c:o/re Highlights of 2023: A look back
When we look back on the year 2023 at c:o/re, we can think of many great lectures, workshops and projects that we were able to realise in collaboration with our fellows and scientists from Aachen and around the world.
In this blog post, we take joy in remembering some of them:
Lecture Series
In the summer semester, the lecture series of c:o/re took place on the topic of “Complexity”. In seven lectures, the concept of complexity was examined from various disciplinary perspectives. You can reread some of the questions discussed in this and this blog post.
The lecture series for the winter semester 2023/24 began on 25 October 2023 with the topic “Lifelikeness”. Every two weeks until 7 February 2024, c:o/re fellows and guest speakers have discussed will continue to talk about the representations and imitations of life in its many forms. You can find all the dates in the program and impressions of some of the talks in the blog posts here and here.
Workshops
On 19 and 20 January 2023, the Marsilius Kolleg Heidelberg hosted the workshop “Navigating Interdisciplinarity”, which was organised in collaboration with CAPAS Heidelberg, the Marsilius Kolleg and c:o/re. The event brought together interdisciplinary research groups, mainly, but not only, from the humanities and social sciences to discuss the complex challenges of interdisciplinarity in the academic setting. The participants were able to discuss terms such as “complexity”, “security” or “collapse” as key aspects of interdisciplinary cooperation and research. You can read more about the workshop in this blog post.
On 14 and 15 March 2023, the workshop “Turning points in reflections on science and technology: Toward historicising STS” took place at c:o/re. The aim of this event was to analyse the turning points in the intellectual history of Science and Technology Studies (STS) in the course of the 20th and 21st centuries. The meeting illustrated the interdisciplinary and multi-perspective study of STS that is being conducted at c:o/re. Director Gabriele Gramelsberger and the fellows Ben Peters, Clarissa Lee, Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou, Jan C. Schmidt and Arianna Borrelli organised the event. They were joined by several renowned early career researchers from the STS field, such as Lisa Onaga (Max Planck Institute for History of Science, Berlin), Carsten Reinhardt (Bielefeld University), Salome Rodeck (Max Planck Institute for History of Science, Berlin), Vanessa Bateman (Maastricht University) and Andreas Kaminski (Darmstadt Technical University). A recap of the workshop can be found here.
Following on from the success of the first workshop “Varieties of Science: Patterns of Knowledge” in December 2022 at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City, the networking trips to institutes of science and transformation research were continued as part of the Varieties of Science activities. From 5 to 6 May 2023, a group of fellows and staff as well as the directors travelled to the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Bucharest for the workshop “Varieties of Science 2. European Traditions of Philosophy of Science: Unexpected Varieties” to discuss the differences in research cultures with international colleagues. You can read more about the talks and discussions in this blog post.
Another workshop took place from 13 to 14 June 2023 in collaboration with Dr. Thomas Haigh with the title “So What Was Artificial Intelligence, Anyway” at c:o/re. In the first part of the workshop, the history and philosophy of AI and digitalisation were discussed, with both the directors and the fellows being able to contribute their own research topics. In the second part of the workshop, Thomas Haigh presented the manuscript for his new book on the history of AI, which was followed by a discussion on the previously very heterogeneous concept of AI and the possibilities of standardising the various AI practices as a brand.
Conferences
From 15 to 17 February 2023, c:o/re hosted the international conference “Wissenschaften des Konkreten”, organised by Caroline Torra-Mattenklott, Christiane Frey, Yashar Mohagheghi and Sergej Rickenbacher from the Institute for Germanic and General Literary Studies at RWTH Aachen. The concept of the conference was not only, as the title indicates, inspired by Claude Lévi-Strauss’ concept of the “Science of the Concrete”, but also follows his assumption that the sensual and experimental interaction with the things of the environment is equally the origin of the “wild spirit” as well as of modern science. A summary of the event can be found here.
Together with the Rhine Ruhr Center for Science Communication (RRC), c:o/re directors Gabriele Gramelsberger and Stefan Böschen organised the conference “Nowhere(to)land? What science studies contributes to science communication” from 14 to 16 June 2023 in Bonn. Exciting questions and topics of science communication were discussed, including how the research fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Science Communication Studies could be more closely linked in the future in order to fulfil the special communication requirements of science research results or how social participation in research could be implemented. The lectures and discussions also provided insightful impulses for the science communication at c:o/re.
