognition. This paper is based on the analysis of sources found at the Foreign Office Archives in Berlin. It gives us a clear idea about the role of scientific relationships between the two countries in shaping their scientific policies. (shrink)

ArgumentIt is well known that the development of a diphtheria anti-toxin serum evolved in a competitive race between two groups of researchers, one affiliated with Emil Behring in Berlin and Marburg, and another affiliated with Émile Roux in Paris. Proceeding on the basis of different theoretical assumptions and experimental practices, the two groups developed a therapeutic serum almost simultaneously. But the standardized substance they developed took on very different forms in the two countries. In Germany the new serum (...) was marketed in the private sphere and subjected to state regulations, becoming a kind of prototype of industrial medications. In France, however, the same substance was marketed as a gift of science to humanity and distributed through the communal health care system. This article demonstrates how a new medication emerged from the efforts to produce, market, regulate, distribute, and apply it in the two respective countries. It attributes the difference to the negotiations between the respective actors (scientists, industrialists, politicians, officers, and the public) and institutions (firms, academies, private and public institutes, legislative bodies, professional corporations). I develop this argument on three different levels: First, I stress the importance of the institutional foundations of serum production; second, I illustrate the decisive role played by existing “ways of regulating” in the rapid development of new legal statutes; and third, I describe the consequences that flowed from the respective administrative organization of marketing and dissemination. In sum, I explore how an experimental object was transformed into an object of the public health system and stabilized by administrative means. (shrink)

The invention of the laser in 1960 and the innovation process of laser technology during the following years coincided with the dramatic increase of the East-West-conflict during the 1960s – the peak of the so-called Cold War after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The predictable features of the new device, not only for experimental sciences, but also for technical and military applications, led instantly to a laser hype all over the world. Military funding and research played (...) a major part in this development. Especially in the United States military laser research and development played an important role in the formation of Cold War sciences. The European allies followed this example to a certain degree, but their specific national environments led to quite different solutions and results. This article describes and analyzes the special features and background of this development for the Federal Republic of Germany in the area of conflict between science, politics and industry from 1960 to the early 1970s. (shrink)

This article deals with the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a point of contention in US relations with Germany and Japan. Both countries rank among America's closest allies, but they have also been supporting the establishment and operation of the ICC, although each to a different extent. The article analyzes the reasons for the three countries-vis the US. It suggests that Berlin's idealistic position and full ICC support on the one hand, as well as Japan's cautious and pragmatic (...) approach on the other, are both rooted not only in their individual evaluations of the ICC's institutional design, but also the varying degrees of their bi/multilateral orientation and the extent of their on US security commitments. (shrink)

Modal logic originated in philosophy as the logic of necessity and possibility. Now it has reached a high level of mathematical sophistication and has many applications in a variety of disciplines, including theoretical and applied computer science, artificial intelligence, the foundations of mathematics, and natural language syntax and semantics. This volume represents the proceedings of the first international workshop on Advances in Modal Logic, held in Berlin, Germany, October 8-10, 1996. It offers an up-to-date perspective on the field, (...) with contributions covering its proof theory, its applications in knowledge representation, computing and mathematics, as well as its theoretical underpinnings. (shrink)

One of the contemporary results of Germany’s memorial conundrum is the rise of its “counter-monuments”: brazen, painfully self-conscious memorial spaces conceived to challenge the very premises of their being. On the former site of Hamburg’s greatest synagogue, at Bornplatz, Margrit Kahl has assembled an intricate mosaic tracing the complex lines of the synagogue’s roof construction: a palimpsest for a building and community that no longer exist. Norbert Radermacher bathes a guilty landscape in Berlin’s Neukölln neighborhood with the inscribed (...) light of its past. Alfred Hrdlicka began a monument in Hamburg to counter—and thereby neutralize—an indestructible Nazi monument nearby. In a suburb of Hamburg, Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev-Gerz have erected a black pillar against fascism and for peace designed to disappear altogether over time. The very heart of Berlin, former site of the gestapo headquarters, remains a great, gaping wound as politicians, artists, and various committees forever debate the most appropriate memorial for this site.4 4. The long-burning debate surrounding projected memorials, to the Gestapo-Gelände in particular, continues to exemplify both the German memorial conundrum and the state’s painstaking attempts to articulate it. For an excellent documentation of the process, see Topographie des Terrors: Gestapo, SS und Reichssicherheitshauptamt auf dem “Prinz-Albrecht-Gelände,” ed. Reinhard Rürup . For a shorter account, see James E. Young, “The Topography of German Memory,” The Journal of Art 1 : 30. James E. Young is assistant professor of English and Judaic studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation and The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning in Europe, Israel, and America , from which this essay is drawn. He is also the curator of “The Art of Memory,” an exhibition at the Jewish Museum of New York. (shrink)

During the 19th century, various frameworks were established in Germany for the purpose of providing Jewish students with religious education. The article deals primarily with the orthodox Congregation Adass-Isroel Religious School. Established in 1869 in Berlin, the school had a major impact on the development of supplementary religious instruction throughout Germany and served as a model in this area. The school's background, history, basic principles and method of instruction, as well as study subjects are discussed and compared (...) to corresponding religious schools. Research is based on the school's annual reports, archival material, scholarly literature, memoirs, and newspapers. (shrink)

When wealthy Jewish industrialist David Friedländer proposed in 1799 that Berlin's Jews undergo a sham conversion to Christianity in return for full German citizenship, he touched off a political and theological debate that would continue to define the relation between Jewish and German identity for more than a century. In the series of provocative letters collected here, Friedländer, Protestant leader Wilhelm Abraham Teller, and young Christian theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher debate Friedländer's radical proposal. In so doing, they grapple with many (...) of the thorny problems--such as citizenship, religious tolerance, and assimilation--that continue to vex world political leaders today. Richard Crouter's Introduction provides the cultural, religious, and historical context for this compelling exchange; a postscript by Julie Klassen reveals the ways in which Germany's minorities continue to be marginalized more than two hundred years after Friedländer made his passionate appeal for political liberty and human rights. (shrink)