Neues zur Politik und Poetik der Restauration : Anna-Lisa Dieters Analyse der „Entstehung des Realismus“ in den frühen Romanen Stendhals

in Literaturkritik.de (2020)

Compte rendu de Henrich-Franke, Christian; Hiepel, Claudia; Thiemeyer, Guido; Türk, Henning, Grenzüberschreitende institutionalisierte Zusammenarbeit von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart

in H-Soz-u-Kult (2020)

Reading the history of society through the lens of a history of sexuality

in Andererseits: yearbook of transatlantic German studies (2020), 7/8(2018/2019), 393-396

Book review: Marguerite Figeac-Monthus (Hg.), Éducation et culture matérielle en France et en Europe du XVIe siècle à nos jours (Didactiques des lettres et des cultures, 5), Paris 2018.

in Francia-Recensio (2020), 2

Evoluzioni e involuzioni del diritto del lavoro europeo nel prisma di due trattazioni recenti

in Lavoro Diritti Europa (2020), 1

Compte rendu de C. Devaux, La fabrique du droit du commerce international - Reguler les risques de capture

in Revue Critique de Droit International Privé (2020), (1), 193

Rezension von: Europäische Messegeschichte 9.–19. Jahrhundert, hg. von Markus A. Denzel. Böhlau, Köln–Weimar–Wien 2018. 434 S. ISBN 978-3-412-50794-7

in Mitteilungen des Instituts für Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung (2020), 128(1), 174-176

Review of Elizabeth Guffey (2018): Designing Disability: Symbols, Space and Society. London: Bloomsbury.

in Design Issues (2020), 36(1), 100-101

In her pathbreaking book Designing Disability: Symbols, Space and Society, Elizabeth Guffey provides vital insights into decades of social and design processes that ultimately produced the most ubiquitous ... [more ▼]

