Knowledge Systems

The projects in this research area analyze how knowledge systems structure different spheres of human activity, in which they are simultaneously (re)produced. In particular, they analyze the change as well as the impact of different forms of knowledge in politics and the economy. Examining contemporary history as a whole, they place specigif emphasis on the importance of scientific knowledge for the transformation of worldviews and modes of action. In addition, they reflect upon the effects of past knowledge systems on historical scholarship and historiography.

Forschung

Projekte

Illustration is documented: Robert M. Yerkes. Chimpanzees. A Laboratory Colony, New Haven 1945, S. 173.

Predict and Control. Behavioral Knowledge and Policy since the mid-Twentieth Century

 Rüdiger Graf

Research project

The project analyzes the transdisciplinary emergence of a specific body of behavioral knowledge in the second half of the twentieth century, asking how regulatory approaches to human beings changed in the paradigm of behavior. Scrutinizing behavioral economics, communicative behavior, behavior therapy, consumption, and traffic behavior, it focuses on questions concerning the relationship between normative orders and empirical descriptions of behavior, the difference between concepts of action and behavior as well as the respective understandings of subjectivity and rationality.

A socialist variant of eugenics? Sterilization discourses and practices in the SBZ and GDR 1945 to 1990 between the poles of the national socialist past, planning and biopolitics

 Stefan Jehne

Asociated PhD project

Concerning the complex of prosecution, the project analyses why there had not been a comprehensive prosecution despite the abolition of the sterilization law and why most of these few investigations and criminal procedures remained without conviction.

History of the Max Planck Gesellschaft

 Florian Schmaltz

Research project

Two topics are examined with regard to the history of the Max Planck Society: The study prepared within the framework of the research program History of the Max Planck Society examines the question of how the largest West German non-university scientific organization dealt with the legacy and Nazi past of its predecessor organization, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG). The second topic examines dual use problems and military research in the Max Planck Society

Comprehending the human psyche and grasping motor skills: the history of technical psychological testing and the relationship of manual and intellectual work

 Agnes Bauer

Asociated PhD project

This project is situated in between the history of science, technology and media. Focus of the research will be the relationship between thinking and (manual) labour and how it was measured, stabilised, scrutinised or formed in the first place by psychological performance tests in Germany (and partly Austria and Switzerland) during the 20th century.

A history of ‘head work’. Critical perspectives on knowledge society

 Désirée Schauz

Research project

Half a century after these theses had claimed a fundamatal structural change of society, this project explores the impact of debates about the knowledge society on the reconfigurations of work in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. How did the understanding of work change? Who are the new knowledge workers and how do they differ from the older type of “intellectual workers” (Geistesarbeiter)?

Political-social concepts of time and process

 Rüdiger Graf

Collaborative project
Head researcher: Rüdiger Graf
Project The 20th Century in Basic Concepts. A Dictionary of Historical Semantics in Germany, which is carried out in cooperation with the Leibniz-Zentrum Literatur- und Kulturforschung in Berlin (ZfL) and the Leibniz-Institut für deutsche Sprache (IDS) in Mannheim durchgeführt. Funded by the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
The ZFF-based project analyzes the change of concepts that express temporality and historic transformation.

Simon Specht
(PhD project): The concept of ‘progress’ in the twentieth century: decline, resilience, and conceptual change

 

Efficiency and Its Limits: (digital) Product Design and Shifting Job Requirements in the High-Tech Industry since the 1970s

 Christopher Neumaier

Research project

The project analyzes how job requirements in three high-tech industries – automobiles, pharmaceutics, and information and communication technology – shifted in the Federal Republic of Germany since the 1970s. How did these changes affect the work requirements and pressure on workers and employees as well as their efficiency?

Aeronautical Research and Occupation Policy in the Second World War: Satelites and Outposts of the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt unter Nazi rule in Europe

 Florian Schmaltz

Research project

The international development of science in the Europe-wide sphere of rule of the Nazi regime has so far remained underexamined. The research project on the history of aeronautical research during the Second World War, focusing on the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt (AVA) Göttingen, intends to open up new perspectives.

