Conferences & Workshops

Date: 13 to 15 November 2024

Directed by: Melanie Sehgal (Wuppertal) and Martin Mulsow (Erfurt/Gotha)

Venue: Wuppertal, Institute for Grundlagenforschung zur Philosophiegeschichte

In cooperation with the IGP of the University of Wuppertal and with funding from DFG, DGPhil and FABU.

What consequences does the climate crisis have for the humanities, especially for philosophy and the history of ideas? Can the already problematic history of the Enlightenment still be told as a success story if we know that the foundations of the age of burning fossil fuels were laid at the same time, which will bring planet Earth to the limits of its habitability in the near future? How could modern philosophy have conceived ideas such as progress and freedom completely independently of the material conditions and frameworks in which these ideas were to take effect? Dipesh Chakrabarty has shown that the hermeneutical foundations of the humanities are compromised when we cut off our own future horizons. Pierre Charbonnier considers an ecologically sensitized retelling of the history of ideas to be necessary, in which the extent to which the "freedom" of liberalism is based on the "abundance" generated by fossil fuels is revealed. Isabelle Stengers speaks of the "intrusion of Gaia", which fundamentally shifts the political and philosophical horizons of modernity. According to Bruno Latour, a new cosmology is even needed in order to reorient ourselves on an earth shaped by a new climate regime. 

In the light of these questions and positions, the conference will examine the systematic and methodological challenges of readjusting philosophy and the history of ideas in the face of the current multiple planetary crises. The aim of the conference is, on the one hand, a historically saturated reflection of one's own philosophical and history of ideas practice and, on the other hand, an exploration of possible tasks and contours for work in the humanities in the new climate regime. On the one hand, the aim is to work out the implicit preconditions regarding the material and environmental conditions of human life that modernist thought has developed and to outline the contribution that philosophical ideas such as nature, society or progress have played in the emergence of the current crisis. On the other hand, it is also important to reflect on which of these conditions have remained effective in our own methods to this day. In other words: What is the climate of philosophy?

Programme (PDF)

Note: Dipesh Chakrabarty's lecture on 13 November will be available online via Zoom. 

 

Workshop: Gotha globally networked. FactGrid - potential and perspectives for collection research

Date: 14 - 15 November 2024

Leader: Hendrikje Carius (Gotha) and Olaf Simons (Halle/Gotha)

In conjunction with NFDI4Memory and in cooperation with the FBG.
The event will also take place our lecture hall.

More information can be found on the Blog of the Gotha Research Library

The "Gotha" between publishing, aristocratic and media history of modernity

Date: 4 to 6 December 2024

Location: Gotha Research Centre | Schloßberg 2, 99867 Gotha | Lecture Hall

Organiser: Hannah Boeddeker (University of Hamburg) as part of the DFG project: "The Gotha" - A study of the most important genealogical reference work in modern Europe" in cooperation with the Gotha Research Library and the Gotha Research Centre

The "Gothaische Hofkalender"/"Almanach de Gotha" was published as a German-French parallel edition from 1764 to 1944. The "Gotha" was a typical calendar enterprise of the Enlightenment, "designed for use and pleasure". In the course of the 19th century, the "Gotha" underwent profound changes. It was replaced by genealogical pocket books, which depicted the complex social stratigraphy and hierarchy of the nobility. The "Gotha" thus rose to become the most important genealogical directory of the European nobility. At the same time, it developed into a diplomatic-statistical yearbook of the 19th and 20th century state. This reshaping of the Gotha in terms of content, media and function took place interdependently with the scientification and professionalisation of statistics and genealogy, and in the case of genealogy, its broad popularisation in all social classes. The driving force behind this development was not least the publishing house itself, the Europe-wide map publisher Justus Perthes Gotha, through which genealogy, statistics and cartography entered into close disciplinary and economically driven interdependencies.

Surprisingly, the "Gotha" as one of the standard works of modernity has so far received little attention in the historically working humanities. The DFG project "Der Gotha - Studien zum wichtigsten genealogischen Kompendium der Moderne" (The Gotha - Studies on the most important genealogical compendium of modernity) will place the "Gotha" at the centre of research for the first time. As part of the conference in Gotha, the focus will be on the context in which it was created and the functional contexts of the publishing house and publication.

Conference programme (PDF)

Flyer for the "Gothaische Hofkalender"/"Almanach de Gotha" (PDF)

Registration is requested by 22 November at veranstaltungen.fb@uni-erfurt.de.