In her pathbreaking book Designing Disability: Symbols, Space and Society, Elizabeth Guffey provides vital insights into decades of social and design processes that ultimately produced the most ubiquitous symbol of disability—and accessibility—worldwide: The International Symbol of Access (ISA). Building on existing scholarship from a range of disciplines coupled with original historical research, this book uncovers the origins and evolving (largely transatlantic) architectural and design discourse, and several moments of serendipity, that led to its creation. The ISA has since diffused to become part of the built environment in all corners of the world. Richly illustrated and charting at times vitriolic debates, protest activities, and artistic interventions up to the contemporary era, Guffey weaves together activist and aesthetic perspectives into a tapestry of social and design history relating to disability and accessibility. Structured in historical phases, the book’s chapters progress across larger and shorter stretches over more than a century of wheelchair design, social and welfare policies and programs (mostly in the US, UK, and Scandinavia), architectural standards, and symbols relating to barriers and accessibility measures. Guffey engages the reader in what is necessarily a multidisciplinary, multilevel investigation, with unexpected twists and turns. On one level, the book focuses on the politics of highest office, with US Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower (who permanently or temporarily used wheelchairs) sketched against the backdrop of the lack of accessible government buildings in Washington, DC, and the social consensus then to hide impairment for fear of stigmatization (shifted marginally by disabled Veterans). On another level, welfare state provisions in the US, UK, and Scandinavia are discussed in light of progressive legislation and the persistent challenges of implementation. Finally, at ground level, the utmost significance of individuals devoted to universal design writ large becomes manifestly evident. Guffey recounts how, in US universities, inspirational figures such as Timothy Nugent (at Illinois), Ron Mace (at North Carolina State), and Viktor Papanek (at Purdue, CalArts, Kansas, etc.), campus planners, and students designed and constructed new worlds on the drawing board and poured in concrete. We follow design professionals, such as architect Selwyn Goldsmith in the UK, who was a strident arbiter of accessibility. Academic initiatives went hand-in-fist with advocacy activities in organizations and protest and artistic actions in the streets. Indeed, to raise general awareness of the ever-present attitudinal and structural barriers—institutionalized discrimination—that disabled people face daily and to secure disability rights, disability protests and cross-national organizing have repeatedly been necessary. The long and bumpy road to universal design extends into the future. Integral to this history of design development, revision, and critiques of various symbols of disability have been international events (world expositions, Olympics & Paralympics) and organizations (Rehabilitation International), artistic inspiration, design competitions, and guerilla art interventions. Tracing the convoluted process of designing what would become the ISA—fifty years ago now—leads to Susanne Koefoed, a Danish design student, and Karl Montan, leader of the Swedish Institute for the Handicapped, but also to international negotiations and chance. The on-going questioning of the official ISA, especially, its “misfit” nature as an amalgam of technical aid and person, emphasizes the shift from invisibility to ubiquity of disability via social change and political activism as well as cultural representations and the need for signs of identity. In the new century, newer initiatives in the US, such as Brendan Murphy’s and the Accessible Icon Project (developed by Sara Hendren and Brian Glenney), have challenged the official ISA, revealing both persistence and change in understandings of disability and accessibility. When integrated into signage, the ISA designates accessible spaces and facilities. If the ISA has become present in public buildings and spaces everywhere, cultural notions of disability and access remain understudied across the social sciences, with especially the Global South remaining a blank page. Research is needed to chart the diverse local interpretations that mirror shifts from exclusion to inclusion of disabled people as the human rights revolution witnessed since the end of WWII continues, but also suffers backlash, even in the Global North. Paradoxically, this global icon refers simultaneously to disability, and its ameliorating factor, accessibility. Yet, the ambivalence and debate surrounding the ISA persist, as Guffey emphasizes especially in the later chapters, focusing on proposed alternatives to the existing ISA, codified as it is in law and conforming to the guidelines of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Until universal design (and the universalizing social policies likely needed to support it) succeeds in reducing the barriers in environments and in attitudes and in maximizing the usefulness of products and services during the design stage, identity formation processes are among the most positive aspects of the ISA. The icon’s influence and implementation extend far beyond marking modifications to the built environment. Whether taken-for-granted, modified or critiqued, the current ISA has spread globally. It can now be found wherever people move in physical space, finding their way. The symbol testifies to the on-going shift from exclusion, along a slow and winding road, to social inclusion and full participation of disabled people. In sum, Guffey brings scholarship on the ISA to the next stage. It complements studies that chart the influence of disabled peoples’ organizations and of international organizations as they facilitated remarkable shifts in disability paradigms. Yet institutionalized discrimination abounds, with the ISA marking that accessibility and universal design are far from achieved. If a few imprecisions tarnish the literature list, this historical work reconstructing a largely Western process cannot be faulted for not providing a complete global analysis of ISA implementation and adjustment. In that vein, with contributions from Guffey herself, the current exhibition “Viktor Papanek: The Politics of Design” (Kries, Klein & Clarke, 2018) indeed extends the discussion to the Global South and across further disciplines, rightfully embedding the dialogue about symbols of disability and enhancing access within broader contexts. Footnote: Kries, Matteo, Amelie Klein & Alison J. Clarke (eds.) (2018). Viktor Papanek: The Politics of Design. Weil am Rhein, Germany: Vitra Design Museum. ISBN: 978-3-945852-26-2. The exhibition is currently on view at Germany’s Vitra Design Museum (20 September 2018–10 March 2019), then at Barcelona Design Museum (20 October 2019–2 February 2020). [less ▲]

compte rendu de l'ouvrage d'Anna Ledwina : Du duo vers le trio amoureux : figures beauvoiriennes de l’altérité. Opole (Pologne) : Uniwersytet Opolski Studia I Monografie, n° 578, 2019, 282 p.

in Literaport (2020), 7

Thomas Vercruysse (dir.), Luxembourg – Ville créative, Capybara Books 2015, 269 p.

in Hemecht: Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte (2019), 3

Luxembourg – Ville créative est un ouvrage riche du regard pluridisciplinaire des universitaires et experts en sémiotique, philosophie, littérature, histoire et cinéma. C’est aussi un ouvrage éclectique ... [more ▼]