STS Hub
From 15 to 17 March 2023, a new format for the interdisciplinary linking of different science research communities was launched for the first time: STS-Hub.de. This format, conceived as a biennial conference with changing hosts, provides an opportunity for networking and exchange for STS researchers from German-speaking countries and a connection between different disciplines and areas of specialization. c:o/re played a leading role in the local organisation. In over 65 individual panels, the approximately 300 participants found space and room for discussion. The overarching conference theme of “Circulations” resonated and was addressed in various topics ranging from experimental democracy and science communication to ethics and art. In addition to traditional panels, there were also innovative formats such as walkshops and fishbowl discussions. The desired non-hierarchical exchange between researchers from different backgrounds was thus promoted and achieved. The conference was framed by two keynotes by Ulrike Felt, short-term fellow at c:o/re in March 2023, on the infrastructurisation of circulation in the field of science and Susann Wagenknecht on leaks in circular infrastructures and markets. You can read more about the conference on our blog here.
“Leonardo” Project
This winter semester, c:o/re’s participation in the interdisciplinary courses of the “Leonardo” project continues with the module “Engineering Life: Imaginaries of Lifelikeness” at RWTH Aachen University, which is organised jointly with the fellows. The module is aimed at interested M.A. students from all subject groups who can earn credit points for their degree programme. On this website, you can find more information about the “Leonardo” project.
Summer School
c:o/re was one of the main organisers of the International Semiotic Summer School in Prague “Visual Metaphors”, which took place from 23 to 28 July 2023 in cooperation with the Palacký University Olomouc and the Charles University. Through various lectures and presentations, the Summer School explored visual metaphors and the epistemological changes brought about by the current technological revolution. 80 students from various European universities took part. In this blog post, RWTH Aachen students wrote about their experiences during the Summer School.
Social Media
On X (formerly Twitter), c:o/re is still very active by announcing events, reporting live from conferences and talks and giving updates on everything that is happening at the centre.
We are still figuring out whether leaving X and using alternatives such as Bluesky is an option. Have you already moved your Social Media activities off X?
Since September 2023, c:o/re is also active on Instagram in order to give some insights into the work happening at the centre in a more tangible and less text-heavy way through photos and videos. We have also just registered with LinkedIn.
You are cordially invited to follow us on our social media accounts.
Video series: c:o/re shorts
We have started a new video series: c:o/re shorts. Get to know our current fellows and gain an impression of their research. In short videos, they introduce themselves, talk about their work at c:o/re, the impact of their research on society and give book recommendations. Take a look at the first two videos:
Blogposts
We would like to thank all the authors who contributed texts to our blog in 2023.
We invite you to read through them:
- What makes an ideal robot girlfriend?
- The notebook pt. 3: “For 20 years, I haven’t used a pen” – a computer nerd’s confession
- Research in Times of War – “Scientific Life Somehow Goes on…”
- Research in Times of War – “The War Added One More Factor – the War Itself”
- On Aryeh Ludwig Strauss: a German-Hebrew poet from Aachen
- Supercharge the real-world impact of Research, Innovation and Enterprise with brand building methodologies
What is coming in 2024?
The Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) is offering ten research fellowships for international scholars from the humanities, social sciences or STS as well as from natural, life and technical sciences for the academic year 2024/25. The fellowships can start between June and October 2024. The Call for Applications for 2024/25 is still open until December 31, 2023.
For the beginning of 2024, relationships with the arts will be strengthened with two upcoming collaborations.
In February 2024, a workshop on “Art, Science, the Public Sphere” in collaboration with the research project “Computer Signals. Art and Biology in the Age of Digital Experimentation II” from Zurich University of the Arts will be held at c:o/re. As part of this, the artist Valentina Vuksic will present an artistic performance on the sonification of data “Listening to Science”, which will be accessible to students and researchers at RWTH but also to citizens of Aachen.
In April 2024, the experimental conference “Politics of the machines: Lifelikeness & beyond” will take place in Aachen, which seeks to bring together researchers and practitioners from a wide range of fields across the sciences, technology and the arts to develop imaginaries for possibilities that are still to be realized and new ideas of what the contingency of life is. You can find more information about POM on their website.
You can subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated with all projects and events happening at c:o/re in 2024.
We are looking forward to everything that awaits c:o/re in the coming year. Stay tuned!
Walter Benjamin Fellowships for Anna Laktionova and Svitlana Shcherbak
c:o/re fellows Anna Laktionova and Svitlana Shcherbak have both received a fellowship from the Walter Benjamin Programme, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), which enables them to continue working independently on their research projects at c:o/re even after the end of their c:o/re fellowship.
We would like to congratulate both of them and are delighted to be able to continue working together under one roof.
