On the occasion of the joint project Wissensstadt Berlin 2021 („Berlin - City of Knowledge 2021“), the city of Berlin as a research and science location is presenting itself to a broad public in numerous events this year. The 200th birthdays of Hermann von Helmholtz and Rudolf Virchow, who both worked at the intersection of science, politics and society and who shaped today's "Knowledge City Berlin" in the 19th century, serve as the occasion for this project.

With an event titled "Remembering, differently?", the Junge Akademie is also participating in the project. In this half-day event, members of the Junge Akademie want to go beyond the birthdays of Helmholtz and Virchow and discuss forms of remembering and possibilities of writing history in the arts, science and humanities. In short impulses and joint discussions, we want to explore remembering the other in two stages.

The first panel will discuss how and to what end other histories can be perspectivised than those that are usually the focus of major anniversary celebrations: Stories such as that of the homosexual poet August von Platen or the jurist and journalist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, an important pioneer of sexology and a champion of homosexual rights. And what other histories can be reactivated to bridge gaps in the canon of remembrance of the arts, science and humanities and, for example, to honour women in the history of philosophy?

Following this, the second panel will discuss which sources can be used to perspectivise history differently: History that is not centred on a single composer, for example, but makes it possible to experience music as historically changing free spaces and conditions of different musical interpreters, or a history of internationalism that does not turn to the metropolises but to the so-called periphery. And what do we gain from a historiography that looks not only at the Virchow Clinic's namesake, but also at the people who frequented it?

We cordially invite all who are interested to join us in reflecting on the remembrance of other(s) in the arts, science and humanities.

For further information and to register for this event, please click here.

While the research group’s preceding workshop (see below Workshop "Spaces of (Inter)Disciplinarity"), held at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences in Amsterdam, focused on how Institutes of Advanced Study (IASs) should be spatially and organisationally structured in order to foster and promote interdisciplinary exchange, this second workshop looked into the effects of the IAS structure and University-Based Institutes of Advanced Study (UBIAS) on the career dynamics of early career researchers (ECRs). There was also a strong emphasis on the inverse question of the extent to which the career situation and the life circumstances of ECRs allow them to take advantage of the opportunities offered by IASs.

Discussion centred around the following questions: What are the specific (academic and non-academic) needs of young researchers, and how can they best be met? Are fellowships at IASs meaningful tools for promoting early career researchers? How should fellowships ideally be structured and how should they work in relation to the broader structure and orientation of an IAS? What (perhaps problematic) consequences does the IAS system have for the greater academic ecosystem?

While it stands to reason that periods of residence at IASs are on the whole extremely helpful for early career researchers, the current situation of the academic system was nonetheless critically assessed. IASs are often used by ECRs primarily to compensate for an acute lack of time for their own research, which stems from increasing administrative demands on researchers at universities, among other factors. On the other hand, this use of IAS fellowships can lead to problematic feedback effects on the academic system as a whole. These include the further displacement of teaching to fixed-term contracted employees and the danger of a two-tier research landscape emerging between IAS fellows and those "left behind". At this point, the academic, familial and sociocultural obstacles which prevent some ECRs from applying to IASs despite their outstanding academic achievements were emphasised.

In spite of these issues, the workshop reacted positively to the potential of IASs. If IASs develop an awareness of their position in the academic system, as is already often the case, they can play a responsible role both in academia and in the integration of science in society. The workshop participants also came up with several concrete proposals for solutions to strengthen the IAS structure, ranging from criteria for selecting academic and non-academic fellows to preserving the current diversity of IASs and expanding the dialogue between academe and society.

The presently omnipresent call for interdisciplinary research raises the question of what shape a research institute today should take in terms of architecture, space and infrastructure to enable this kind of research. The workshop considered this question both from historical and analytical perspectives. The first panel looked at the history of academic architecture. Since when has it been expected that universities be clearly defined architectural spaces? What efforts toward collaboration between disciplines in the sciences and humanities can we identify in the history of science? The second panel analyzed what requirements are placed on interdisciplinary research and how contemporary architects have attempted to make these possible. Finally, the third panel looked at the epitome of a research institute intended specially for interdisciplinary work: The Institute for Advanced Study. The objective was to use the findings of the first two sections for identifying how an ideal institute for advanced studies would look.