Luxembourg – Ville créative est un ouvrage riche du regard pluridisciplinaire des universitaires et experts en sémiotique, philosophie, littérature, histoire et cinéma. C’est aussi un ouvrage éclectique puisque le concept de ville créative n’est véritablement opérant que dans le cadre de certaines contributions, pour analyser les conséquences et manifestations de certains développements métropolitains (e.g. développement du quartier du Limpertsberg et, en creux, l’urbanisation du plateau du Kirchberg). Les contributions plus littéraires proposent davantage des regards s’inspirant de la géocritique donnant à montrer comment la (mé)connaissance d’un lieu participe à la construction d’une représentation. [less ▲]

Compte rendu de Herbert Ruland, Der Erste Weltkrieg und die Menschen im Vierländerland

in Contemporanea (2019), XXXVIII(3),

[Rezension] Lars Nowak (Hg.): Medien - Krieg - Raum

in MEDIENwissenschaft: Rezensionen, Reviews (2019), 1(2019), 24-27

Fragmente einer neuen Sprache des Rechts : Die nachgelassenen Reflexionen eines Philologen über die Grundlagen der Gerechtigkeit

in Literaturkritik.de (2019)

Rezension Estelle Evrard, La Grande Région Saar-Lor-Lux.

in Hemecht: Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte (2019), 71(2), 248-250

Recension de Mills, Party Autonomy in Private International Law, CUP 2018

in Revue Critique de Droit International Privé (2019)

Citizenship participation and Global Migration. Implications for theory research, and teaching.

in Journal of Borderlands Studies (2019), 35(1), 165166

Rezension zu Hiltrud Merten, Die frühchristlichen Inschriften aus St. Maximin bei Trier

in Hemecht: Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte (2019), 71(2019), 359-360

Texte et Image, Dialog/ues. Schrift & Bild, éd. Claude D. Conter & Myriam Sunnen, Centre national de Littérature, 2018

in Hémecht. Revue d'Histoire luxembourgeoise (2019), 71(3), 376-378

Rezension von: Fouquet, Gerhard / Jan Hirschbiegel Sven Rabeler (Hrsg.), Residenzstädte der Vormoderne. Umrisse eines europäischen Phänomens. 1. Symposium des Projekts „Residenzstädte im Alten Reich (1300-1800)“ der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Kiel, 13.-16. September 2014 (Residenzforschung. Neue Folge: Stadt und Hof, 2), Ostfildern 2016

in Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung (2018), 45(3), 507-509

The wandering thought of Hannah Arendt. Hans‐Jörg Sigwart. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016 Rightlessness in an age of rights. Hannah Arendt and the contemporary struggles of migrants. Ayten Gündoğdu. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015

in Constellations (2018), 25(2), 304-308

Rezension zu: Peter Henrich, mit Beiträgen von Petra Held, Corina Knipper und Kurt W. Alt, Das gallorömische Theater von Dalheim „Hossengronn“ Luxemburg (Dossiers d’archéologie XV Musée national d’histoire et d’art / Centre national de recherche archéologique), Luxembourg 2015

in Hemecht: Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte (2018), 70(1), 105-108

Achim Hofer, »es möchten manche Leute Vergnügen daran haben« Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdys Ouvertüre für Harmoniemusik op. 24 oder Doberan und die Folgen

in IGEB Mitteilungsblatt (2018), 1-2(2018), 20-22

review of Karel Hruza, ed., Regesten Kaiser Sigismunds (1410–1437)

in Speculum (2018), 93(2), 518

Urban Policy in the Time of Obama

in DISP Dokumente und Informationen zur Schweizerischen Orts-, Regional- und Landesplanung (2018), 54(212/1), 76

Review of: "Martin Bauch / Julia Burkhardt / Tomáš Gaudek / Václav Žůrek (eds.): Heilige, Helden, Wüteriche. Herrschaftsstile der Luxemburger (1308–1437)"

in Hemecht: Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte (2018), 70(1), 118-121

Rezension Gunter Altenkirch, Volks- und Aberglauben.

in Hemecht: Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte (2018), 70(1), 132-134

Compte rendu de Numéro spécial: 60 ans Traités de Rome

in Hemecht: Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte (2018), (3), 123-124

