During the orientation phase one week before the start of the semester, the GeistSoz student council will provide you with all the important information about commencing your studies.

In the Karlsruhe Underdogs podcast, EUKLID students Nicolas Novak and Martin Ullmann present an (unknown) historical biography from Karlsruhe's city history every month. The approximately one-hour episodes are published by Campusradio Karlsruhe. The women's rights activist Kunigunde Fischer and the railroad pioneer Emil Kessler have already been presented. Puzzle fans can also try out Novak's Mystery Places, the monthly historical quiz game from Campusradio.

... is the title of the current feature by Stefan Fuchs (ZAK) and Rolf-Ulrich Kunze on the occasion of the Science Year 2024 and the 75th anniversary of the German Constitution in the Campus Report of March 26. In the podcast "Gloomy prospects for the 20s of the 21st century "  the KIT contemporary historian gives an assessment of the prospects for 2024.

From January 11 to 13, an international workshop took place in Berlin, "Krise Europa, Utopie Lateinamerika. Positions of Jewish Writing between the "Old" and "New" World". The workshop was co-organized by Andrea Acle-Kreysing, who gave a lecture on the first German anti-fascist organization in Mexico and its fight against racism and anti-Semitism.

To mark the 82nd anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, the memorial is organizing a panel discussion on the question of what options are available today to counter anti-democratic structures. At the conference on January 21, 2024, Désirée Schauz will join a panel of experts to discuss the topic "From the Weimar Republic to National Socialism: The Failure of the Social Elites".

The round table with representatives from the fields of architecture, architectural history and urban and regional planning will develop perspectives for the refurbishment and extension of historic school buildings in line with conservation requirements. The focus is on two Dortmund school buildings from the decades around 1900, the preservation of which is desirable from both a conservation and ecological perspective. Wolfgang Sonne, TU Dortmund: The cultural-historical dimension using the example of the Kreuzschule monument in Dortmund (1913); Eva Reber, BDA: The conceptual dimension using the example of the study on the extension of Dortmund's Mörike elementary school (1891); Marcus Patrias, BDA: The structural dimension - "Durability in change" - school construction in an almost closed system; Thomas Eltner, TU Dortmund: The social dimension in the interplay of participating institutions, social challenges and political objectives; Moderation: Stefan Poser, Department of History(stefan.poser@kit.edu).

Technical innovations such as the steamship, the use of trawls and cooling with ice led to a new dimension in German deep-sea fishing as early as the 1880s. Ole Sparenberg gives an insight into the origins and problems of industrial fishing on the high seas in the BR podcast series "Alles Geschichte - History von Radiowissen". You can listen to the report via the following link.

A new volume of "Studies on the History of Technology, Work and the Environment" has been published by Waxmann Verlag (Münster) under the title Historical Production Logics of Technical Knowledge. The contributions are dedicated to Helmut Maier on his 65th birthday and address current, interdisciplinary topics in the history of technology, the environment and science.

In MDR's "Past Forward" program, Kurt Möser comments on the speed limit debate from a historical perspective (minutes 15:30 - 20:20).

We are pleased to draw your attention to the anniversary symposium of the German Association of Sports Museums, Archives and Collections (DAGS), which will take place on October 12/13, 2023 in Maulbronn on the topic Organizing Sports. On the history and future of sports clubs and associations in Germany with the participation of KIT (Institute for Sports and Sports Science IfSS). Deadline for registration is 5.10.2023.

Life par excellence, and the most diverse sciences are virtually teeming with errors - and Renate Dürr's lecture would like to take a closer look at some of them. The dates are Monday, 13.11.2023, 9.45 - 11.15h and Monday, 15.1.2024, 9.45 - 11.15h at ZAK, building 01.87.

In the winter semester 2023/24, PD Dr. Désirée Schauz (Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Potsdam) will take over the chair at the Department of History. Schauz holds a PhD from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cologne and was a research fellow at the German Historical Institute London. Her courses in the winter semester are linked here. Welcome!

