Publications

Textual Criticism, Psychoanalysis and the Historical Method. A Conversation

Andreas Mayer , Carlo Ginzburg

In this conversation, Carlo Ginzburg and Andreas Mayer address a number of epistemological issues central to the articulation of historiography and psychoanalysis: the notion of unintentional revelations (or involuntary testimonies), the relation between the specificity of cases and the generalizations implied by them, the problem of reopening old cases and of their proper contextualization, and the question to what extent translation can serve as a metaphor for the work of psychoanalysts and historians.

Ethnisierung und (Im)Mobilitäten in historischer Perspektive

Lucie Lamy , Sarah Marciano

Russia’s North Pacific. Centres and Peripheries (e-pdf)

Benjamin Beuerle , Sandra Dahlke, Andreas Renner

Die Buchreihe “Russia and the Asia-Pacific” untersucht politische, ökonomische, gesellschaftliche, kulturelle und umweltbezogene Interaktionen des Russischen Fernen Ostens innerhalb seines Asiatisch-Pazifischen Kontextes wie auch mit der russischen Hauptstadt in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Ihr erster Band befasst sich aus multidisziplinärer Perspektive insbesondere mit den folgenden Fragen: Wie wurden und werden Verordnungen eines tausende Kilometer entfernten Zentrums von Akteuren in dieser Region wahrgenommen und umgesetzt? Inwieweit war und ist das Zentrum erfolgreich oder inwieweit ist es gescheitert darin, eine Region in seine staatlichen Strukturen zu integrieren, die so weit entfernt liegt wie der Russische Ferne Osten? Wie haben sich die Bedeutungen von „Zentrum“ und „Peripherie“ mit der Zeit verändert?

(Printversion ab dem 6.Juli im Buchhandel erhältlich)

L’AFFICHAGE ADMINISTRATIF AU XIXe SIÈCLE - Former le consentement

Frédéric Graber

L’administration produit au xixe siècle des affiches à propos de presque tout. Et pourtant, contrairement aux affiches publicitaires illustrées bien connues, les affiches administratives nous restent encore un peu étrangères. En s’appuyant sur des sources dispersées dans de nombreuses archives locales et sur le fonds exceptionnel d’un imprimeur sarthois, cet ouvrage propose d’explorer l’une des activités centrales de l’administration au xixe siècle : l’affichage.
S’intéresser à ces objets communs revient à poser la question des conditions matérielles qui permettent de rendre obligatoires des actes administratifs. Publication d’un texte de loi, recrutement militaire, nouveaux tarifs des chemins de fer, travaux sur une route départementale, discours du président de la République... Chaque sujet fait l’objet d’un affichage selon des règles spécifiques. Mais, plutôt qu’inciter à une lecture effective de l’affiche, l’administration privilégie l’appel à tous : la réaction des populations se limitant généralement à leur silence, est alors interprétée comme un consentement plein et entier. Dans ce processus, l’administration rencontre toutefois de nombreuses difficultés, la conduisant au fil du temps à redéfinir son rapport à la publicité comme les contours de l’autorité publique et de l’espace public ; à envisager, aussi, la protection de certaines affiches plus politiques et à en uniformiser les contenus, en particulier grâce à l’usage croissant de la télégraphie. L’affichage s’impose ainsi au xixe siècle comme un outil essentiel permettant à l’administration de constituer son activité comme relevant d’un droit administratif et de manifester, dans ses actes, les grandes valeurs héritées de la Révolution – égalité de traitement, liberté d’expression –, tout en encourageant volontairement la révolution industrielle.

Erna Eckstein-Schlossmann’s exile years in Turkey, 1935–1950: a biographical and gendered approach to migration history

Nazan Maksudyan

Erna Eckstein-Schlossmann (1895–1998) and Albert Eckstein (1891–1950), a pediatrician couple from Düsseldorf, had to hand in their official resignations after being declared as ‘Jews’ according to the laws of 1933 and 1935. Albert Eckstein accepted the offer of the Turkish government to become the head of the pediatric clinic of Ankara Hospital. Relying on a biographical approach and utilizing ego-documents, such as memoirs, letters, and travelogues at the Eckstein family archives, together with Turkish state archives, and Erna Eckstein-Schlossmann’s research publications, this paper conceptualizes Erna’s exile years in Turkey along gendered lines and provides an intersectional interpretation of migration. This microhistorical reconstruction acknowledges her agency and subjectivity as a high-skilled migrant woman; intertwines her life story with the larger dynamics of the migrant networks in Turkey; and brings it into dialogue with macro-level structural factors with regards to the war, the mass murder and the global movement of European Jews.

Link to the article

Memory Fragmentation from Below and Beyond the State: Uses of the Past in Conflict and Post-Conflict Settings.

Eric Sangar , Anne Bazin, Emmanuelle Hébert, Valérie Rosoux

ABSTRACT

This volume suggests a model of collective memory that distinguishes between two conceptual logics of memory fragmentation: vertical fragmentation and horizontal fragmentation. It offers a series of case studies of conflict and post-conflict collective memory, shedding light on the ways various actors participate in the production, dissemination, and contestation of memory discourses.

With attention to the characteristics of both vertical and horizontal memory fragmentation, the book addresses the plurality of diverging, and often conflicting, memory discourses that are produced within the public sphere of a given community. It analyzes the juxtaposition, tensions, and interactions between narratives produced beyond or below the central state, often transcending national boundaries.

The book is structured according to the type of actors involved in a memory fragmentation process. It explores how states have been trying to produce and impose memory discourses on civil societies, sometimes even against the experiences of their own citizens, and how such efforts as well as backlash from actors below and beyond the state have led to horizontal and vertical memory fragmentation. Furthermore, it considers the attempts by states’ representatives to reassert control of national memory discourses and the subsequent resistances they face. As such, this volume will appeal to sociology and political science scholars interested in memory studies in post-conflict societies.

