Congratulations to Jana Ilnicka on winning the university award for her dissertation

Jana Ilnicka is the first winner of ‚Promotionspreis‘ at the University of Erfurt. In her Dissertation Jana Ilnicka worked on new found Manuscripts of Meister Eckhart and the concept of ‚Relatio‘. Her Dissertation was awarded with the ‚Promotionspreis‘ – Congratulations!

For more infomation:


Sarah Al-Taher presents a working paper on ‚Meister Eckhart – a second Socrates?‘

In this paper I compare (the platonic) Socrates with Meister Eckhart regarding four comparative criteria. First I describe their life from the perspective of the circumstances surrounding the end of their lives. Second I describe a central aspect of both philosophies. The unity with the good in the concept of Plato, and the unity with God in the concept of Eckhart. This leads to the third step, in which I analyse the way both Plato und Meister Eckhart pursue in order to reach their goals: the unity with good or God. And lastly, I turn to the methodology used by Plato und Eckhart to convey their way of knowledge.
These procedure allows to give a first answer to the question whether Meister Eckhart can be understood as a second Socrates.

A Workshop is taking place at the Max Weber Kolleg on „Geschichten und Legenden um Meister Eckhart“

Within the Meister Eckhart Tage in Erfurt the Max Weber Kolleg offers a Workshop:

For more Information please see the following link:

https://aktuell.uni-erfurt.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/FlyerLegendenWorkshopEckhart_2019.pdf

Carsten Hermann-Pilath gives an interview on ‚On the Art of Co-Creation: A Contribution to the Philosophy of Ecological Economics‘ at the 13th international conference of the european society for ecological economics (ESEE)

Hermann-Pilath gives a Key note Lecture:ESEE 2019 | CO-CREATION – MAKING ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS MATTER, Turku, Finland, June 18-21 2019

Today, the status of science in society is increasingly contested. One reason is immanent to science: Facing hypercomplex systems and ‘wicked problems’, science cannot provide an unequivocal and binding basis for action and policy design. This problem is especially pronounced in systemic contexts in which epistemic subjects and objects are entangled in a co-creative relationship, as in the economy, which is the core driver of climate change, in turn. I argue that in these contexts, ‘art’ becomes an epistemic mode on equal status with ‘science’ conventionally understood: Art is the science of co-creation. This argument builds on the philosophy of post-Kantian German idealism and its intellectual metamorphoses, such as in American pragmatism. I discuss the essentials of this view, present examples from the field of Ecological Economics and draw practical conclusions for method.

In the Interview Herrmann-Pillath discusses the role of co-creation in designing sustainable economies by taking into account the interests of non-humans.

To see the Interview please follow this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIlBsaIQTss&feature=youtu.be

Ramón Soneira Martínez is going to present a working paper on ‚Repulsion and religious indifference: connections between unbelief and resonance theory‘

The second chapter of my dissertation deals with the Resonanztheorie of Hartmut Rosa. The chapter has two main parts. The first one is focused on the analyses of religious practices using the theoretical background of the theory of resonance. The second one develops the possible connection between the term unbelief and the Resonanztheorie. The main idea is that the framework of the theory of Resonanz can be an interesting tool to analyse the complexity of the phenomena related to unbelief as deconversion, blasphemy or atheism not only nowadays but also in other historical contexts. To conclude this paper, I introduce briefly the possibility of this study of unbelief considering the Resonanztheorie in antiquity, especially in Classical Athens.

Tiziana Faitini presents a working paper on ‚Officium and professional duty. Exploring a semantic field‘

This paper is intended as a contribution to the analysis of the
semantic field of “professional duty”. It will partially explore
various layers of meaning of the polysemic concept of officium
(which can be translated as “duty”, “service” or “office”), from
Late Antiquity to the Early Modern period, in a number of Latin
and Italian sources. In doing so, it will suggest that the
reelaboration of the concept of the officium is a condition of
possibility of the very concept of “professional duty” in itself, and,
for this reason, an essential step in the process of valorizing work
and the professions ethically. An analysis of this reelaboration can
thus serve to provide important insights into the genealogy of the
multifaceted valorization of work and professions.

Juhi Tyagi presented a working paper on ‚Workers leverage in peasant movements: how coal mine workers sustained a radical peasant struggle in India‘

I argue that industrial workers can become central to and support radical networks of the poor through utilizing the structural power that workers possess. That is, workers have the ability to interrupt production, causing a crisis of profitability for the capitalist. Landless and marginal peasants dont enjoy the same types of leverage. Workers are hence best situated to support the sustenance of radical organizations among peasants through being able to function autonomously, even during repression, by solidifying cross- caste unity through workspace organizations and through their involvement of women in the townships. The constant interaction of workers with the peasants, as well as coal unions own organizational choices, cross cutting usual divisions between geographical areas— partly the result of the structure of the workplace itself—I find, led to the creation of abeyant radical structures in the villages.

Trang Nguyen gives a working paper on ‚New sub-cultural perspective on ethnicity and illegal markets‘

This project is based on an ethnographic case study on the open illegal cigarette market in Berlin dominated by Vietnamese migrants. It starts from the working hypothesis which argues that there may be different sub-groups within an ethnic community with distinct normative systems, that these sub-normative systems are emergent during the migration process rather than imported, and that they influence the decision to engage in criminal activity in different ways.
The findings are expected to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between crime and ethnicity: whether crime is the problem of the ethnic minority or of the new cultural system of a sub-group which has evolved as part of the migration experience.

An International Conference is taking place at the Max Weber Kolleg on ‚The Shadow Side of Gratitude‘

The Conference takes place from 3-5 July

The aim of the interdisciplinary conference “The Shadow Side of Gratitude” is to bring together experts from a range of fields to examine the potentially darker side of this everyday social emotion and valued human excellence.

In recent years there has been growing academic interest in the topic of gratitude, in psychology, philosophy and education, amongst other fields. Psychologists have examined the role of gratitude in promoting wellbeing and fostering good social relationships. Philosophers have pondered the conceptual contours of gratitude and have debated whether gratitude is always a virtue, while educationalists have looked at whether and how gratitude should be fostered in the young.

While many experiences of gratitude are life-affirming, the concept may not be as straightforwardly positive as many people have assumed. It is not uncommon for gratitude to be experienced with mixed emotions, such as embarrassment, shame and guilt. Beneficiaries may be suspicious of benefactors’ motivations in bestowing favours, gifts and compliments which could serve an ulterior purpose. It could be argued that gratitude to benefactors serves to keep marginalised groups in their place, and that cultivating gratitude makes a virtue out of an unwanted dependence on others.

For more information:

https://www.uni-erfurt.de/max-weber-kolleg/forschungsgruppen-und-stellen/forschungsgruppen/mwk-fellows/events/conference/


„Towards a History of the Term ‚Racism'“ – Nathan Alexander introduces his current research project at the Max Weber Kolleg

For more information please read the article by Nathan Alexander:
http://monitoracism.eu/towards-a-history-of-the-term-racism/