Activities
March 1. - 3, 2023
International and interdisciplinary Conference: The Social Life of Knowledge Infrastructures: Expert Groups, Social Networks, and Imagined Communities
The CITAS-funded research network “Knowledge Infrastructures (KNOW-IN” is pleased to announce its international and interdisciplinary conference titled "The Social Life of Knowledge Infrastructures: Expert Groups, Social Networks, and Imagined Communities." The event takes place at the IOS (altes Finanzamt, room 319) from March 1–3, 2023.
The conference builds on the collaborative research the KNOW-IN network members have conducted in the past three years. It constitutes an academic ‘contact zone’ that brings together the knowledges emerging from the different disciplinary perspectives, institutional affiliations, and cultural backgrounds represented by the network members. It features presentations by members and affiliates of the research network and keynote lectures by international scholars who will offer additional insights into the conference topic and contribute impulses for discussion.
The event starts with an opening night on March 1, featuring a keynote lecture by Prof. Julie Kleinman, associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Fordham University in New York and author of the seminal study Adventure Capital: Migration and the Making of an African Hub in Paris (U of California Press, 2019).
The full conference program is available for download here.
If you are interested in attending the full conference or selected sessions of the event, please register via email with the conference organizers Dr. Carmen Dexl (American Studies): carmen.dexl@ur.de and Dr. Christian Reiss (History of Science): christian.reiss@psk.uni-regensburg.de!
Further keynote speakers include:
Emily Brownell Ph.D. (Lecturer in Environmental History at the University of Edinburgh, UK)
Dr. Nils Güttler (Assistant professor, History of Science, University of Vienna, Austria)
Dr. Dominik Hünniger (Research associate, DFG-Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe "Imaginaria of Force", University of Hamburg)
Workshops and Events
May 4, 2020:
official launch presentation of the two CITAS research networks
August 24, 2020:
KNOW-IN I: Kick-off Workshop
- Conceputal work
- Presentations and discussion of presentations by network members in three thematic blocks
- Block I: “Literary, Linguistic, Cultural Knowledge Infrastructures”
- Bock II: “Infrastructural Entanglements & Cross-border Exchange”
- Block III: “Scientific and Technological Infrastructures and the Production of Knowledge Regimes”
July 1 and 2, 2021:
KNOW-IN II: Exploring Trans/Regionality. The Workings of Infrastructures and the Production of Knowledge
- Conceputal work
- Input and critical feedback by three experts: Dr. Nils Güttler (ETH Zurich), Prof. Dr. Anna Steigemann (University of Regensburg), Dr. Dominik Hünniger (University of Hamburg)
- Presentations and discussion of presentations by network members in three thematic clusters:
- Block I: “Nature Technologies as Knowledge Infrastructures”
- Bock II: “Urban and Institutional Infrastructures”
- Block III: “Literary and Cultural Infrastructures”
July 1, 2021:
Special Event: Lecture by Prof. Dr. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (University of Bayreuth): “The Cognitive Empire and Coloniality of Knowledge in Africa” – event cooperation between KNOW IN, the research colloquium of the Leibniz ScienceCampus Regensburg Europe and America in the Modern World and the Graduate School for Eastern and South Eastern European Studies (GS OSESUR).
July 6, 2022:
Guest Lecture by Dr. Kristine Palmieri (Chicago/Halle): “An Archaeology of Texts and a Philology of Things: Christian Gottlob Heyne and die Wissenschaft des Alterthums in Eighteenth-Century Germany” – in cooperation with the Chair for History of Science, University of Regensburg
July 14 and 15, 2022
KNOW IN Workshop III: Exploring Practices of Infrastructuring
- Conceptual work with a focus on notions of infrastructure and practices of infrastructuring
- Presentations and discussion of presentations by network members and affiliates in two thematic blocks:
- Block I: “Exploring Infrastructuring and its Effects”
- Block II: “Exploring Concepts of Infrastructures”
Members
Coordinators
Dr. Carmen Dexl – Assistant Professor at the Chair of American Studies, Universität Regensburg
Dr. Christian Reiß – Assistant Professor at the Professorship for the History of Science, Universität Regensburg
Members
Dr. Nils Bennemann – Assistant Professor at the Chair of Social- and Economic History, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
Dr. Ákos Bitter – Assistant Professor at the Research Center for German in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Universität Regensburg.
Dr. Luminita Gatejel – Senior Researcher at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg.
Prof. Dr. Antje Kley – Chair of American Studies, esp. Literary Studies, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Julia Maier M.A. – PhD candidate at the Chair of Romance and Comparative Literatures, Universität Potsdam.
Dr. Frederic Ponten – Assistant Professor at the Chair of Modern German Literature, Universität Regensburg
Xiyue Wang M.A. – PhD candidate in the History Department, Princeton University.
Prof. Dr. Roland Wittje – Associate Professor in History of Science and Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras in Chennai, India.