In her lecture on 14.7.2023, 12 o'clock, Nicole Hesse presents an excerpt from her dissertation, in which she deals with discourses around historical wind energy futures. One result in advance: crises, especially "fossil" energy crises, always lead to taking recourse to wind energy.

The Department congratulates the group of the Schülerakademie Karlsruhe, which under the leadership of Dr. Petra Boschert and Lars Boschert has won the first prize in the "Intermediate" category at the science festival "Effects" with a project on Leonardo da Vinci! Marcus Popplow, as the accompanying scientist, was very impressed by the curiosity and commitment of the group, which can be seen here at work.

"Construction - Deconstruction. Bauingenieure im Krieg" - Uwe Fraunholz, Maximilian Gasch, and Anna Mattern (Dresden) curated the online exhibition of the German Digital Library and will be available for a Q&A session on June 30, 2023, 12 a.m., at the Online Forum History of Technology at Noon at the GTG.

On June 17, 2023, the exhibition The 80s are back starts. It is a large panorama of this key decade. Rolf-Ulrich Kunze has written an introduction to the global-historical framework for the catalog, and his brother Heinz Rudolf Kunze, musician and author, has provided an exhibit for the show.

Would you like to know what the EUKLID degree program is all about and what studying history and philosophy looks like? Then you've come to the right place! Building 30.91, Room 012, 11:00-11:30 h with Silke Zimmer-Merkle. Why not also listen to the event on the elective subject Technology Assessment, which takes place directly afterwards: "Sex Robots, Intimacy, and Ethics: A Case from the Field of Technology Assessment". Ethical sex work with robots - is it possible? In the taster lecture, the elective subject Technology Assessment will give a small taste of the diverse topics of TA research. The lecture language is English, 11:35-12:25 h with Bettina-Johanna Krings and Giovanni Frigo.

For the summer semester we welcome Dr. Andrea Acle-Kreysing as a historian at the Department of History. She holds a PhD from Cambridge and is a former Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow. Her research areas include German-speaking exile in Latin America during the Nazi period and racism and anti-Semitism in the 20th century. Welcome!

Sophia Merkel received the Future Prize of the German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies (DGPuK) for her master's thesis "Nationalization of Childhood through Children's Media in the German Empire" written at the Department of History of KIT. The prize was awarded at the annual meeting of the section on March 30, 2023 in Leipzig. It honors outstanding dissertations and master's theses in the history of communication and is financially supported by the Ludwig Delp Foundation.

It's all about you - on Girls' Day at KIT! In the workshop About female scientists and mathematicians with Renate Dürr, you will get an exciting insight into the life of researchers. For more information, please click on the following link!

Rolf-Ulrich Kunze gave an interview with a group of 9th-graders of the Justus-Knecht-Gymnasium in Bruchsal, who are making a documentary about the triggers and reasons behind the First World War in their history class. Requests of this kind are always welcome at our Department of History!

Thomas Schütz (Stuttgart) presents as part of the GTG's History of Technology at Noon series the topic Everything has its time - the coffee table book as a means of popularization. The online event on Friday, February 10, 2023, begins at 12 noon.

On Wednesday, February 8, 2023, 5:30 p.m., Ole Sparenberg 's inaugural lecture will be on Deep-Sea Mining, ca. 1965-2023. The Protracted and Open Resource Evolution of Manganese Nodules. Location: South Campus - Chemistry Lecture Hall No. 2 (HS2), Building CS 30.41, Fritz-Haber-Weg 2-6.

Based on the text and image material from Kurt Möser's unique book collection, which has been in the Baden State Library since 2021, the exhibition brings to life the fascinating history of early aviation. Exhibition opening is January 31, 2023 at 7 p.m. in the lecture hall of the BLB. The exhibition is a cooperation between the Department of History and the Badische Landesbibliothek.

The student exhibition "Strassbourg - Colmar, Munich" is supported by the KIT
Department of History. The exhibition is located at Schützenstraße 37, Karlsruhe, where, from 8 to 16 December 2022, works by different artists from the creative phases in the sanatorium called "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt" Wiesloch between 1905 - 1927 have been newly discovered and are exhibited for the first time.

