Vaterlandsliebe und Religionskonflikt. Politische Diskurse im Alten Reich (1555–1648) (original) (raw)
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The Current State of ‘Paleohistory’ in Germany
2010
Although the situation is not uniformly positive, the state of research and teaching in the area of early prehistory in Germany is stronger than it has been at any time in the past. Many decades of peace, economic prosperity and the effects of the reunification have strengthened early prehistory and its allied fields at universities, non-university research institutes and museums. Levels of government funding are high, and the fields of early prehistory and human evolution enjoy great popularity in print and electronic media. University training typically emphasizes practical skills and empirical knowledge of the archaeological, paleoanthropological, and paleoecological records, with somewhat too little formal training on how to use social theory to contextualize the great amounts of data students control. Publications from the German-speaking sphere, including those written in English, are gaining increasing recognition in the international scientific community. Societies including the Hugo Obermaier-Gesellschaft and the Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte have stable membership and contribute together with many publication series from universities, research institutes, and state heritage offices to the local and international visibility of the early prehistory and human evolution. Paleolithic archaeology in the context of state heritage management shows mixed trends, with some German states like Saxony-Anhalt, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg investing heavily in research and salvage excavations, while some other states invest little in early prehistory. Museums have also experienced considerable support for exhibits and research in recent years and are contributing greatly to the visibility of paleohistory. The low price and high quality of university education in Germany is also increasingly recognized abroad, and graduates from German institutions are competing successfully on the international job market. The well-funded research structures in Germany are also attracting more and more young and established scholars to Germany, which also contributes to the dynamic research environment. Due to its central location in continental Europe, German researchers and students have the language skills and contacts to stay abreast of the scientific progress in many of the diverse international research traditions. In this regard the leading German institutes often represent a melting pot for ideas and innovations. Based on current trends, the future of early prehistory and its allied fields in German-speaking Europe looks promising.
2016
This paper examines the theoretical and methodological value of combining Begriffsgeschichte (conceptual history) with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of habitus and social field by focusing on definitions of the völkisch thought in German prehistory. The theoretical perspective in this paper is that concepts on the semantic level are interlinked with historical processes in the social space, or the scientific field in this example. On the one hand, it is evident that völkisch elements belonged intrinsically to prehistoric archaeology in its development as an autonomous discipline in the scientific field. On the other hand, racist and völkisch thoughts were a result of the heteronomization that was enforced during the Nazi regime, when prehistoric archaeologists tried to use the Nazis to establish their discipline in academia.
While German scholars dominated the field in the 19 th century and continued well into the 20 th -even after World War II -, scholars from other nations were also busy building on the ground-breaking efforts of their German colleagues and, beyond that, establishing their own identities and approaches which came into full fruition, in the United States, especially, in the last quarter of the 20 th century and the first years of the 21 st . This essay will concentrate on the development of the field in Germany and, to a lesser extent in the United States, Great Britain and France.
2015
This paper examines the theoretical and methodological value of combining Begriffsgeschichte (conceptual history) with Pierre Bourdieu's theory of habitus and social field by focusing on definitions of the völkisch thought in German prehistory. The theoretical perspective in this paper is that concepts on the semantic level are interlinked with historical processes in the social space, or the scientific field in this example. On the one hand, it is evident that völkisch elements belonged intrinsically to prehistoric archaeology in its development as an autonomous discipline in the scientific field. On the other hand, racist and völkisch thoughts were a result of the heteronomization that was enforced during the Nazi regime, when prehistoric archaeologists tried to use the Nazis to establish their discipline in academia.
Wilhelm II is a pivotal character in the historiography of German archaeology. Although he rose from a tradition of dilettantism, he supported more scientific archaeologists who characterized the field after him. No other monarch has linked royal power, state funding, and archaeological acquisition to such a great extent. Thorsten Beigel and Sabine Mangold-Will’s collection of essays comes from the meeting “Wilhelm II. Archäologie und Politik um 1900,” which took place June 1-2, 2012, at Bergischen Universität Wuppertal and vigorously deconstructs the role of Wilhelm, politics, imperialism, and colonialism in modern archaeology. The volume is timely as much of it deals with German archaeology and Politik in the Ottoman Empire while current relations between Germany and Turkey are under pressure.