Climate Security in the Anthropocene

Judith Nora Hardt , Cameron Harrington, Franziskus von Lucke, Adrien Estève, Nicholas P. Simpson

This chapter introduces the book, Climate Security in the Anthropocene—Exploring the Approaches of United Nations Security Council Member-States. Climate change is increasingly positioned as a security issue. A number of influential governance actors including states, international organisations, and civil society groups now connect climate change to a variety of security threats such as armed conflict, disasters, low socio-economic development, and fragile governing institutions. These threat perceptions have translated into political action and have led to the formation of a complex constellation of governance actors in response. In particular, over the past fifteen years both permanent and non-permanent member-states of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have been instrumental in constructing and responding to climate security threats. This introductory chapter presents the overall aim of the book, which is to analyse whether the concept of security has shifted over time with respect to climate change, and if so, how these shifts have occurred in state practices. It begins by tracing the evolution of climate security in academic scholarship and in the UNSC. It then presents the theoretical framework of the book, which distinguishes between three ideal-types of climate security: national security, human security, and ecological security. It concludes by outlining the methodology of the book, which is comprised of fifteen case study chapters that explore the various ways in which member-states that sat on the UNSC between 2018 and in 2020 constructed and responded to climate security threats.

Unversöhnlichkeiten - Einübungen in Adornos Minima Moralia

Philipp Nolz , Pierre Buhlmann, Tobias Nikolaus Klass

Die Auszeichnung von Theodor W. Adornos Minima Moralia als philosophischer Klassiker ist eine zweifelhafte Ehrung. Zweifelhaft, weil sich das Werk dadurch oftmals des Anspruchs enthoben sieht, gelesen – und mehr noch – gedeutet zu werden. Betrachtet man jedoch die Gegenwart als Prüfstein für die Kraft des Denkens, stellt sich der bestimmende Antagonismus als ein Kampf gegen das Vergessen dar. Wider das Vergessen, sei es durch ausbleibende oder zu wohlwollende Rezeption, behaupten sich die Minima Moralia als Materialien des Denkens, selbst oder gerade an den unzähligen Stellen, an denen ihr philosophischer Gehalt bis in die Unkenntlichkeit abzugleiten droht. Diese Materialen zu lichten, bildet die Absicht des vorliegenden Buchs.

Beiträge anderer CMB Centristen: Ernesto Eldridge, Yasmin Afshar, und  Katia Genel

Se professionnaliser dans l’exil par la musique. Le cas d’un musicien de l’orchestre Orpheus XXI (Jordi Savall)

Alicia Vogt

Abstract

“Professionalization in Exile through Music. The Case of a Musician in the Orchestra Orpheus XXI (Jordi Savall)”

Orpheus XXI is an orchestra founded by Catalan conductor and gambist Jordi Savall in 2016 upon receiving a grant from the European Union’s Creative Europe programme. The orchestra targets migrant musicians. It allows them to continue to practice their profession as performers in exile and they are also mobilized in the framework of workshops where they teach to children and teenagers. These workshops are places of transmission of musical repertoires of which these artists are the masters. The project was implemented in France, Spain (Catalonia) and Norway from 2016 to 2018. Since 2018, pedagogical workshops have spread into Germany under the name Orpheus XXI NRW.
This article examines the life course (parcours), biography and career of a refugee musician playing with the Orpheus XXI NRW orchestra, Azad Helez. The three notions evoked above are tools meant to uncover how the German institutions he evolves in deal with the question of alterity. The life course (parcours) pertains to the paths that the person takes in the private or public spaces that make up his or her existence, as well as the environments (professional, personal, familial, institutional) that he or she encounters. The musician’s agency is thus highlighted. The career focuses solely on the work environment and analyses a person’s path within this world. The biography is the construction of a narrative, the establishment of continuity a posteriori by the actor’s reflexivity, for an audience. The issues are thus to observe, on the one hand, how Azad adjusts to the structures of his host society, and on the other hand, how the structures apprehend music: as a cultural device at the service of society? as a device for the inclusion of people who find themselves in a situation of migration? A biographical approach allows us to take into account this articulation between the individual and institutional scales.
Based on an ethnographic fieldwork conducted with this musician, this article addresses the role of music in the way a migrant person can build a professional career in his host country. Azad engages in professionalization through music in the different stages of his journey from Syrian Kurdistan to his host country Germany. How can music be a vector of inclusion for people in a situation of forced migration? By constructing his biography – his childhood, the learning of music, the different stages of his exile – and by analysing the way he leads his life in Germany, we can uncover the processes accounting for Azad’s conducting his musical activities today, and for making music a tool for professional inclusion, in a constant tension between professional interests and personal concerns for his family.
Indeed, throughout his exile, Azad arises as a musician. He teaches music, composes, carries out projects, participates in the workshops of Orpheus XXI NRW with whom he gives concerts, plays in several ensembles. His peers offer him recognition, which allows him to achieve the status of musician. He is committed to practising highly quality music, and views his skills as a source of income. He engages with musical structures on which he can rely, such as the Orpheus XXI NRW ensemble and the Landesmusikakademie in Cologne, where he has the status of a learner; the Musikschule in Bochum and the Salar Music shop, where he is a teacher. In the case of Azad, professionalization through music is a vector for social and professional inclusion in Germany, in the land of NRW. On the other hand, Azad is confronted with the instability of the profession of musician, which prompts him to ponder over following alternative careers and to rekindle past interests.