Together with the Charlemagne Prize Foundation and RWTH Aachen University’s Knowledge Hub, the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (co/re) organizes an international symposium entitled “Freedom of Research: A European Summit – Science in Times of Uncertainty”, which will take place on November 4 and 5, 2024 in Aachen.

Freedom in all its dimensions is a core European value and right. Freedom of research is vital for fostering innovation, expanding knowledge, and ensuring Europe’s global competitiveness. Today, this freedom is increasingly under pressure from political tensions and shifting uncertainties. How can we navigate these challenges? How do we create a resilient framework for future developments to come?

We invite you to Aachen for a summit focused on the crucial role of freedom in scientific, cultural, social, and political contexts. With a program that includes a late-night event, an all-day symposium, an art exhibition, and a festive evening, the summit will bring together researchers, policymakers, representatives of business, media, culture and the public to exchange ideas and develop strategies for strengthening academic freedom, fostering a resilient European community that champions democratic governance and societal benefit, and connect fresh perspectives and innovative solutions for the challenges of tomorrow.

All information about the program, the speakers and the registration form can be found on the event website: www.for-summit.eu.

Get to know our current fellows and gain an impression of their research. In a new season of short videos, we asked them to introduce themselves, talk about their work at the KHK c:o/re and the research questions that fascinate them.

In this video, Denisa Butnaru, lecturer in sociology at the University of Konstanz, introduces her research on bio-objects, how human bodies transform following the development of current technologies and how the production of bio-objects is linked to developments in healthcare and the armed forces.

Check out our media section or our YouTube channel to have a look at the other videos.

We are happy to announce that the lecture series of the winter term 2024/25 will revolve around the topic of Expanding Science and Technology Studies.

Over the decades, Science and Technology Studies (STS) have developed many different approaches for investigating the relationship between science and society and to dig deep into the cultures of research, the ways science is conducted. E.g., scholars have investigated the local cultures and politics underlying processes of knowledge production, the biases and gender divisions informing the organization of academic institutions, or the reception of future technological visions in different publics. There is a rich knowledge. However, it seems that science studies are not well prepared for the transformation challenge. Against this background, the purpose of this lecture series is to understand first the transformation challenge and its consequences for science studies and second to explore different pathways of future science studies.  

Various speakers, including the sociologist David Kaldewey (University of Bonn) and the philosopher Sabina Leonelli (Technical University of Munich), will be guests at the KHK c:o/re and shed light on “Expanding Science and Technology Studies” from different disciplinary perspectives.

Please find an overview of the dates and speakers in the program.

The lectures will take place from October 9, 2024 to January 22, 2025 every second Wednesday from 5 to 6.30 pm in presence and online.

If you would like to attend, please write a short email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

In September, we will welcome Darren Sharp from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, as RWTH Theodore von Kármán Fellow at the KHK c:o/re.

The application for the fellowship was jointly supported by Professor Christine Reicher (Chair of Urban Design and Institute for Urban Design and European Urbanism), Professor Reinhard Madlener (Institute of Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior) and KHK c:o/re Director Professor Stefan Böschen. The fellowship contributes to the international profiling and interdisciplinary exchange in the field of sustainability transitions research.

During his stay, Darren Sharp will work on his project “Net Zero Precincts: an interdisciplinary approach to decarbonising cities”, a four-year ARC Linkage project to develop and test a new interdisciplinary approach to help cities reach net zero. The research takes inspiration from the Net Zero Initiative through which Monash University has committed to achieving net zero emissions across its four Australian campuses by 2030. Net Zero Precincts brings together transition management with design anthropology to support the transition to net zero cities in a way that is responsive to the needs of people, politics and place.

In a public university lecture at the KHK c:o/re on September 11, 2024, from 5 to 6.30 pm, Darren Sharp will discuss the interdisciplinary approach being developed through an overview of the envisioning process that took place via a workshop series with participants from the Monash Precinct community. You are cordially invited to come along.

RWTH Kármán-Fellowships are funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the German State of North Rhine Westphalia (MKW) under the Excellence Strategy of the Federal Government and the Länder.

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.

In the latest edition of our video series, Federica Russo, Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Technosciences, talks about her research on the key questions of evidence and how the humanities and philosophy can affect socio-political questions and policy making, even if they seem abstract and theoretical:

Check out our media section or our YouTube channel to have a look at the other videos.

We are delighted to welcome another RWTH Kármán-Fellow at the KHK c:o/re: Chun-Shik Kim, Professor at the Department of Energy Management and Director of the Institute for Energy Convergence Technology at Dongshin University in Naju (South Korea).

The application for this fellowship was jointly supported by Professor Thomas Gries (Chair of Textile Engineering), Professor Roger Häußling (Chair of Sociology of Technolgy and Organization) and KHK c:o/re Director Professor Stefan Böschen. The fellowship thus strengthens interdisciplinary cooperation in the field of engineering, sociology and artificial intelligence (AI).

