When, late in life, T.H. Huxley returned to the themes of evolution and religion, he did so with a focus on ethics. But his audience was puzzled (and Herbert Spencer dismissive): how could morality be explained in Darwinian terms if man’s destiny was to combat the amoral laws of the “cosmic process”? These issues are … Continued
Abstract Whether the recently settled religious minorities, Muslims in particular, can be accommodated as religious groups in European countries has become a central political question and threatens to create long-term fault lines. I argue that to grasp the nature of the problem we have to see how Muslims have become a target of a cultural … Continued
Die jährliche Oskar-Halecki-Vorlesung des GWZO verfolgt das Ziel, Spitzenwissenschaftler aus den östlichen Nachbarländern Deutschlands zu einem in der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion umstrittenen Thema einzuladen. Die vor prominenter Öffentlichkeit gehaltenen Vorlesungen werden anschließend zum Druck gegeben, um ihre breite Rezeption und fortdauernde Diskussion anzustoßen. Oskar Halecki (1891–1973): Der in Wien gebürtige Pole war einer der führenden Mittelalter- … Continued
Wir freuen uns sehr, in diesem Jahr die Historikerin Frau Prof. Dr. Renée Poznanski zur Simon-Dubnow-Vorlesung begrüßen zu dürfen. Frau Poznanski ist an der Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Yaakov and Poria Avnon Professor of Holocaust Studies (em.) an dem von ihr mit begründeten Department of Politics and Government tätig; ebendort leitet sie das Simone … Continued
Abstract In this lecture, I revisit capitalist time from the vantage of a protracted pause in the development of oil resources in São Tomé and Príncipe (STP), a micro-island state in the African Atlantic. Despite more than two decades of petroleum exploration in the country’s maritime territory, STP has yet to see any commercial oil … Continued
Expressed by the single character meng 夢, dream has been a constitutive element of Chinese traditional knowledge since antiquity, most notably as a medium for divination. The ambivalence of dream, seen as either a sign to be deciphered, or as a ghostly vehicle, is present already in early speculative writings. This lecture will analyze the … Continued
Abstract How should members of a liberal democratic political community, open to value pluralism, decide bioethical issues that generate deep disagreement? Reasoned debate will not often generate an answer equally accepted to all participants and affected persons. One political means of reaching binding because authoritative decisions are majoritarian democratic institutions. Its core feature is proceduralism, … Continued
Abstract: The current moment is often described as a global energy crisis, as conflicting needs and desires, resources and degradations emerge. Among the professions concerned with seeking a resolution for the crisis are a cadre of engineers and mathematicians who seek to tame multidimensional uncertainties over time. By ‘building’ elaborate and integrated models of energy … Continued
Early Indian Ocean exchange is often characterized as a straightforward precursor to the colonial and post-colonial trade of the modern era. In particular, it is perceived as dominated by urbanized and state-level societies, supporting standard core-periphery models for the emergence of early long-distance trade. This view is a natural outcome of the tendency to privilege … Continued
In the metaphoric imagery commonly used to describe the Internet, the world wide web has been pictured as being immaterial and fluid, like an ocean to be navigated. The complex infrastructure securing the functionality of web services ‚backstage‘ as well as the diverse forms of knowledge and industrial work behind the digital cloud are seldomly … Continued