Here is what Anna Laktionova wants to do during the scholarship and what it means to her:
My project “Towards the agency based philosophy of (advanced) technology” is for me a very inspiring possibility to continue elaborating the maintained approach of Philosophy of Action and Agency within such nowadays fields as Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Engineering, STS etc. It involves theoretical and practical philosophical methodological platforms; allows me to continue professional grows and integrating into western Philosophical and Scientific circles including inter-, cross-, trans- disciplinary levels, for example, visit and participate in events of RWTH’s Institute of Industrial Engineering, Center for Construction Robotics, The RWTH Chair Individual and Technology, other labs. I plan to concentrate on such problematic plots as: agency-based philosophy of (advanced) technologies and ongoing technological transformations towards advanced technologies; varieties of types, levels, scales of machinic actions and human-robot interactions; machine learning methods and adaptive robots; problematic machinic actions and ethical regulations for trustworthy adaptive robotics; changing of the conceptual angle of view from technology descriptions to philosophy of action and agency; aligning man-machine interactivity.
From the personal side, the fellowship gives me possibility to continue to save my (now almost 3-years old daughter) from the awful war taking place in Ukraine. I enormously appreciate understanding, support, help from colleagues, staff and people in Aachen.
Svitlana Shcherbak will work on her research project entitled “Modernization Theory: Between Science and Politics. Case of Russia”:
The Conception of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, adopted in March 2023, for the first time defines Russia as a “civilization-state”. Russia is seen there as a conservative and technologically oriented sovereign state opposed to the “West”. Russia’s official ideology combines a conservative political agenda with the idea of technological modernization. It is a paradigm shift that has not come out of nowhere. This two-year research project investigates the academic (i.e., social science) and political discourse gradually introducing this shift in the post-Soviet space in relation to Western modernization theory. It examines the main shifts in the meaning of the “core concepts” of modernization theory, such as “democracy”, “development”, “freedom”, etc., in the Russian cultural and political context since 1990, compared to their original formulation in the Western social science, and how social theory has become an important ideological concept in Russian politics. To achieve this goal, the research is based on a qualitative discourse analysis. The theory of modernization was chosen because it is a grand theory that offers a broad vision of history and social development and is an important part of the social imagination. Modernization theory reflects not only the deep assumptions of the societies in which it emerges, but also those of the recipient societies. The case of Russia is particularly interesting, because the concept of modernization retains a central place in Russian political discourse, even though the basic assumptions of modernization theory contradict Russia’s self-description.
Objects of Research
Being in the third year of our Fellowship Program, c:o/re is accumulating a remarkable variety of perspectives revolving around its main focus, research on research.
Questions tackled in this lively research environment are highly interesting and exciting and, as such, complex. The meeting of distinct research cultures may stir curiosity but may also leave one wondering what is the other even talking about… What are they studying?
To offer an insightful glimpse into the lively dialogues here, bridging and reflecting on diverse academic cultures, we are launching the blog series “Objects of Research”.
We asked current and alumni c:o/re fellows and academic team to show us an object that is most important for their research in order to understand how they think about their work.
We anticipate that a first insight into a researcher’s academic culture stems already from seeing what does the word object mean for them.
We will publish the answers to their questions every Friday here and on Instagram.
We wish you exciting insights!
Here you will find all the answers that have already been published:
Get to know our fellows: Marcus B. Carrier
Get to know our current fellows and gain an impression of their research.
In a new series of short videos, we asked them to introduce themselves, talk about their work at c:o/re, the impact of their research on society and give book recommendations.
You can now watch the first video of the historian of science Marcus B. Carrier on our Youtube channel:
Robot, a Laboratory “Animal”: Andrei Korbut on how robots produce knowledge in laboratories
On November 8, Dr. Andrei Korbut warned that he will disappoint philosophers, sociologists and roboticists in what he delivered as the second lecture of the c:o/re Lifelikeness series. He disappointed to disappoint any of these. The Lifelikeness c:o/re lecture series addresses a public even broader and more diverse than previous c:o/re lectures, as it now also engages postgraduate students coming from a vast array of disciplines through the Projekt Leonardo.
Dr Korbut discussed Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) from a perspective enabled by construing robots as laboratory “animals”. He invited the audience to reflect on this view by watching a famous 2016 video produced by Boston Dynamics which shows a researcher (physically) obstructing a robot to complete its task to pick up an object. Dr. Korbut asked the audience what do they feel when watching this scene, whether they feel sorry for the robot and whether the human is bullying? He explained that the feeling the humans might feel when watching such a scene is purposefully employed in laboratory studies on HRI. This led Dr. Korbut to note that HRI is one of the fastest growing and most dynamic subfields in robotics currently, raising salient questions in fields like communication studies, psychology and design. Particularly given the multidisciplinary branching that it implies, it is important to note that robotics is not exclusively academic. HRI has a strong commercial stake.