The fellowship enables Chun-Shik Kim a short-term stay at the KHK c:o/re at RWTH Aachen University to work on his project “Applications and challenges of artificial intelligence technology in school and training: A comparative study between South Korea and Germany”. The different approaches and attitudes of the two countries offer a unique opportunity to examine in detail the various challenges and approaches to implementing AI in educational institutions. Chun-Shik Kim’s research aims not only to analyze existing differences and challenges, but also to develop solutions to optimize the use of AI worldwide to increase educational attainment and learning success.

To present the outcomes of his fellowship, Chun-Shik Kim will give a public university lecture on July 9, 2024, 5-6.30 pm, at KHK c:o/re, Theaterstr. 75. The lecture will be held in German.

RWTH Kármán-Fellowships are funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the German State of North Rhine Westphalia (MKW) under the Excellence Strategy of the Federal Government and the Länder.

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 latest video on our YouTube channel, in which Michael Friedman, historian of mathematics, introduces his research on materials and material practices and explains why philosophers, historians, cultural scientists and media scientists have an enormous influence on how natural scientists and material scientists think and react to their inventions:

Check out our media section or our YouTube channel to have a look at the other videos.

As part of the collaboration of c:o/re with Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Peter Mantello and Alin Olteanu will give a talk entitled “From print capitalism to surveillance capitalism: Mapping the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Platform Surveillance in Japan” on 6 June 2024 from 1 to 3pm at the National University of Science and Technology in Bucharest, which will shed light on the interaction of technology, AI, philosophy and ethics.

The talk will be broadcasted live on Microsoft teams. Click here to attend online.

Abstract:

We argue that AI surveillance effects the transition from print capitalism to surveillance capitalism. We study this process by looking at konbini surveillance, the role of convenience stores in Japan to act as ‘middleman’ for AI platforms by collecting clients’ biometric data. Through this study, we also ponder on the general concept of technology, and argue that situated cognition theories should construe technology as the mind’s outworking itself into its next state. As such, we contribute to uprooting (post-)Cartesian Reason from philosophy of technology (Clowes 2019). The latter lead to conceptualizing technology as adjacent (see Walter, Stephan 2022), instead of intrinsic to mind, despite historically confusing the print medium with reasoning (Hartley 2012).

Print capitalism (Anderson, 1983 [2006]) refers to the literary marketplace that emerged because of the effects of printing technology to enable mass literacy through public education. In the specific circumstances of modernity, literate publics began to perceive themselves as nations: readers of printed press imagined themselves as monolingual communities that require self-governance.

Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff 2019) refers to the data collecting intrinsic to digital tech corporations, based on claiming human experience as material for translation into machine computable data. It contradicts aspirations of digital democracy. Predicting and shaping behavior, surveillance capitalism leads to behavioral futures marketplaces, exploiting digital connection as a means towards commercial ends.

We see surveillance capitalism as the fulfilment of the requirement of print capitalism to imagine closed communities, obstructing the emergence of a sense of kinship on a global level, or “biosphere consciousness” (Rifkin 2011). As digital mediascapes do not afford imagining nations, surveillance capitalism is an ideological attempt to maintain nation-states as concretized into digital datasets. A community as a dataset is something that (post)digital citizens can imagine.

We illustrate our theory by considering current manifestations of Japanese techno-nationalism as an imagined space that transcends normative understandings of ‘nation’. With Robertson (2022), we consider that Japanese techno-nationalism serves as a model for ushering digital nations, reinforcing imaginaries of nationhood through “kinship technologies” that obstruct the expansion of human empathy beyond previously imagined boundaries. We conceive Japanese techno-nationalism as a computational and algorithmic space tethered to larger digital infrastructures, i.e. platform capitalism(Murakami Wood, Monahan 2019).

If print media (newspapers) are historically responsible for modern understandings of nation, then AI surveillance plays a critical role in writing the socio-technical imaginary of Japanese techno-nationalism. To reflect on this, with a focus on the convenience store (konbini), we employ Lefebvre’s (1991 [1974]) concept of space. Like an increasing number of digitalized social spaces (workplace, transport, entertainment, hospitals, prisons), the konbini as a surveillant exchange disciplines and monetizes (mal)practices of consumption.

References

Anderson, B. 2006/1983. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.

Clowes, R. 2019. Immaterial engagement: human agency and the affective ecology of the internet. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 18, 259-279. 

Hartley, J. 2012. Digital futures for cultural and media studies. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Murakami Wood, D., Monahan, T. 2019. Editorial: Platform Surveillance. Surveillance & Society 17(1/2): 1-6.

Lefebvre, H. 1991 [1974]. The production of space. Trans. Nicholson-Smith, D. Oxford: Blakcwell.

Rifkin, J. 2011. The third industrial revolution: How lateral power is transforming energy, the economy, and the world. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Robertson, J. 2022. Imagineerism: Technology, Robots, Kinship. Perspectives from Japan. In: Bruun, M. H., Wahlberg, A., Douglas-Jones, R., Hasse, C., Hoeyer, K. Kristensen D. B., Winthereik, B. R. Eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Anthropology of Technology. Singapore: Palgrave Macmilan.

Walter, S., Stephan, A. 2022. Situated affectivity and mind shaping: Lessons from social psychology. Emotion Review 15(1): 3-16.

Zuboff, S. 2019. The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. New York: Public Affairs Books.