Compte-rendu de l'ouvrage de Bernhard Pöll : Französisch ausserhalb Frankreichs

in Vox Romanica (2018)

Poválečná rekonstrukce Židovských komunity v zemích středovýchodní, jihovýchodní a východní Evropy

in Marginalia Historica (2018), 4(1), 190

Compte-rendu de l’ouvrage de P. Bernhard : Französisch ausserhalb Frankreichs

in Vox Romanica (2018), 77

Review of Fact and Fiction in Global Energy Policy: 15 Contentious Questions

in Risk Analysis : An Official Publication of the Society for Risk Analysis (2018), In Press

In a so-called “Post-truth” era, the role of facts in society has become ever more ambiguous and contentious. Increasingly, facts are simultaneously used as a tool for risk assessment and risk management ... [more ▼]

In a so-called “Post-truth” era, the role of facts in society has become ever more ambiguous and contentious. Increasingly, facts are simultaneously used as a tool for risk assessment and risk management on the one hand, and an instrument of politicking and social polarisation on the other. That facts are subjective artefacts is not new. Pioneering sociologists like Emile Durkheim (Durkheim, 1996), Michel Foucault (Foucault, 2008, Burchell et al., 1991), and the Frankfurt School (Nicholas, 2012) (to name a few), have ruminated over the subjectivities of knowledge more than a century ago. But the difference in our current modern, hyper-globalised world is that the subjective nature of facts are increasingly both the best tool we have to deal with global risk, and a prime source of global risk at the same time. The question this raises, is how to deal with this paradox in policy? And is cooperation possible without consensus on whose facts are more true? [less ▲]

Rezension »Alles Frankreich oder was?« – Die saarländische Frankreichstrategie im europäischen Kontext/»La France à toutes les sauces?« – La ›Stratégie France‹ de la Sarre dans le contexte européen. Interdisziplinäre Zugänge und kritische Perspektiven/Approches interdisciplinaires et perspectives critiques

in Francia-Recensio (2018), 2018(3), 1-3

[Rezension] Hektor Haarkötter/Evelyn Runge: Motor/Reise. Basiswissen für die Medienpraxis

in MEDIENwissenschaft: Rezensionen, Reviews (2018), (2/3), 220-221

Rezension von: Jochen Plikat, Fremdsprachliche Diskursbewusstheit als Zielkonstrukt des Fremdsprachenunterrichts. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzunt mit der Interkulturellen Kompetenz

in Fremdsprachen Lehren und Lernen (2018), 47(Heft 1), 127-129

Rezension Jean-Paul Hoffmann, Familienchronik der Stadt Vianden

in Hemecht: Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte (2018), 70(2), 125-126

Suburban Planet

in Local Environment (2018)

Compte-rendu de l’ouvrage de Vivian Pereira-Koschorreck : Kontaktanzeigen kontrastiv – Französische und deutsche Kontaktanzeigen im diachronen und sychronen Vergleich

in Frankreich-Forum (2018)

Review of Meyer, Heinz-Dieter (2017): The Design of the University: German, American, and “World Class”. Abingdon: Routledge

in Comparative Education Review (2018), 62(3), 451-454

By and large, we take our universities for granted. Indeed, the oldest have outlived political regimes of all kinds. This stimulating historical and comparative study exemplifies the importance of in ... [more ▼]