As part of a BMBF project, Karlsruhe Scientific Publishing KSP has published the extended new edition of the "Kursbuch Geschichte der europäischen und globalen Moderne. Arbeitsformen, Fragestellungen, Texttypen" by Prof. Rolf-Ulrich Kunze as a free open access ebook and print-on-demand: https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000148814.

At the beginning of the winter semester, the longest-serving historian in the Department of History, Dr. Klaus Eisele, retired. His undergraduate teaching of contemporary history has familiarized generations of history students in Karlsruhe with history as a science and with topics in regional and general contemporary history. Eisele will continue to be associated with the department as an adjunct professor.

In November, the podcast "Robots: The Unknown Knowns" was published by Experimenta in Heilbronn. It illuminates the topic from a technology-historical and contemporary perspective; guest and interview partner was Stefan Poser.

The history of mobility is characterized by fascination and hopes for the future. Kurt Möser's texts collected in this volume show this for automotive mass motorization as well as for amphibious vehicles or electric airships. The volume is available for free download here. It opens the new edition of the "Studies on the History of Technology, Work and the Environment" published by Waxmann Verlag (Münster).

"The Past Futures of Artificial Intelligence, AI Development in German-German Comparison" is the topic of the online lecture by Rebecca Roschy (Dresden) on Friday, November 11, 2022. The event will take place every two weeks during the semester on Fridays from 12:00-13:00 via Zoom. More info at:

On 11.8.2022 SWR2 Wissen broadcasts a documentary on the history of the German national anthem. Rolf-Ulrich Kunze is interviewed by Almut Ochsmann on the aspects of nationalism history.

Water and river engineering through the centuries on the Rhine, Moselle, Neckar, and Murg will be the topic of a conference of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für geschichtliche Landeskunde am Oberrhein (Working Group for Historical Regional Studies on the Upper Rhine), the Department of History of KIT, and others in Mannheim on October 7-8, 2022. The Mannheim conference aims to adopt an interdisciplinary perspective on this topic area in order to bring together the aforementioned aspects of technical, environmental, political, social, and economic history. The program on Friday includes, among others, the lecture by Tilman Wagle; he will present the Murg and its resources as a socionatural setting. The moderator of the evening lecture will be Marcus Popplow .

A statement by Marcus Popplow on whether one can learn from the history of technology can be found in the latest issue of the KIT magazine lookKIT (p. 28/29).

There, "MrWissen2go" Mirko Drotschmann is also introduced, who studied history in Karlsruhe and is now very successful in science communication on YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram (p. 8/9).

Working on the Periphery. Personal Computers and Local Networks in the Swiss Federal Administration, 1980-1995 will be the topic of Mirjam Mayer 's (Zurich) lecture on June 3, beginning at 12 noon. As part of the GTG series History of Technology at Noon, short lectures followed by an exchange of ideas will take place every 14 days. Interested parties are cordially invited!

At the KIT Campus Day next Saturday, May 14, schoolgirls and high school graduates will have the opportunity to get information about the history program EUKLID at our information booth: Researcher Silke Zimmer-Merkle and students of history will answer your questions. Further information about the program can be found here: https://campustag.sle.kit.edu/programm.php.

The KIT Master Fair on June 1 offers BA graduates a lot of information about master studies. Interested persons have the opportunity to get advice and participate in lectures and much more.

In the April 29 edition of "Planet Wissen" (WDR), Rolf-Ulrich Kunze will be the studio guest on the topic of historical genealogy. The program will be broadcast on WDR and SWR both at 10:55 a.m. and is available online.

On April 22, the Gesellschaft für Technikgeschichte (GTG) will start a new round of the popular series Technikgeschichte über Mittag (History of Technology over Lunch): in the online lecture, Luca Thanei (Zurich) will outline the topic "Near-Earth Space. Scarcity of a Resource, 1970-2010." The event is aimed, among others, at chairs and professorships in the field of history of technology and the students there, as well as those interested in the field of history of technology.