Past Events
Kick-Off Workshop KNOW-IN, 24.08.2020, online
Introduction:
Carmen Dexl & Christian Reiß (UR): Knowledge Infrastructures: Circulation, Transfer and Translation of Knowledge across Borders
Panel I “Literary, linguistic, cultural, (implicit) knowledge infrastructures”
Chair: Carmen Dexl
Frederic Ponten (UR): Literary Infrastructures of Cosmopolitanism in 18th Century Germany
Ákos Bitter (UR): Transfers and circulations of Knowledge between Central Europe and Russia in the First Half of the 19th century - the Example of Ignaz Aurelius Feßler (1756‐1839)
Antje Kley (FAU): Being Mortal: Literary and Medical Infrastructures of Knowledge Production around Death
Panel II “Infrastructural entanglements & cross-border exchange”
Chair: Frederic Ponten
Carmen Dexl (UR): Black Performance Culture in Interwar Europe: The Infrastructures of Transnational Modernism and the Production of Embodied Knowledge
Roland Wittje (IIT Madras): Transnational Scientific and Technological exchanges and entanglements between India and Germany after 1945
Christian Reiß (UR): Oysters, Dams and Forests – the History of Ecology in the early 20th century as an Infrastructural History
Panel III “Scientific and technological infrastructures and the production of knowledge regimes”
Chair: Christian Reiß
Nils Bennemann (UDE): International Organizations as Knowledge Regimes: Practices and Networks
Luminita Gatejel (IOS): Engineering the Lower Danube: Technology and Territoriality in an Imperial Borderland
Concluding discussion and outlook
Workshop KNOW-IN II:
Exploring Trans/Regionality: The Workings of Infrastructures and the Production of Knowledge
July 1–2, 2021, on Zoom
BLOCK I: NATURE TECHNOLOGIES AS KNOWLEDGE INFRASTRUCTURES
- Expert Input: Dr. Nils Güttler (ETH Zürich)
- Dr. Nils Bennemann (Universität Duisburg-Essen): The Rhine as Actor in its own History of Knowledge
- Dr. Christian Reiss (Universität Regensburg): The Hedge. A Transregional History of a Natural Infrastructure and its Knowledges
- Dr. Luminita Gatejel (Leibniz-Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung, IOS, Regensburg): The River as Infrastructure: Hydraulic Engineering on the Lower Danube in the Nineteenth Century
BLOCK II: URBAN AND INSTITUTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURES
- Expert Input: Prof. Dr. Anna Steigemann (Universität Regensburg)
- Prof. Dr. Roland Wittje (Indian Institute of Technology Madras): Technical and Scientific Education as Infrastructure: The Indo-German Collaboration at IIT Madras during the Cold War
- Dr. Carmen Dexl (Universität Regensburg): Black Performance Culture in Interwar Paris and the Infrastructures of Modernist Entertainment
SPECIAL EVENT: GUEST LECTURE (ON ZOOM)
Prof. Dr. Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Universität Bayreuth): The Cognitive Empire and Coloniality of Knowledge in Africa
A guest lecture in collaboration with the Research Colloquium of the Leibniz ScienceCampus "Europe and America in the Modern World" and the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies (GS OSESUR)
BLOCK III: LITERARY & CULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURES
- Expert Input: Dr. Dominik Hünniger (Universität Hamburg)
- Prof. Dr. Antje Kley (Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg): Literary and Medical Infrastructures of Knowledge Production around Death: Being Mortal in Paul Kalanithi’s Autopathography When Breath Becomes Air (2016)
- Dr. Ákos Bitter (Universität Regensburg): Becoming an Universalgelehrter at the center of the Habsburg Monarchy before the French Revolution. Infrastructures of Knowledge Dissemination in the Early Life of Ignaz Aurelius Feßler (1756–1839)
- Dr. Frederic Ponten (Universität Regensburg): Trans-Imperial Infrastructures of German Literature and the Publication of Johann Gottlieb Herder’s Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784–1791)
Workshop KNOW IN III:
Exploring Practices of Infrastructuring
July 14–15, 2022, on campus, CITAS
WELCOME & INTRODUCTION: Dr. Carmen Dexl & Dr. Christian Reiss
BLOCK I: EXPLORING INFRASTRUCTURING AND ITS EFFECTS
- Dr. Christian Reiss (Universität Regensburg): "Infrastructuring Nature: The Development of Ecology as an Administrative Sciences across Borders, 1900–1933."
- Dr. Carmen Dexl (Universität Regensburg): "Infrastructuring Urban Space: Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith and the Cabaret Culture of Jazz Age Paris"
- Prof. Dr. Roland Wittje (Indian Institute of Technology Madras): "Circulating Technical and Scientific Knowledge, People and Objects After 1945"
BLOCK II: EXPLORING CONCEPTS OF INFRASTRUCTURES
- Dr. Sven Jaros (Leibniz-Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung, IOS, Regensburg): "Die Fülle der Zeit. Der internationale Diskurs um die politische Neuordnung des östlichen Europas zwischen Utopie und Realpolitik, ca. 1914–1919"
- Dr. Frederic Ponten (Universität Regensburg): "Trans-Imperial Infrastructures of German Literature and the Publication of Johann Gottlieb Herder’s Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784–1791)"
- Dr. Ákos Bitter (Universität Regensburg): "Ignaz Aurelius Feßlers Wissensinfrastrukturen im Hinblick auf seine Sprachen"
SUMMARY OF RESULTS – NEXT NETWORK EVENTS & PLANS: Dr. Carmen Dexl & Dr. Christian Reiss