By and large, we take our universities for granted. Indeed, the oldest have outlived political regimes of all kinds. This stimulating historical and comparative study exemplifies the importance of in-depth experience and engagement with the cultural and structural environments in which some of the world’s greatest universities have over centuries incrementally developed and been embedded. This is crucial if we hope to understand the sources of their authority and myriad contributions to scientific knowledge and human flourishing. A neo-institutionalist scholar and multicultural citizen who fruitfully contributes to dialogues exploring core institutions in education and society on both sides of the Atlantic, Heinz-Dieter Meyer is uniquely placed to grapple with the complex processes of institutional learning and design that have made the German and American universities among the globally most productive. He also shows how they have influenced each other via the complex, yet crucial flows of inspired scholars and students carrying key idea(l)s with them for interpretation and application back home. The contributions of key actors, but also the outcomes of choices at critical junctures, such as the failure to establish a national state-funded university in the United States, take center stage in this engaging account of how the leaders of American universities adapted the German model, joining diverse concepts to design what has become the greatest uni-versity system in the world, yet one that remains nearly impossible to emulate due to the unique constellation of actors and institutional environment in which it developed. In eighteen chapters in four parts, The Design of the University: German, American, and “World Class” takes us from Göttingen and Berlin to Boston and to the world level as the scientific enterprise—and competition between scientists and the most crucial organizational form in which they conduct their experiments and make their arguments, the research university—becomes ever more global. Contributing to and inviting debate, Meyer’s main argument is that the American university has suc-ceeded based upon an institutional design—or, perhaps, a non-design—that on multiple levels facil-itates self-government and the identification of a niche within an extraordinarily large and differen-tiated higher education system. This is not a full-fledged historiographic treatment of a subject fa-vored by academics (permanently searching for reputational gains) and policymakers (as they in-creasingly launch research funding programs and evaluation systems to foster competition). Rather than a full-fledged sociology of science, this book creatively sketches the trajectories of German and American university development, emphasizing affinities as well as crucial differences, to ulti-mately argue that in fact “Humboldt’s most important ideas flourished in the American atmosphere of unrestricted institutional experimentation and vigorous self-government” (xiii). Interrogating what he calls the “design thinking” of eminent thinkers Adam Smith and Wilhelm von Humboldt, among others, Meyer traces the challenging, complex, and contingent learning processes in the adaptation of the German research university model to the American context, eventually becoming the most differentiated and “world-class” higher education system in the world. Asking about the reasons for the American university’s success, especially in comparison to the recent insti-tutional crisis of the German research university, albeit still extraordinarily productive, Meyer argues that this American meritocratic success story has institutional design (of self-government) at its heart. Enjoying the patronage of not one, but three major institutions—state, church, and market—the American university attained true autonomy and global preeminence through unparalleled wealth of patronage and an intricate system of checks and balances. In this line of argument, chart-ing the ascendancy from humble origins of what can hardly be called a system due its extraordinary diversity, Meyer concurs with David Labaree (2017), who’s A Perfect Mess [1] is a highly-suitable com-panion piece grounded in the history of American higher education. Contemporary architects of higher education policy globally, driven by the fantasy of “world class” labels, Meyer warns, have completely underestimated the “institutional, social, and political prerequisites that excellence in research and teaching require” (p. 4). Meyer begins his treatise, appropriately, in Göttingen, the site of Georgia Augusta University, where many leaders of American higher education, first and foremost Boston Brahmin George Ticknor, learned by doing, ensconced in a cosmopolitan center of learning and intellectual enlightenment. The blueprint included professionalized scholarship, the unification of research and teaching in seminars and lectures, freedom to choose among academic offerings, a vast library of scientific knowledge, and academic standing based on perpetual production of cutting-edge research judged by peers (p. 19). Instead of Adam Smith’s preferred instruments of competition, choice, and tuition-dependence, Wilhelm von Humboldt’s “design revolution” proposed “three unities” whose powerful integration could surpass the utilitarian logic prevalent then and now: “teaching and research; scien-tific discovery and moral formation (Bildung); scholarly autonomy and scholarly community” (p. 40). The book’s second part, on institutional learning, charts the institutional migration of the blueprint; the contested design options of Gymnasium, college, and graduate school (the latter ultimately the key to global preeminence); the lasting influence of Protestantism (here Meyer follows the arguments of Max Weber, Robert K. Merton, and Joseph Ben-David) and extraordinary educational philanthropy; the battle between those who would centralize, by establishing a national university, and those committed to local control; and finally the contrasting answers to the eternal question of vocational-ism—e.g., how should business be treated, as a sibling to medicine and law or as their distant cousin? The more education-enamored, democratically-inclined patrician elites of the American East Coast were, Meyer argues, radically different institution-builders than German scholars, French state nobility, or even Chinese mandarins: “No other class combined their respect for, and grand vision of, the civilizing role of learning with their economic resources and the realism needed to put their plans into practice” (p. 113). Building on philosophical and historical elaboration, the book’s third part on achieving self-government discusses the six American moves leading to institutional innovation. At organizational level, the German chair and institute give way to departments and discipline, the university presi-dent is no longer figurehead but chief executive, and independent boards of trustees, not govern-ment officials, have ultimate authority. The implications for individuals and organizations of these “design shifts” cannot be overstated. Anyone seeking to understand American higher education, with its phenomenal vertical and horizontal differentiation and on-going academic drift (“a snake-like procession” as David Riesman, to whom the book is dedicated, calls it), and its self-organized autonomy—supported by many philanthropists without the limiting control of a few state bureau-crats—will find this analysis illuminating. Embedded in civil society, “vigorous self-government is the historic design contribution of the American university” (p. 209)—and an achievement that must be guarded in an era in which university autonomy is at risk. In concluding, Meyer’s American opti-mistic and laudatory tone shifts back to Germanic critique and foreboding, identifying challenges and the contemporary struggles that threaten the unintentional masterpiece of institutional learning and diversity. Such justified hopes and fears must now give way to empirical studies of the extraor-dinary outputs in terms of scientific production and societal capabilities and well-being brought about by the continuous process of university Bildung—in Germany, the United States, and around the world. [1] David Labaree (2017), A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of American Higher Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [less ▲]