On the 50th anniversary of the presentation of the Club of Rome report "Limits to growth" for dpa, including Welt online: https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article237149023/Club-of-Rome-Der-Stand-nach-50-Jahren-Grenzen-des-Wachstums.html; interview for 3Sat Wissen NANO: https://www.3sat.de/wissen/nano/220302-rome-nano-108.html.

On Friday, January 28, 2022, at 12:00 p.m., the online lecture series of the Gesellschaft für Technikgeschichte (GTG) will feature Felix Mauch (Munich) on "Logistical Singapore, 1848-1942. Attempt at an Approach." Interested parties are cordially invited to this history of technology over lunch event!

Rolf-Ulrich Kunze, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the Department of History, has commented in a BNN interview on the current anti-democratic tendencies in German society. He interprets the signs as an alarming "Weimarization" in the middle of society. The article, dated December 28, 2021, is published under the title "Schamgrenzen sinken, Aggressivität steigt", can be read at the following link, access is subject to a fee.

In this context, we would also like to refer to the call for more objectivity in crisis situations of the Alliance of Science Organizations, of which KIT is a member.

Of railroad masters, route runners, and rota leaders. What does it mean and to what end does one study maintenance history? In the online colloquium "History of Technology at Noon" (GTG), Martin Meiske (Munich) will speak on this topic on December 3, 2021, 12 noon. Further information can be found under the following link.

In a segment on Deutschlandfunk radio, Kurt Möser comments on the history of the car as a status symbol. Click here for the podcast link.

On the subject of "The automobile - the first 50 years," Bayerischer Rundfunk broadcast a report on November 22, 2021, under the radioWissen heading. In it, Kurt Möser reports on the technical and practical challenges faced by the automobilists of the first hour.

On the podcast Terra X - History by "Mr. Wissen to go" Mirko Drotschmann, Kurt Möser tells historical stories about "do-it-yourself".

Anniversaries are a central point of reference in our historical culture - but the anniversary itself also has a history. Both are especially true for universities as social elite forges, which derive their prominent function also from their tradition. Academic foundation anniversaries thus refer to central fields of social relevance attributions. This is shown in the newly published anthology "Staged History. Mediality and Politics of European University Anniversaries from 1850 to Today". During an online forum on November 22, 2021 , the editors Anton F. Guhl and Gisela Hürlimann presented the publication. The volume is available for download in PDF format.

In the lecture series 50 Years of Limits to Growth. Perspectives on the Club of Rome Report of 1972, Prof. Dr. Christian Pfister, professor emeritus of economic, social and environmental history at the Institute of History of the University of Bern, will show the actual causes of today's climate emergency. The lecture will take place online on Thursday, January 20, 2022, 16.00-17.30 h in cooperation with ZAK. The full program of the series can be found at the following link.

PD Dr. Gisela Hürlimann has held the W3 professorship for History of Technology and Economics at the Technische Universität Dresden since September 1, 2021. From October 2019 to September 2020, she had represented the professorship of Technological Cultural Studies at the Department of History of KIT and continued teaching here until March 2021. We warmly congratulate her on the new position!

Gisela Hürlimann will continue to be associated with the Department of History here, be it through the joint online lecture series"Technikgeschichte über Mittag" (History of Technology over Lunch), through the anthology"Inszenierte Geschichte / Staging History" (Staged History / Staging History) edited with Dr. Anton F. Guhl and sponsored by the Institut für Technikzukünfte, or through the supervision of student theses.

