Technische Intelligenz im Exil. Zum Einfluß emigrierter deutschsprachiger Ingenieure auf die Ingenieurwissenschaften in Großbritannien 1933 bis 1945

This article deals with the emigration and the experiences of the professional group of engineers in their British exile, trying to evaluate the influences these refugee engineers had on the British engineering science. The approach is not limited to engineering research at universities or technical colleges, but tries to include the aspect of research and development on the level of the firm. Limits and constraints of gaining influence in British engineering are discussed, such as different values and traditions as well as the different traditions in technical education and the role of the engineering graduate in industry. Finally attempts are made to establish some fields of engineering where an identifiable influence can be traced without exaggerating the general influence of these German speaking refugee engineers. Those identifiable fields are machine tools, fuel technology and district heating.     

Zwei oder drei Dinge, die ich von der Technikphilosophie weiss

Nearby a somehow “official“ philosophy of technique, works have appeared in recent German literature where different techniques are studied according a renewed philosophical agenda about their concrete historical development. Once 19th Century German philosophy of technique briefly sketched, a sample from this recent production is considered. Surprisingly, they are meeting current literary studies and cultural history.     

Introduction to Relations in Multicultural Fiji: The Dynamics of Articulations,Transformations and Positionings

Focussing on three historically constituted domains of relations of great importance to all inhabitants of the Fiji Islands, this essay draws attention to cultural modalities and political strategies implicated in shaping these. By way of introduction to six papers which together with this preface and an epilogue are presented in the form of a collection, we distinguish three domains of relations: those between past and present; those between people and land; and (not least) those between people. We argue that social actors in Fiji reflect on and deal with such relations in all of which they are simultaneously embodied, i.e. they articulate, transform and position these relations with a view to shaping their identity and place in today's multicultural (and indeed intercultural) Fiji. We conclude that there operates a complex of dialectical processes: while social actors work on relations that exert influence on them, there is also a dynamic in play between articulations, transformations and positionings of relations.     

European solidarity: a semantic history

Abstract

‘European solidarity’ is one of the most frequently used words in contemporary public discourse, but what does it mean? This article investigates the historical and semantic background of the term in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish since the French Revolution, when ‘solidarity’ became a political keyword for the first time in European history. With the founding of the Holy Alliance in 1815 the idea of ‘European solidarity’ as an instrument for achieving political order on the continent emerged. A historical longitudinal analysis via the Ngram Viewer reveals that the frequency of ‘solidarity’ follows or depends on certain crisis moments in history, such as revolutions, wars or economic troubles. ‘Solidarity’ belongs to the history of emotions and propaganda but is not a stable value system that consolidates political culture. It also seems to play a greater role in the national rather than in the European context. As a European political expression, ‘solidarity’ is not genuinely European but borrowed from the national political vocabulary. Moreover, the article outlines the semantic field of ‘European solidarity’ by showing linkages between ‘solidarity’ and other words.     

The Politics of Incorporation: Masculinity,Spatiality and Modernity among the Ngaing of Papua New Guinea

In this paper I argue that the way in which masculinity and spatiality are reconstituted among the Ngaing men of Madang Province (Papua New Guinea) is pivotally implicated in how they articulate their ongoing claim to incorporation in modernity. The manner in which they strive for progress is indicative of identifications coupling Christianity and whiteness with the hope of redemption from a condition of blackness, inferiority and marginality. With the help of recent discourses and secret ritual practices, in which Christian components combine with local cultural patterns, the men make clear that indigenous participation in modernity is prefigured on the inside of external manifestations of body and space. This discursive and ritual empowerment of the men rests on a culturally specific construction of the inside and the outside in which the knowledge, power and mobility possessed by whites are construed as an integral part of the local world.