Dr. Korbut explicated the conceptual framework to study robots as contemporary laboratory “animals” as inspired by various notions of types of lifelikeness that can be ascribed to humanoid robots. He argued that robots allow for a closer connection between tools and objects in knowledge production than other types of laboratory “living instruments” because robots are not perceived as “natural objects”. In this line of inquiry, Dr. Korbut’s c:o/re fellowship project focuses on the robot Pepper, designed by SoftBank Robotics. Pepper is a 1.2-meter-tall mobile humanoid robot with 20 degrees of freedom and 20 sensors, microphones and actuators. It can process and synthesize speech in natural language, and it is commercially promoted as capable to recognize basic human emotions. Its appearance is deliberately “cute” and genderless because it is designed to be interacting with by humans in offices, cultural institutions, homes and medical settings. It is currently one of the most popular machines in robotics laboratories globally.
As such, Dr. Korbut is now exploring Pepper’s “academic career”, from manufacturer to publication, where the robotics lab is the crucial passage point. In this inquiry and by pondering on the knowledge that Pepper produces, Dr. Korbut is bringing together but also transcending the disciplinary limitations of laboratory studies in general, robotics laboratories studies, and laboratory animal studies. In laboratory sciences, Dr. Korbut takes Karin Knorr-Cetina‘s notion of epistemic cultures as a guiding optics, where “Laboratory sciences subject natural conditions to a “social overhaul” and derive epistemic effects from the new situation” (Knorr-Cetina 1999, p. 28). Further, he draws an insight from, but also argues for expanding Andreas Bischof’s view that when roboticists “laboratize“, they reduce “the complexity and contingency of social situations” (Bischof 2017: 225, 229). This leads him to observe the importance of Voss’ apparently paradoxical remark that “the practice of representing the robot as both an inanimate object and an animate being is an integral and constructive aspect of roboticists’ work”. At this point, Dr. Korbut remarks the relevance of the term lifelikeness. Particularly, via this term, the discussion is construed in terms of the simultaneous attributing and avoiding the attribution of lifelikeness to machines.
Dr. Korbut advocates employing the term lifelikeness, rather than animacy (in Voss 2021), in this debate because it enables drawing parallels between robotics studies and laboratory animal studies. While lifelikeness may mislead, because it suggests that roboticists may impute “life” to their machines, it opens up the some mitigating possiblities by indicating that “life”, in this discourse, is defined pragmatically, in the context of “laboratory life”, as referring to a property of the object used in the laboratory to produce knowledge. As such, robots are closer to laboratory animals, such as mice and Drosophila than to the wooden idols of animistic practices described by cultural anthropologists.
Dr. Korbut argues for a theory that construes robots as “animals” of very specific kind. Because they are detached from the laboratory environment much more than animals like mice or Drosophila, roboticists can secure a tighter link between tool and object. This link, Dr. Korbut argues, is based on roboticists’ ability to procure and exploit three types of lifelikeness that can be attributed to the robots, all which come down to considering the body as moving, interacting and manipulating.
In this light, Dr. Korbut considers that humans empathise with robots not because we identify with them but because of the particular configuration of robots’ hull – their programming, movements, and the material environment – corresponds to a recognizable type of lifelikeness. In brief, in the laboratory, robots hinder their being perceived as “natural objects”.
References
Bischof, A. 2017. Sozial Maschinen bauen: Epistemische Praktiken der Sozialrobotik. Transcript.
Knorr-Cetina, K. 1999. Epistemic cultures: How the sciences make knowledge. Harvard University Press.
Voss, L. 2021. More than machines? The Attribution of (In)Animacy to Robot Technology. Transcript.
Toxic Material(itie)s: Eco-Material Entanglements in Art
Workshop at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re)
6 – 7 December 2023
Organized by
Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) &
Christian Berger (Universität Siegen), Ruby de Vos (University of Groningen),
Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Our workshop sets out from the obvious, yet underexplored assumption, that much of the very stuff that art is made of is toxic. Whether working in the studio, in the dark room, in the quarry, or at contaminated sites, artists have been, and continue to be, exposed to a wide range of toxic materials. But exposure always goes hand in hand with its inevitable corollary, pollution—from the dumped toxic waste generated by the production of photographic materials to the air and water pollution generated by marble extraction. The toxicity of artistic materials extends far beyond the hazards of the artist’s job—they are part of larger environmental issues. So what can we learn when we explore artworks through the lens of their materiality within an expanded frame that is attentive to their art historical as well as environmental and sociopolitical context?
See the full program here.
To attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de
Call for Applications 2024/25
We are excited to announce that the call for applications for fellowships at c:o/re in 2024/25 is now open.
The Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) is offering ten fellowships to junior and senior researchers from the humanities, social sciences or STS as well as from natural, life and technical sciences for the academic year 2024/25.
The fellowships can start between June and October 2024.
You can find all information about the current call for applications on this webpage.
Applications must be submitted via our online application platform. The deadline for applications is December 31, 2023.
If you have questions regarding the application process, please have a look at the FAQs on our website or write us an email at info@khk.rwth-aachen.de.
c:o/re meets “Leonardo”
We are excited that the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of research (c:o/re) is participating in the “Leonardo” project at RWTH Aachen University this winter semester.
Together with some of our fellows, c:o/re is offering the course “Engineering Life. Imaginaries of Lifelikeness”, which will explore the topic of “Lifelikeness” from different disciplinary perspectives, such as the life and technical sciences, the humanities, art history and science journalism.
The “Leonardo” lectures are open to all RWTH students, regardless of which discipline they study and therefore share the same goal as c:o/re in promoting lecturers and students to use their subject-specific knowledge in a broader context to investigate the challenges within society and science.
You can read more about the “Leonardo” project on their website.
Lifelikeness… from scratch: Director Gabriele Gramelsberger opens the new c:o/re lecture series
On October 25th, Professor Gabriele Gramelsberger, one of the two c:o/re directors, gave the first talk of the 2023/2024 c:o/re lecture series, which focuses on the slippery but important notion of lifelikeness. The title of her talk, Life from scratch announces an interesting lecture series bringing together arguments from the life sciences to philosophy and all the way to engineering and computational science, where we can but expect the best practice of academic traditions: controversy, that unavoidable result of free and critical thinking.
This semester’s c:o/re lecture series is also part of the Projekt “Leonardo”: Interdisciplinary Teaching for Creative Minds . This project offers interdisciplinary courses on social challenges broadly, offering RWTH Aachen University students from many disciplines the possibility to learn about the eclectic and interdisciplinary work of researchers from various departments.
In this way, c:o/re contributes to the teaching offer of and inter-departmental dialogue at RWTH Aachen University. Debating lifelikeness, as a topic emerging at the interface of the humanities and social sciences, natural sciences and engineering, is one of the contributions that c:o/re brings to foster dialogue across faculties and bring together local scholars and its research fellows.
In this first talk of the series, Professor Gramelsberger inspired a lively discussion among c:o/re researchers and colleagues and students from many departments across RWTH Aachen University. She offered a broadly informative and encompassing overview of synthetic biology, with a focus on the enduring human fascination to solve the puzzle of life, such as pursued currently in astrobiology.
First, Professor Gramelsberger took the audience on a journey through the history of biology, particularly as seen from the contemporary vantage point of ReGenesis. The talk proceeded from early efforts to obtain (a)biogenesis in laboratories to contemporary experiments and efforts, such as revolving around the concept of the domain Synthetica.
Introducing the main guiding concepts, such as abiogenesis, Professor Gramelsberger explained that the ideal to create life is, probably, as old as humanity. She pointed to the enduring cultural fascination with creating life, as displayed in novels like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and films like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), or in Jewish mythical folklore of the Golem, the animated mythical creature created from mud that is said to have roamed 16th-century Prague. Cultural imaginaries of humans creating new life have taken inspiration, of course, from state-of-the-art scientific undertakings. For example, Mary Shelley likely took inspiration from Luigi Galvani’s experiments in the 1780s. Much later, in 1952, the type of thinking falling under the label electric spark theory was put to the test in the Miller-Urey experiment (see Miller 1953), with impressive results. Researchers observed the formation of amino acids by applying electricity to water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3) and hydrogen (H2), a setting meant to simulate the conditions, as thought at the time, of the prebiotic Earth atmosphere.
Having presented these ideas to the students, Professor Gramelsberger set the stage for an informative overview of the intellectual history covering the works of Jacques Loeb (1852-1924), Alfonso Herrera (1868-1942) and Stéphane Leduc (1853-1939).
An interesting realization that this history reveals is that the biological problem of life keeps slipping. Every time when biological science finds the solution to what it construed as the question of life, it reveals that the question of life was misplaced. For example, merely creating an organic molecule from inorganic matter or protoplasm from mineral substances is not creating life. As spectacular as this achievement may be, the most important insight it provides is that merely organic molecules or DNA is not life, as we experience and recognize it. Hence, biology can be said to reveal what life is in a positive heuristics of increasingly understanding what life is not.