The results of the workshop will serve as the basis for a report that members of Die Junge Akademie will present to Germany’s Advisory Council on the Sciences regarding the current discussion on the future of institutes for advanced study in the country.

Final report (PDF)

In a cultural history of the polymaths from the Renaissance to the present (from Leonardo da Vinci to Umberto Eco), Peter Burke examined the figure of polymath and its survival in an age of specialization. At first glance, it may seem counterintuitive to assume that polymath has managed to overcome the disciplinary borders which have been drawn since the mid-nineteenth century and which structurally manifest themselves in the division of universities into faculties, departments and institutes. Yet, as Peter Burke showed, the species of polymath has continued to exist; and it still does today – despite an undeniable decline.

Peter Burke is Professor Emeritus for Cultural History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College. He is considered one of the most renowned cultural historians worldwide. He has published extensively, most notably on the Italian and European Renaissance as well as on The Fabrication of Louis XIV. More recently, he has focused his research interests on media history and the sociology of knowledge.

Final report (PDF)

The cleft between the sciences and humanities runs both great and small within the individual disciplines. Eva Buddeberg argued that, in terms of both institutions and content, the division of philosophy into “continental” and “analytic” philosophy reflects a similar cleavage. Around the year 1900, sexology even needed elements of diverse cultures to coalesce as a discipline, as Sebastian Matzner demonstrated. Early texts on homosexuality combined different ways of knowing, including scientific and philological ones, among others.

What part does the demarcation into two cultures play in the “crisis of the humanities”? Eva Buddeberg argued that the division within philosophy since the 19th and early 20th century must be understood in the context of philosophy’s decline in significance during the same time, which required a greater amount of self-reflection within the discipline. One might similarly explain, she said, why current considerations of the division between the sciences and humanities are especially prominent among the “crisis-hit” humanities. But are all humanities in crisis today? A closer look at individual disciplines in the humanities does not yield a uniform image of crisis. Instead, distinguishing between research for applied purposes and (seemingly) non-applicational research appears more useful in explaining the legitimacy problem facing some disciplines in the humanities. An analogous picture emerges on the side of the sciences. Among them, the theoretical, non-applied disciplines frequently have it harder, as Albrecht Koschorke demonstrated in his previously circulated text on the “alleged crisis of the humanities” (Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 46/2007, S. 21-25). The division stretches ultimately to the issue of efficient sharing of knowledge among disciplines. How can scholars most successfully pass on the results of their research that are relevant to others? What hurdles of a substantive, methodological or institutional nature can actually be traced back to this dichotomy between the sciences and humanities? The working group affirmed that it will explore these and other questions in greater detail.

The demarcation of the Wissenschaften into two “cultures” as formulated by C. P. Snow (1959) was meant to describe a dichotomy at the levels of objects as well as methods between the “sciences and humanities.” The workshop participants agreed, however, that frequently the cleft between the humanities and sciences is conditioned not exclusively or even primarily by issues of content, but by institutions. This can explain the rivalry between literary scholars and linguists within a department, as well as the good cooperation spanning departments among historians of antiquity and other researchers of those epochs, on which Kai Wiegandt and Christoph Lundgreen reported in their lectures. A similar picture emerged when looking at the origins of the dichotomy between the sciences and humanities in the 19th century (Fabian Krämer): Their institutional separation in Europe’s academies and universities preceded the philosophical contemplation of this contrast.

Besides a (new) interpretation of the “two cultures,” the workshop also brought new insights to light on the interactions between the “cultures.” One relevant and enduring topic is the attractiveness of the (allegedly) objective methods of the sciences to other disciplines (e.g. literary studies), as they promise to add scientific rigor to their work. On the other hand, scientific fields such as esthetics can also be grasped as existing beyond the demarcation of the two cultures. As a scientific criterion, esthetics can be situated in-between the two cultures, as illustrated by the example of mathematics. Attempts at trans-disciplinary esthetics research were already made around the year 1900.

The research group also discussed core themes for further workshops. In the future we will also be looking at the relationship between art and science, and ask under what conditions interdisciplinary collaboration is productive, and under what conditions it is not.