Rezension Gunter Altenkirch, Volks- und Aberglauben.

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

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

Recensie van: Anne Morelli (red.), "Le Bruxelles des révolutionnaires, de 1830 à nos jours" & Joseph Van Wassenhove, "Bruxelles: la vie quotidienne au XIXe siècle par les écrivains de l’époque"

in Contemporanea (2018), (1),

Notes de lecture : Utopies réelles, Erik Olin Wright, traduit par Vincent Farnea et João Alexandre Peschanski,

in Revue Internationale de l'Économie Sociale: Recma (2018), 348

Rezension Jean-Paul Hoffmann, Familienchronik der Stadt Vianden

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

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 ▲]

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

in Vox Romanica (2018)

Migration and the Search for Home. Mapping Domestic Space in Migrants’ Everyday Lives (Book review)

in Migraciones (2017), (42), 151-153

Étienne Anheim, Clément VI au travail. Lire, écrire, prêcher au xive siècle Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2014, 408 p.

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2017)

A Negotiated Landscape. The Transformation of San Francisco’s Waterfront since 1950

in Local Environment (2017), 22(6), 784-785

Compte rendu de l'ouvrage de J-F Delile: L’invocabilité des accords internationaux devant la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne et le Conseil d’Etat français

in Annuaire de Droit Européen (2017)

Book Review: Policy Analysis of Structural Reforms in Higher Education

in Zeitschrift Hochschule und Weiterbildung (2017), 2

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

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

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

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

Book review: Bruno Touveron, Prévôt(s). Thionville en Luxembourg (XIIe-XVIIe siècles), [Thionville], [2015], 52 p. ; 10 €.

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2017), 69(1), 123-124

Making other worlds possible

in Local Environment (2017), 22(7), 908-910

Review of 'Environmental Publics' by Sally Eden

in Local Environment (2017)

Rezension: Christian Voß / Wolfgang Dahmen (Ed.): Babel Balkan? Politische und soziokulturelle Kontexte von Sprache in Südosteuropa (= Südosteuropa-Jahrbuch Band 40), München: Ottos Sagner (2014)

in Zeitschrift für Balkanologie (2017), 53/2

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

Michael Zeuske: Sklavenhändler, Negreros und Atlantikkreolen. Eine Weltgeschichte des Sklavenhandels im atlantischen Raum.

in Zeitschrift für historische Studien (2017), 16(1),

"The Politics of Suffering: Syria’s Palestinian Refugee Camps", Nell Gabiam, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2016

in Antipode (2017)

Buchbesprechung von: Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter Rudolf, Adolf, Albrecht, Heinrich VII. 1273-1313. 4. Abteilung: Heinrich VII. 1288/1308 – 1313. 2. Lieferung: 1. September 1309 – 23. Oktober 1313 [recte: 1310]

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2016), 68(3),

Disparaître pour résister

in Acta Fabula: Revue des Parutions en Théorie Littéraire (2016), 17(4),

„Phantasma Nation. ‚Zigeuner‘ und Juden als Grenzfiguren des ‚Deutschen‘ (1770-1920)“ von Iulia-Karin Patrut

in Jahrbuch der Raabe-Gesellschaft (2016), 57

Review of: Alejandro Beltrán, Inés Sastre, Miriam Valdés (Hgg.) : Los espacios de la esclavitud y la dependencia desde la antigüedad. Homenaje a Domingo Plácido. Actas del XXXV colo-quio del GIREA. Besançon, 2015.

in Bryn Mawr Classical Review [=BMCR] (2016)

Rezension zu: Catherine Gaeng (Hg.): Archaeologia Mosellana. Hommage à Jeannot Metzler. Archéologie en Sarre, Lorraine et Luxembourg / Archäologie im Saarland, in Lothringen und Luxemburg. Tome 9, 2014.