Rezension zu: Krystina Solomon: Tristan-Romane: Zur spätmittelalterlichen Rezeption von Gottfrieds Tristan in den böhmischen Ländern. Göttingen: Kümmerle Verlag 2016.

in Zeitschrift für Interkulturelle Germanistik (2018), 9(1), 197-199

Buchbesprechung von: Karsten Igel, Thomas Lau (dir.), Die Stadt im Raum. Vorstellungen, Entwürfe und Gestaltungen im vormodernen Europa

in Revue de l’Institut français d’histoire en Allemagne (2017), http://ifha.revues.org/8811

Rezension von: Möller, Kurt / Grote, Janne / Nolde, Kai / Schuhmacher, Nils: "Die kann ich nicht ab!" – Ablehnung, Diskriminierung und Gewalt bei Jugendlichen in der (Post-)Migrationsgesellschaft. Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2016.

in Erziehungswissenschaftliche Revue (2017), 16(3),

Hofman, Michael; Patrut, Iulia-Karin: Einführung in die interkulturelle Literatur

in Germanistik : Internationales Referatenorgan mit Bibliographischen Hinweisen (2017), 58(1-2), 123-124

review of: Lucien Czuga, Rout Wäiss Bloen Damp. 200 Joer Lëtzebuerger Tubakswelt, Differdange: Editions Revue, 2015

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2017), 69(1), 129-130

Bernhard Leubolt (2015) Transformation von Ungleichheitsregimes: Gleichheitsorientierte Politik in Brasilien und Sudafrika.

in Global Labour Journal (2017), 8(3),

Rezension von Michael Knoll: Das Kind im Mittelpunkt. Elementarpädagogische Bezugnahmen auf gesellschaftliche Kontexte.

in Erziehungswissenschaftliche Rundschau (2017), 16(4),

Buchbesprechung von: Alexandra Druzynski von Boetticher: Die Leproserie St. Nikolai. Ein Beitrag zur Baugeschichte der Stadt Lüneburg im Mittelalter, Bd. 1 (Quellen und Darstellungen zur Geschichte Niedersachsens, Bd. 137/1) Wehrhahn, Hannover 2015

in Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (2017), 125(2), 417-419

Compte-rendu de l'ouvrage de M. Gatti: European External Action Service

in Annuaire de Droit Européen (2017)

Review of 'Environmental Publics' by Sally Eden

in Local Environment (2017)

Book Review. Kulczycki, John J. Belonging to the Nation. Inclusion and Exclusion in the Polish-German Borderlands 1939-1951

in Slavonic and East European Review (2017), 95

Jürgen Daiber, Franz Kafka und der Lärm. Klanglandschaften der frühen Moderne.

in Arbitrium (2017), 35(1), 117-119