Vom 17.–19. September 2021 findet die gemeinsame Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Technikgeschichte (GTG) und der Gesellschaft für die Geschichte der Wissenschaften, der Medizin und der Technik (GWMT), organisiert durch das Technische Museum Wien und die Universität Wien statt. Die Tagung ist vollständig online und es ist keine Registrierung erforderlich. Das Department für Geschichte ist mit Marcus Popplow (Vortrag: Im Schatten der Science Fiction. Zur Chronologie und Repräsentativität historischer Technikzukünfte) und Christian Vater (Vortrag: Was messe ich mittels eines Imitationsspiels? – Turings verhaltenszentrierte Metrologie menschlicher Eigenschaften) vertreten. Gisela Hürlimann (TU Dresden) und Philippe Priester (KIT) sprechen über "Schnittstellen, Normen und Verfahren im nutztierlichen Verwertungskomplex während der Hochindustrialisierung". Das Programm mit allen Zeiten und Zoomlinks finden Sie unter https://skalen.univie.ac.at/.

Schon jetzt möchten wir auf eine Veranstaltung aufmerksam machen, deren Initiative und die thematische Ausrichtung auf eine Gruppe fortgeschrittener Studierender im Studienfach Europäische Kultur und Ideengeschichte (EUKLID) und ein Oberseminar zum Club of Rome-Bericht zurückgehen: In der Ringvorlesung "Grenzen des Wachstums", werden das Auseinandertreten von Diskursen und politisch-ökonomische Realität in Fragen des Wachstums und der Umwelt aus interdisziplinärer Perspektive in den Blick genommen. Dabei werden aktuelle umweltpolitische Debatten und aktivistische Perspektiven mit einbezogen. Die Veranstaltung findet Donnerstags, 16–17.30 h, 14-tägig ab 21. Oktober 2021statt und ist eine Kooperation des Department für Geschichte und des ZAK.

Mal haben sie über die großen, mal die kleinen Dinge gestritten, aber gestritten haben sie eigentlich immer. Der Podcast „Lammfromme Streithammel“ aus der Feder von Prof. Renate Dürr setzt unter der Mitwirkung von Max Hagelstein, Frank Heinrich, Christian Langner, Viet Nguyen, Cedric Quintus mittelalterliche Philosophen in Szene. Der Podcast ist noch bis zum 18.7.2021 auf den Seiten des Mittelaltertags der Universität Heidelberg abrufbar.

Im Rahmen der Online-Vortragsreihe der GTG "Technikgeschichte über Mittag" spricht am 30. Juli 2021 Ole Sparenberg über das Thema "‘Tiefseebergbau nach Manganknollen, 1872-2021: Ressourcenwerdung zwischen Technologie, Wirtschaft, Politik und Ökologie". Beginn ist um 12.00 Uhr, koordiniert wird die Veranstaltung von Marcus Popplow (KIT) und Gisela Hürlimann (TU Dresden), Interessierte sind zu dieser einstündigen Mittagsrunde herzlich eingeladen! Informationen zur Anmeldung

Im Rahmen der Online-Vortragsreihe der GTG "Technikgeschichte über Mittag" präsentiert am 02. Juli 2021 Elsbeth Bösl (UniBw München) das Thema "‘Versehrtenfahrzeuge‘ in der DDR". Interessierte sind zu dieser einstündigen Mittagsrunde herzlich eingeladen! Für den Zoom-Zugangslink wenden Sie sich an klaudija.ivok@kit.edu.

Am Freitag, den 21. Mai, 16:00-19:00 Uhr, veranstaltet die Arbeitsgemeinschaft für geschichtliche Landeskunde am Oberrhein in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe das Forum Landesgeschichte. Das Besondere an dieser Auflage des Forums ist, dass es auf einem studentischen Forschungsprojekt basiert, das aus der Lehre am Studiengang EULKID hervorgegangen ist. Es sprechen die Karlsruher Studierenden Nicolas Novak, Nils Osenberg, Alissa Schneider und Martin Ullmann. Beiträge von Marian Füssel (Göttingen) und Anton F. Guhl (Karlsruhe) dienen der weiteren Einordnung des Forschungsprojekts zur Frühgeschichte des 1825 gegründeten Karlsruher Polytechnikums, dem ältesten Vorläufer des heutigen KIT. Das Forum findet als Online-Veranstaltung statt. Anmeldung unter: krimm@ag-landeskunde-oberrhein.de.