The talk then proceeded to present more recent molecular biology, as enabled by the genetic paradigm, and exemplified in the work of figures like Craig Venter or Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer. Professor Gramelsberger discussed recent efforts in the pursuit of De-novo organisms in an engaging manner, making the main notion here comprehensible for both fellow academics and postgraduate students. She offered an overview of the main types of De-novo approaches, namely Minimal genome, Biobrick (engineering) and Computer-aided design (CAD). This opened the stage for reflecting on cutting-edge and speculative considerations of the domain of Synthetica, as a new unit in the vocabulary of biological taxonomy. The talk raised important questions about the future of life, bio-hacking and genetic literacy, as one branch of new literacies. Here, Professor Gramelsberger noted the pioneering scholarship, such as George Church’s ReGenesis (2012), Amy Web & Andrew Hessel’s The genesis machine (2022) and Jamie Metzl’s Hacking Darwin (2019).
Overall, the talk fostered an interdisciplinary dialogue, also stiring the interest of students by reflecting philosophically on the many questions accumulated and meliorated through the history of (synthetic) biology. For example, the the role of the concept of oscillators was noted, across disciplines, in ushering a process instead of object ontology. Questions and discussions covered the conceptualisation of genetic engineering and synthetic biology, mechanical reductionism and vitalism, industrial and economic motivations and, of course, a wide array of ethical considerations.
With this intriguing introduction, we look forward to the next talks in the c:o/re Lifelikeness series, which also addresses students through Projekt Leonardo.
References
Church, George. 2012. ReGenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. Basic Books.
ETC group. 2007. Extreme genetic engineering: An introduction to synthetic biology. ETC group.
Metzl, Jamie. 2019. Hacking Darwin: Genetic engineering and the future of humanity. Sourcebooks, Inc..
Miller, Stanley L. 1953. Production of amino acids under possible primitive earth conditions, Science 117 (3046): 528-529.
Webb, Amy, Hessel, Andrew. 2022. The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology. Hachette.
Reflecting back on the International Semiotic Summer School in Prague: Visual Metaphors. An unprecedented event in a history of semiotics in the Czech Republic
TYLER JAMES BENNETT
The International Semiotic Summer School in Prague (ISSSIP 2023) was an unprecedented event, having taken place on July 23rd – 28th, 2023. It was organized by the International Semiotics Institute (based at Palacký University Olomouc), in partnership with c:o/re, the University of Bologna, University of Sofia St. Kliment Ohridski, The Erasmus School of Philosophy in Rotterdam, Palacký University in Olomouc, and Charles University in Prague. It was hosted at the Department of Electronic Culture and Semiotics at Charles University. It gathered 80 students from several universities, who listened to lectures by more than ten leading academics, in several branches of semiotics, and had the chance to network and share their ongoing research. We express our gratitude to have collaborated with RWTH Aachen University for this event.
Tyler James Bennett
Tyler James Bennett is Assistant Professor at Palacký University Olomouc and the director of the International Semiotics Institute. His research interests include deconstruction, psychoanalysis and biosemiotics.
We say that it was unprecedented from the insider perspective of being principal organizers of the event, as well as having been deeply implicated in the European semiotics conference circuit for more than a decade – because of the diligence of the team, the beneficence of the environs, the generosity of the hosts as well as the funding institutions, we think we saw something pretty special. At the bottom of this post, reflections by RWTH Aachen students confirm the unique experience that the summer school offered.
The Czech semiotic summer schools have a long if still somewhat unwritten history. The same can be said about the even longer history of the Czech schools (now in plural) of semiotics, in general. ISSSIP 2023 was first proposed at the 2022 Czech Semiotic Summer School held in Broumov, at the Benedictine Monastery. It consisted mostly of Martin Švantner, Ondřej Váša, Tyler James Bennett, Ľudmila Lacková and philosophy and semiotics students from Charles University. It was a low-key event with no more than 20 participants, but the students showed excitement and remarkable competence. Alena Ivanová, Aneta Kouvařiková and Vojtěch Volách were all there, the three of whom would later be instrumental members of the local organzing ground team the following summer. At the outdoor dinner table there, in July, it was agreed that we would hold it in Prague, and perhaps we could make it a more international event this time. As such, we started the dialog with RWTH Aachen, among other universities that became organizing partners.