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2016), 03

Rezension zu: Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe (Hg.), Imperium der Götter. Isis – Mithras – Christus. Kulte und Religionen im Römischen Reich

in FERA (2016), 29

Frans von der Dunk (ed.), Handbook on Space Law

in Journal on Space Law (2016), 40(1-2), 233-248

The Handbook on space law is a recent commentary on the most important legal documents related to space activities written by international experts edited by Frans von der Dunk (University of Nebraska ... [more ▼]

The Handbook on space law is a recent commentary on the most important legal documents related to space activities written by international experts edited by Frans von der Dunk (University of Nebraska-Lincoln). [less ▲]

Rezension zu Raymund Gottschalk, Römer und Franken in Hürth. Hürther Beiträge zur Geschichte, Kultur und Regionalkunde, Band 93. Bonn 2014

in H-Soz-u-Kult (2016)

Green Logistics – Improving the Environmental Sustainability of Logistics

in Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie (2016), 60(1-2), 99-100

Recension "Caws Mary Ann, Reynes-Delobel, Anne, Glorieuses modernistes. Art, écriture et modernité au féminin"

in Le français à l’université (2016)

Rezension zu: Markus Löx: Monumenta sanctorum. Rom und Mailand als Zentren des frühen Christentums. Märtyrerkult und Kirchenbau unter den Bischöfen Damasus und Ambrosius. Wiesbaden 2013.

in Bonner Jahrbücher des Rheinischen Landesmuseums in Bonn und des Vereins von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinlande (2016), 215(2015), 581-585

Sophie Cornet: La justice pénale en Terre de Mirwart (1593-1629)

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2016), 68(1), 122-124

Transformations of sex education since the mid-twentieth century

in IJHE Bildungsgeschichte - International Journal for the Historiography of Education (2016), 6(2),

Compte rendu de l'ouvrage de A. Hervé : L’Union européenne et la juridictionnalisation du système de règlement des différends de l’OMC

in Annuaire de Droit Européen (2016)

[Rezension über:] Werner Helmich: Ästhetik der Mehrsprachigkeit. Zum Sprachwechsel in der neueren romanischen und deutschen Literatur (Heidelberg 2016)Werner Helmich: Ästhetik der Mehrsprachigkeit. Zum Sprachwechsel in der neueren romanischen und deutschen Literatur (Heidelberg 2016)

in Zeitschrift für Interkulturelle Germanistik (2016), 7(2), 201206

Besprechungen – Georg Kremnitz, Frankreichs Sprachen, Berlin (De Gruyter) 2015 (Romanistische Arbeitshefte 60)

in Vox Romanica (2016), 75

Rezension von: Por Lampertsbierg. 100 Joer Kierch, Por, Chorale. Fakten an Erënnerungen

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2015), 67(4), 513-515

Compte rendu de: Edmond Thill e.a., Charles Bernhoeft. Photographe de la Belle Époque

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2015), 67(3), 376-379

Compte rendu de: Thomas WIRTZ, Hospital und Hypothek. Das kommunale St Jakobshospital auf dem Trierer Renten- und Immobilienmarkt 1450-1600

in Francia-Recensio, 2015-2, Frühe Neuzeit - Revolution - Empire (1500-1815) (2015), (2),

Book review: Alternative Economies and Spaces

in Geographische Zeitschrift (2015), 103(2), 124-125

Eine mahnende Stimme gegen politische Abgötter : Armin T. Wegners Manifeste und offene Briefe

in Literaturkritik.de (2015)

Rezension von: Michaela Muylkens, Reges geminati – Die „Gegenkönige“ in der Zeit Heinrichs IV.

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2015), 67(1), 89-90

Picturing the Nation: On Charles Bernhœft: photographe de la Belle Époque, Edmond Thill (ed.), MNHA, 2014

in Forum für Politik, Gesellschaft und Kultur in Luxemburg (2015), 348

Dornseifer et al., AIFMD 2013 und Weitnauer, KAGB 2014

in Neue Zeitschrift für Gesellschaftsrecht (2015)

Genie und Festung. Luxemburger Festungspläne in der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2015), 67(1), 107-109

Compte-rendu de l'ouvrage Cohésion sociale et territoriale au Luxembourg-Regards croisés

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2015), 4

Rezension von Norbert Franz /Jean-Paul Lehners (Hg.), Nationenbildung und Demokratie. Europäische Entwicklungen gesellschaftlicher Partizipation

in Hemecht : Zeitschrift für Luxemburger Geschichte = Revue d'Histoire Luxembourgeoise (2015), 67(2), 229-232

Book review of the book Abdelkhaleq Berramdane and Isabelle Hannequart (Eds), Union européenne-Mercosul. Deux intégrations régionales dans l’espace mondia

in Common Market Law Review (2015), 52(3), 872-874