On April 23, 2021, the Gesellschaft für Technikgeschichte (GTG) will launch a new online colloquium every two weeks on Fridays from 12:00 to 1:00 pm. Research and publication projects, exhibitions, study programs, teaching concepts or conference plans on the history of technology in German-speaking countries will be presented and discussed together. A short input (15 min.) is followed by an open discussion among the audience (15 min.) and a reaction in dialogue with the presenter (15 min.). The event adresses the chairs and professorships in the field of the history of technology and their students as well as anyone interested in the history of technology.

Zum Jahresanfang ist Anton Guhl an das KIT-Archiv gewechselt, um dort die Ausstellung zum 200. Jubiläum der Vorgängerinstitutionen des KIT 2025 vorzubereiten. Korinna Schönhärl tritt zum Sommersemester eine Vertretungsprofessur für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte an der Universität Paderborn an. Gisela Hürlimann übernimmt ebenfalls zum Sommersemester eine Vertretungsprofessur für Technikgeschichte und Technikwissenschaftsgeschichte an der TU Dresden. Das Department gratuliert Ihnen allen herzlich zu den neuen Positionen, wünscht alles Gute für die vielfältigen neuen Aufgaben und dankt für die schöne und anregende Zeit des gemeinsamen Arbeitens in Karlsruhe!

Zugleich freuen wir uns, dass Uwe Fraunholz von der TU Dresden im Sommersemester die Vertretungsprofessur Technikkulturwissenschaft übernehmen wird, herzlich willkommen!

Ein Statement von Marcus Popplow zu diesem Thema auf der diesjährigen technikhistorischen Tagung des VDI ist auf der Tagungswebsite

https://tagung-technikgeschichte.de/ zugänglich (Session 2).

Am 28.03.2021 bieten die Familienrechtsfachanwältin und Mediatorin Claudia Hohmeister und Prof. Rolf-Ulrich Kunze an der VHS Karlsruhe einen Onlinekurs zur Einführung in die Geschichte der Familie aus systemischer und zeitgeschichtlicher Perspektive an. Es geht um erste Anregungen, die eigene Familiengeschichte mit systemisch-psychologischem sowie historischem Werkzeug zu entdecken, also etwa mit Genogrammarbeit oder der praktischen Frage, wie sich Familiengeschichte schreiben lässt.

Im Juni 2020 fand am Department für Geschichte ein Workshop statt zum Thema "Hochschuljubiläen zwischen Geschichte, Gegenwart und Zukunft". Nun ist auf H-Soz-Kult der Tagungsbericht von Karen Bruhn (Kiel) erschienen. Zurzeit bereiten Anton F. Guhl und Gisela Hürlimann die Veröffentlichung der Beiträge vor.

In zwei neuen Podcasts spricht Christian Vater über Protagonisten in der Geschichte der Künstlichen Intelligenz, darunter Karl Steinbuch. Zudem erklärt er, warum die Erforschung der Geschichte der KI für ihn archäologische Qualitäten hat.

Link zum Podcast "Die Gründerväter der KI machten sich über Bewusstsein keine Gedanken"

Silke Zimmer-Merkle, Technik-Historikerin am Department für Geschichte, hat über das Thema "Geschichte der Assistenzsysteme im Auto" promoviert. Ein Interview mit ihr zum "Hype um selbstfahrende Autos" ist unter dem Titel "Ein frühes Assistenzsystem war der Chauffeur" in der Stadtausgabe der Badischen Neuesten Nachrichten vom 09. Dezember 2020 erschienen, nachzulesen ist es unter dem folgenden Link, der Zugang ist kostenpflichtig.

The new issue of lookKIT, KIT's magazine for research, teaching, and innovation, is dedicated to the topic "Technology Consequences and Technology Visions". It contains an interview with Armin Grunwald and Marcus Popplow on the topic of "Technology Futures". In another article, Kurt Möser reports on mobility utopias yesterday and today.

The volume edited by Paulina Dobroc and Andie Rothenhäusler originates from a conference at KIT and addresses past and present technology futures using case studies and programmatic articles as examples. A contribution by Marcus Popplow discusses the study of technology futures from a technology history perspective.