Knowledge Systems

The projects in this research area analyze how knowledge systems structure different spheres of human activity, in which they are simultaneously (re)produced. In particular, they analyze the change as well as the impact of different forms of knowledge in politics and the economy. Examining contemporary history as a whole, they place specigif emphasis on the importance of scientific knowledge for the transformation of worldviews and modes of action. In addition, they reflect upon the effects of past knowledge systems on historical scholarship and historiography.

Forschung

Projekte

Illustration is documented: Robert M. Yerkes. Chimpanzees. A Laboratory Colony, New Haven 1945, S. 173.

Predict and Control. Behavioral Knowledge and Policy since the mid-Twentieth Century

 Rüdiger Graf

Research project

The project analyzes the transdisciplinary emergence of a specific body of behavioral knowledge in the second half of the twentieth century, asking how regulatory approaches to human beings changed in the paradigm of behavior. Scrutinizing behavioral economics, communicative behavior, behavior therapy, consumption, and traffic behavior, it focuses on questions concerning the relationship between normative orders and empirical descriptions of behavior, the difference between concepts of action and behavior as well as the respective understandings of subjectivity and rationality.

A socialist variant of eugenics? Sterilization discourses and practices in the SBZ and GDR 1945 to 1990 between the poles of the national socialist past, planning and biopolitics

 Stefan Jehne

Asociated PhD project

Concerning the complex of prosecution, the project analyses why there had not been a comprehensive prosecution despite the abolition of the sterilization law and why most of these few investigations and criminal procedures remained without conviction.

History of the Max Planck Gesellschaft

 Florian Schmaltz

Research project

Two topics are examined with regard to the history of the Max Planck Society: The study prepared within the framework of the research program History of the Max Planck Society examines the question of how the largest West German non-university scientific organization dealt with the legacy and Nazi past of its predecessor organization, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG). The second topic examines dual use problems and military research in the Max Planck Society

Comprehending the human psyche and grasping motor skills: the history of technical psychological testing and the relationship of manual and intellectual work

 Agnes Bauer

Asociated PhD project

This project is situated in between the history of science, technology and media. Focus of the research will be the relationship between thinking and (manual) labour and how it was measured, stabilised, scrutinised or formed in the first place by psychological performance tests in Germany (and partly Austria and Switzerland) during the 20th century.

A history of ‘head work’. Critical perspectives on knowledge society

 Désirée Schauz

Research project

Half a century after these theses had claimed a fundamatal structural change of society, this project explores the impact of debates about the knowledge society on the reconfigurations of work in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. How did the understanding of work change? Who are the new knowledge workers and how do they differ from the older type of “intellectual workers” (Geistesarbeiter)?

Political-social concepts of time and process

 Rüdiger Graf

Collaborative project
Head researcher: Rüdiger Graf
Project The 20th Century in Basic Concepts. A Dictionary of Historical Semantics in Germany, which is carried out in cooperation with the Leibniz-Zentrum Literatur- und Kulturforschung in Berlin (ZfL) and the Leibniz-Institut für deutsche Sprache (IDS) in Mannheim durchgeführt. Funded by the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
The ZFF-based project analyzes the change of concepts that express temporality and historic transformation.

Simon Specht
(PhD project): The concept of ‘progress’ in the twentieth century: decline, resilience, and conceptual change

 

Efficiency and Its Limits: (digital) Product Design and Shifting Job Requirements in the High-Tech Industry since the 1970s

 Christopher Neumaier

Research project

The project analyzes how job requirements in three high-tech industries – automobiles, pharmaceutics, and information and communication technology – shifted in the Federal Republic of Germany since the 1970s. How did these changes affect the work requirements and pressure on workers and employees as well as their efficiency?

Aeronautical Research and Occupation Policy in the Second World War: Satelites and Outposts of the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt unter Nazi rule in Europe

 Florian Schmaltz

Research project

The international development of science in the Europe-wide sphere of rule of the Nazi regime has so far remained underexamined. The research project on the history of aeronautical research during the Second World War, focusing on the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt (AVA) Göttingen, intends to open up new perspectives.