We decided not to call it the ‘Czech’ Semiotic Summer School. All of us in the organizing committee share some commitment to non-identification with the nation-state; as a source for themes and conceptual unity it is all too easy to fall back on the classics. We resolved to call this event the ‘International’ Semiotic Summer School in Prague, which was appealing to some of us because of how it highlights the role of the International Semiotics Institute (ISI) in the organization of the school. We really only understood the wisdom of keeping ‘Czech’ out of the title after the school was complete and we could reflect on the recurring points of discussion. The great names in Czech semiotics were of course spoken at our Summer School: Ivo Osolsobě, Jan Kořenský, and Roman Jakobson (although, as we know, Jakobson was Russian) – but the trending theoretical coordinates were far more diverse than this, unrestricted by historical or geographical limitations. Were it the ‘Czech Semiotic Summer School’ no doubt our guests would feel some obligation to pay obeisance to the local demi-gods, but in our case the pantheon is de-particularized (and this is reflected in the diversity of semiotic research cultures globally). Nevertheless, s ome new and very clear trend lines did also emerge from this meeting.
One of our keynote speakers, Professor Jordan Zlatev (Lund University), put it like this: if this Summer School is any indication, semiology (as a specific pathway of semiotic research, on the inspiration of Ferdinand de Saussure) is alive and well in the international semiotics scene. This comment even came before semiology had really seriously been broached at our event, when professor Miglena Nikolchina gave her keynote the following day, which bore the really excellent title: “F in Fire Stands for Fear: Image, Language, and Metaphor in a Kristevan Perspective”. Nikolchina works at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and we invited her specifically for her expertise in the semiotics of Julia Kristeva, and for her team of associates from Bulgaria who bring probably the most sophisticated understanding of the semiology of that time, which elevated the discussion considerably.
Securing the participation of students and colleagues from all of our partner universities was made possible entirely by the Blended Intensive Program (BIP), an Erasmus funding source from the European Union. For each institution sending students to our conference a separate agreement had to be negotiated with a different representative on their side. This involved countless emails and phone calls. We are all greatful to Ľudmila Lacková who, as Head of General Linguistics at Palacky University, managed all this coordination. Eventually, the event gathered an impressive number of enthusiastic students from many universities. Alin Olteanu’s role in bringing such great students from RWTH Aachen University, and for giving his own special workshop on cognitive semiotics, together with his colleague Aliki Apostolidou, as well as chairing more than one session, was decisive to the success of the school.
I believe that this semiotics event, focusing on visual metaphor, illustrated some of the topics that academics working in semiotics can collaborate on with science and technology scholars, such as the team and fellows of c:o/re. We listened to several remarkable talks on semiotic perspectives on technology, videogaming being a central focus in Miglena Nikolchina’s keynote address. I would like to highlight the presentation of the project Digital Writing, by Anežka Formánková and Kristína Harišová from Palacký University, under the supervision of Ľudmila Lackova. This project brings crucial insights into the history and cognitive aspects of writing systems, including the possible futures of writing systems, semiotic and linguistic analysis of emojis and internet memes.
The work of the Institute for Studies in Pragmatism (at Texas Tech), an important partner of this Summer School, has a specific interest for digital technology and artificial intelligence. Scholars from this Institute discussed such topics, unraveling particular insights that may come from semiotic perspectives. We would like to thank Professor Elize Bisanz, the Director of this Institute, not only for participating and delivering a brilliant keynote address, but also for making organizing the Peirce Young Scholar Awards at this Summer School, making available prizes, financial and not only, for the best three presentations by students. The best student presentation prize was awarded to Lenka Vojtíšková (Charles University) and the third best presentation prize was awarded to Rahul Murdeshwar (University of Tartu). The second-best student presentation was awarded to the RWTH Aachen student Chiara Schumann, for her paper on Metaphors animals live by, which discussed metaphorical conceptualizations in a species of octopi. This work on animal cognition and meaning-making is relevant for one of the main interests at c:o/re, namely lifelikeness. We see here a pathway for biosemiotics and cognitive semiotics to participate to the current cutting-edge debates in science and technology studies. Currently, Chiara is writing a BA thesis on this topic, coordinated by Dr. Alin Olteanu and Prof. Irene Mittelberg.
While I pointed out some specific papers we listened to at the Summer School, I cannot offer a compelling sample of the rich academic debates we had throughout the week. The full program of the Summer School is available here.
We are grateful to Castle Residence Praha, a fabulous hotel located directly next to the venue (Faculty of Humanities), hosted two of our big social events. The nights at Castle Residence will always be remembered. We are also grateful to Charles University for making available student dormitories at a very convenient price for the event.