Das Lastenrad als billiges und schwer zu bewegendes Nutzfahrzeug fuhren zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts in deutschen Städten überwiegend Handwerker oder schlecht bezahlte Tagelöhner. In den folgenden Jahrzehnten verschwand das Lastenrad immer mehr aus dem Stadtbild, verdrängt durch den Siegeszug des Automobils. Die Umweltbewegung in den 1980er Jahren und die Entwicklung von elektrische Hilfsmotoren in jüngster Zeit hat dem Lastenrad einen neuen Aufschwung beschert. Im Gespräch mit den BNN skizziert Marcus Popplow, Technikhistoriker am Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), die Entwicklung des Lastenrades hin zum umweltfreundlichen urbanen Transportmittel. Der Artikel "So wurde das Lastenrad zur trendigen Familienkutsche" vom 27. Juli 2020 kann über den folgenden Link als PDF aufgerufen werden mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Badischen Neuesten Nachrichten.

Link zum Artikel

Der Computer zwingt uns, unseren Alltag an immer neue Techniken mit all ihren Möglichkeiten anzupassen und zwängt uns Menschen in Einheitlichkeit und Vereinheitlichung – diesen Prozess nennen wir auch Digitalisierung. In seinem Online-Vortrag "Digitale Technikzukünfte. Digitalisierung als universelle Kulturtechnik." nimmt Christian Vater, Wissenschaftler am KIT-Department für Geschichte und Technikphilosoph, die Zuschauer mit auf eine Zeitreise von den Anfängen des Rechnens bis hin zu einem Ausblick in die Zukunft der Digitalisierung und Künstlichen Intelligenz. Der Vortrag wurde im Rahmen der Vortragsreihe "Innovationsgeist in der Bildung" des Innovationsnetzwerks Startfeld St. Gallen aufgezeichnet und steht als Video im Netz zur Verfügung.

Die spannende Frage, ob Künstliche Intelligenz Bewusstsein entwickeln kann, erörtert Christian Vater im Podcast #4 der Reihe „Selbstbewusste KI“, nachzuhören über den folgenden Link. Das Gespräch mit Prof. Karsten Wendland, KIT - Institut für Technikfolgenabschätzung und Systemanalyse ITAS, Forschungsgruppe „Digitale Technologien und gesellschaftlicher Wandel“ ist im Rahmen des BMBF-Projektes „Abklärung des Verdachts aufsteigenden Bewusstseins in der Künstlichen Intelligenz (KI-Bewusstsein)“ entstanden.

Liebe EUKLID-Studierende,

herzlich willkommen zurück, unseren „alten Hasen“ und ein herzliches Willkommen am KIT, unseren Erstsemestern. Nun ist es offiziell: das Wintersemester wird ohne Präsenz beginnen. Ob sich für Ihre Veranstaltungen etwas ändert, entnehmen Sie in den nächsten Tagen bitte dem jeweiligen Kurs auf Ilias. Besondere Hinweise zur Begrüßungsveranstaltung für Erstsemester (die nur online wird stattfinden können) und weitere Infos zum Semesterstart für die Erstsemester gibt es auf der EUKLID-Website.

We are surrounded by complex things that operate simultaneously yet are hidden behind interfaces. This is true for the data networks in which we move as well as for autonomous systems that process our data. Smart watches, artificial intelligence, or CRISPR-Cas9 are recent examples of such black boxes, while letterpress printing or even the earliest stone tools are historical ones.

In this interdisciplinary volume, sealing contexts of these black boxes are examined or attempts to open them are presented. The focus of the investigations is on individual case studies on the basis of which theoretical investigation tools are tested. Theoretical impulses come from science and technology studies and media studies, are inspired by the material culture turn, but also by (digital) phenomenology and hermeneutics. Thirteen contributions in four sections map the field in an exemplary manner; these are embedded and rounded off by four responses and a supplementary contribution on the history of ideas of automata. The volume thus provides an overview of current technology research in Germany using the example of the black box, but grounding it in the history of the discussion.

