“History had taken such a large piece out of my life” — Neuroscientist refugees from Hamburg during National Socialism

ABSTRACT

Approximately 9,000 physicians were uprooted for so-called “racial” or “political” reasons by the Nazi regime and 6,000 fled Germany. These refugees are often seen as survivors who contributed to a “brain drain” from Germany. About 432 doctors (all specialties, private and academic) were dismissed from the major German city of Hamburg. Of these, 16 were Hamburg University faculty members dismissed from their government-supported positions for “racial” reasons, and, of these, five were neuroscientists. In a critical analysis, not comprehensively done previously, we will demonstrate that the brain drain did not equal a “brain gain.” The annihilation of these five neuroscientists’ careers under different but similar auspices, their shameful harassment and incarceration, financial expropriation by Nazi ransom techniques, forced migration, and roadblocks once reaching destination countries stalled and set back any hopes of research and quickly continuing once-promising careers. A major continuing challenge is finding ways to repair an open wound and obvious vacuum in the German neuroscience community created by the largely collective persecution of colleagues 80 years ago.     

The US Debtfare State and the Credit Card Industry: Forging Spaces of Dispossession

Abstract: Credit card debt is a ubiquitous feature of neoliberal capitalism. To explain the notable growth of credit card usage in the US, I adopt a historical materialist approach that employs two key analytical concepts—cannibalistic capitalism and the debtfare state—to capture the material, institutional and ideological dimensions of this process. Viewed within the bounds of cannibalistic capitalism, a mode of accumulation primarily based on the expansion of fictitious capital and secondary forms of exploitation, the debtfare state enhances the social power of money by allowing major credit card issuers (banks) to generate high levels of income from uncapped interest rates and policies that ensure the extension of plastic money to those who fall within Marx's category of the surplus population. While the expansion of debt subjects surplus workers to the disciplinary requirements of the market, it is unable to suspend the main tensions of cannibalistic capitalism, prompting ongoing reconstructions of the debtfare state.     

On the Sexagenary Cycle of the Tibetans

This study examines Zuozhuan narrative accounts that conclude with evaluations ascribed to the “Gentleman” (junzi 君子). The Zuozhuan is one of the earliest extant Chinese works of narrative history, and in the past many scholars assumed that narrative accounts formed its core, dismissing subjective evaluations of those accounts, such as the Gentleman's comments, as secondary, later additions. This study demonstrates that narrative account plus Gentleman judgment function together as a unit, contending that these units were likely introduced into the Zuozhuan as such. It further proposes that the perception that the Gentleman's concluding comments were later, independent additions was likely influenced by the practice of capping narrative accounts with quotations borrowed from other sources, and furthermore, suggests that this perception may have led compilers on occasion to insert material between the narrative accounts and the Gentleman's evaluations of them.     

A Palaeolithic fishhook made of ivory and the earliest fishhook tradition in Europe

Prehistoric fishhooks have previously been described in northern Europe as being common since the Mesolithic. Here we present a Final Palaeolithic ivory fishhook from the site Wustermark 22 (north-eastern Germany), the raw material of which is about 19,000 years old. Five further fishhooks were discovered in situ at the same site one of which has a calibrated radiocarbon age of about 12,300 years. The tool industries of flint artefacts and bone/antler tools are associated with descendants of the Federmesser-culture and the palynological context indicates a Younger Dryas environment. Wustermark 22 represents the largest collection of Palaeolithic fishhooks so far found at a single European site. A comparison with other sites in Europe, containing Palaeolithic fishhooks suggests that the appearance and development of fishhooks may be associated with a general change in resource availability during the Greenland Interstadial 1 (Bølling/Allerød warming), which is also connected with a change from late Upper Palaeolithic to Final Palaeolithic industries in Northern Central Europe. We conclude that Mesolithic fishhook tradition has its roots in the Final Palaeolithic.     

Kinship and mobility in 11th-century A.D. Gammertingen,Germany: an interdisciplinary approach

Excavation in and around a Medieval church in Gammertingen, Germany, revealed the skeletal remains of eight individuals dating to the 10th and 11th century AD. Archaeologists hypothesized that the individuals were the first members of a family later known as the Counts of Gammertingen, a medieval high nobility family. In an interdisciplinary approach, Strontium isotope and ancient DNA techniques were performed in order to test the hypothesis that the church was used as a family burial site and to investigate the provenance of family members. Seven of the eight individuals can be placed in a three-generation genealogy. The isotope analyses establish that the eighth individual had a different birthplace and possibly became a member of the Counts of Gammertingen through marriage. Further, genetic data revealed that distant relatives of the paternal lineage are still present in this area today. Thus, the combined results lead to a very detailed knowledge about a 1000-year old noble family.