What was most remarkable was that this event also had a kind of lawless, anarchic vibe – in the best sense. Because it was specifically Martin Švantner and Ondřej Váša (vice-dean of the Faculty of Humanities) who were the Charles University academic staff responsible onsite, everything proceeded naturally, and for once it did not feel like there were any hostile bureaucrats trying to dictate terms or limit what we could do. Above all, we hope that, like us, the students also enjoyed the lack of hierarchy and friendly environment. We had full latitude in the decision making and execution, and because of this, our event at times felt more like a party, a party where there is anonymity, but where everything remains totally civilized. Probably it was during these hours that the strongest bonds, memories and future plans were forged.
The lectures comprised in this summer school will be available on the Semiosalong Youtube channel.
RWTH students reflect on the summer school
Thomas Venator
PhD student, Philosophy of Geology
The ISSS’s handling of visual metaphor was a testament to the ever-evolving nature of semiotic studies, underscoring the importance of metaphorical constructions for knowledge in an increasingly visually-centered world.
The summer school layed a groundwork for future explorations and was also useful for my own doctoral research; helping illuminate how we can make progress towards the ‘Geosemiosis’ Vic Baker called for back in 1998.
Coming from a technical background, I enjoyed the attempt to discuss ‘AI’ and particularly appreciated talks on multimodality, structuralism and their interplay with digital architecture.
Set against the elaborate backdrop of Prague, the event combined academic rigor with cultural enrichment to provide a host of valuable memories with new friends. My fondest of these has to be the second evening, standing on a hill with colleagues, to enjoy the city vista and discuss life’s mysteries.
Thus, I was definitely inspired by this summer school and recommend it to enthusiasts, academics, artists, or anyone else intrigued by the endless dance of symbol and meaning.
Sonja Bettermann
MA student, Cognitive, Digital and Empirical English Studies
For me, the semiotics summer school in Prague was a great opportunity to acquire insights look on the various topics of semiotic research. We not only listened to fascinating presentations but also got the chance to discuss extensively during lunch and other breaks. Through the activities organised by the coordinators, I was able to speak with and connect with the other students and professors and learn about their research interests and projects. Since I am currently majoring in the MA program Cognitive, Digital and Empirical English Studies at RWTH Aachen University, the summer school helped me get a better understanding of semiotics, especially metaphors, which is relevant and helpful for my writing certain term papers in semiotics and, also, for my studies in general.
Anna Eskova
MA student, Cognitive, Digital and Empirical English Studies
The International Summer Semiotic School on Visual Metaphor was a very useful and exciting experience. It helped me better understand important theories that I am studying as part of my MA degree in Cognitive, Digital and Empirical English Studies, particularly in regard to the subjects Cognitive Linguistics and Media Semiotics. What I learnred at this Summer School is very helpful for writing some term papers, in which I employ semiotics to analyse perfume advertisements, specifically, the visual representation of different scents. Moreover, the summer school helped me not only to learn more theoretical notions but also to see their application in different fields, starting from linguistics and art and ending with genetics. By attending this summer school I had important realizations about how I want to continue my studies further on, by focusing on specific topics that I anticipate to gain even more relevance in the future.
David Lesmeister
MA student, teacher trainee in English as a foreign language
The Summer School in Prague inspired me, both academically field and personally. The scholarly discourses I listened to, encompassing theories that were knew to me, significantly expanded my horizon. Discussing with students and academics from several universities has encouraged me to explore diverse disciplines and provided new insights into various aspects of my bachelor thesis. The presentations delivered by students ranging from Doctoral to Master and Bachelor degrees contributed to my understanding of theory. This engagement contributed to my understanding of complex concepts and unearthed their relevance in my daily life. Besides academic insights, personally meeting students from various universities and degrees was extremely important and made the Summer School an experience I would not want to miss.
Chiara Schumann
BA student, Linguistics and Literary Studies
BIP+ funding enabled me to participate in the International Semiotic Summer School 2023 in Prague: Visual Metaphor. For me, this event provided highly enriching academic conversations and personal experiences.
I very much enjoyed the diverse lectures on visual metaphors, which complement the BA I am currently undertaking in Linguistics and Literary Studies. For me, it was particularly important to listen to talks on cognitive semiotics and, especially, to have the chance to discuss extensively on the topic with leading researchers in the field, such as Professor Jordan Zlatev. Also, attending presentations by MA and PhD students was very insightful. These experiences helped me clarify my aim to work on developing the cooperation between cognitive linguistics and biosemiotics. Having presented the main idea of my BA thesis, on cross-domain mapping in Thaumoctopus Mimicus, I discussed it with scholars from various universities. This helped me make important progress. I feel genuinely happy about having had these experiences.
By becoming friends with students from many places I improved my English. I had fun by visiting spectacular historical places in Prague, as a group and by discussing about semiotics in beer gardens. It is difficult to imagine a more professionally, culturally and personally fulfilling way of exploring charming European city.