Eckhard Geitz, University of Freiburg; Christian Vater, KIT Karlsruhe/University of Heidelberg; Silke Zimmer-Merkle, KIT Karlsruhe (eds.).

Unter dem Titel "Tax Compliance: historische Entwicklungen, rechtliche Grenzen und zukünftige Herausforderungen" hält Prof. Dr. Alfons Weichenrieder (Goethe-Universität und Leibniz-Institut SAFE) einen Impulsvortrag mit dem Thema "Steuermoral, Steueroasen und der schmale Grat zwischen Steuergestaltung und -hinterziehung”. Die anschließende Podiumsdiskussion fragt unter anderem nach dem Einfluss von Steueroasen auf die internationale Steuerplanung und Steuerhinterziehung. Inwiefern kann internationaler Informationsaustausch die Compliance erhöhen und Steuergestaltungen eindämmen? Es diskutieren: Uwe Eppler (Norton Rose Fulbright), Christine Osterloh-Konrad (Universität Tübingen), Korinna Schönhärl (KIT Karlsruhe) und Alfons Weichenrieder (Goethe-Universität und Leibniz-Institut SAFE). Moderiert wird die Veranstaltung von René Höltschi (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). Veranstalter ist das Institut für Bank- und Finanzgeschichte e.V. (IBF).
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The supply of mineral resources came back into the headlines a few years ago, especially in the context of rare earth metals and their emphasis for high-tech applications and the energy transition.

The contributions to this special issue in the series 'European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire' (vol. 27, issue 3),edited by Ole Sparenberg (Karlsruhe) and Matthias Heymann (Aarhus ), deliberately bring together case studies from different time periods from the early 19th century to the late 20th century and different regions as well as national, transnational and international levels. All contributions focus on notions of scarce and critical resources, asking how and by which actors scarcity or criticality was determined and negotiated, which interests and contexts influenced notions of resource scarcity, to what extent actors instrumentalized resource scarcity, and how notions of scarce and critical resources were linked to broader political, social, scientific, and environmental notions.

Am 18. Juli verstarb in seiner Heimatstadt Köln der langjährige und prägende Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Neuere und neueste Geschichte am Institut für Geschichte der Universität Fridericiana zu Karlsruhe (TH). Lill führte die Tradition von Franz Schnabel weiter und entwickelte die Karlsruher Geschichte zu einer besonderen Verbindung von politischer Neuzeit- und Technikgeschichte, in deren Tradition das Department für Geschichte steht.

Zum 75. Mal jähren sich die Atombombenabwürfe vom 06. und 09. August 1945 über Hiroshima und Nagasaki. Im Gespräch mit der BNN weist Rolf-Ulrich Kunze, Professor für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte am KIT, auf die ethische Dauerverpflichtung Forschender zur Reflexion über den Einsatz von Massenvernichtungswaffen hin. Der Artikel „Das Ausmaß des Grauens in Hiroshima ist nicht vorstellbar” ist am 03. August 2020 erschienen und über den folgenden Link nachzulesen.

Hardly any other topic shapes the current political debate as much as nationalism. In his new book "Nationalism Illusions and Realities", Prof. Dr. Rolf-Ulrich Kunze deals with nationalism, explaining its historical conceptual and functional history, different types of nationalism theories, and the connection between nationalism and religion. Nationalism aims at identity, at emotionality. That is why Karl Wolfgang Deutsch speaks of nationalist thinking as an "epistemological catastrophe". Nationalism makes blind for the difficult and gray-stepped reality, because it creates new realities and simple, black and white relations. The nationalist world breaks down into us and them, good and evil. On the one hand, the nationalist-generated imagined community enables tremendous and violent achievements in war and peace; on the other hand, it is neither politically nor emotionally controllable - although all nationalists assume it is. Escalation is inscribed in it. Nationalism is a dangerous temptation for politics because it seems to open up an easily won resource. It offers boundless acceptance for many things that cannot be pushed through in the lowlands of laborious everyday negotiation.