You are cordially invited to the 45th Austrian Association for American Studies conference. The event will take place from November 16th to 18th, 2018 and will focus on the topic of “American Im/Mobilities”.
Further details and the latest updates can be found on our website: https://aaas2018.univie.ac.at/
We hope to see you there!
Jan Müggenburg ist Juniorprofessor für Medien- und
Wissenschaftsgeschichte am Institut für Kultur und Ästhetik Digitaler
Medien der Leuphana Universität in Lüneburg. Er forscht zur Geschichte
Digitaler Kulturen und leitet gemeinsam mit Wolfgang Hagen das von der
DFG geförderte Projekt „Medien der Assistenz”. Jan Müggenburg ist Juniorprofessor für Medien- und
Wissenschaftsgeschichte am Institut für Kultur und Ästhetik Digitaler
Medien der Leuphana Universität in Lüneburg. Er forscht zur Geschichte
Digitaler Kulturen und leitet gemeinsam mit Wolfgang Hagen das von der
DFG geförderte Projekt „Medien der Assistenz”.
Abstract:
»Ich war zu Tränen gerührt, als Murray Babcock mir an unserem
kybernetischen Institut eines Tages sagte: ›Ich habe diesen Dynamic
Analyzer gebaut, aber ich weiß immer noch nicht, wozu er eigentlich gut
sein soll«. Die Worte Heinz von Foersters über seinen Mitarbeiter
wirken auf den ersten Blick befremdlich. Als Ingenieur arbeitete Babcock
für Foerster in den 1960er Jahren am Biological Computer Laboratory
(BCL) der University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign und hatte den
Auftrag, kybernetische Maschinen nach dem Vorbild biologischer
Funktionsweisen zu konstruieren. Der Dynamic Signal Analyzer sollte
eigentlich das nur wenige Millimeter große menschliche Innenohr
imitieren und gehörte zu den Vorzeigeprojekten des BCL. Wenn aber am
Ende eines mehrjährigen Projektes ein raumfüllender Apparat steht,
von dem selbst ihr Konstrukteur nicht mehr so richtig weiß, ›wozu er
eigentlich gut sein soll‹, dann ist in der Übersetzungskette von der
Natur zur Maschine scheinbar etwas aus den Fugen geraten.
In meinem Vortrag möchte ich zeigen, dass die vermeintliche Loslösung
von einem ursprünglichen Referenten jedoch nicht als Scheitern eines
Übertragungsprozesses aus der Natur in die Technik, sondern ganz im
Gegenteil als ein charakteristisches Moment kybernetischer Modellbildung
in den 1960er-Jahren verstanden werden muss. Gerade _weil_ Babcocks
künstliches Ohr seine eigene Modellwirklichkeit erzeugte, konnte es
als Projektionsfläche für die Erwartungen von militärischen
Mittelgebern, als Plattform zur Exploration von Theorien sowie als
Archiv für andere Modelle dienen. Die epistemologische Legitimität
kybernetischer Maschinen, so meine These, leitete sich nicht aus einer
möglichst exakten Nachahmung ihrer natürlichen Vorbilder ab, sondern
aus ihrer eigenen Performativität und Überzeugungskraft als lebhafte
Artefakte.
DI 22.05.2018, 18.00 UHr
Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Seminarraum 1
Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 1, 1090 Wien
On the 29th at 5pm a guest-lecture about Franz Fanon with Greg Thomas (Tufts University) will be held at the African Studies Department.
A revolutionary-psychiatrist and writer of African Revolution in
pan-Africanist terms, Frantz Fanon may have been critically “recognized”
in the U.S. academy of the West in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But
this belated move was made after certain social movements of 1960s and
1970s had revived his work which had been condemned by Western colonial
capitalism as well as many Western and Westernized Marxists.
Thanks especially to the Black Power Movement of North America and
beyond, all of Fanon’s four books circulated and once received due
attention in popular rather than elite bourgeois social spheres: namely,
The Wretched of the Earth, A Dying Colonialism, Toward the African
Revolution, and Black, Skin, White Masks – in chronological order of
French-to-English translation. Decades later, however, when neo-colonial
imperialism becomes hegemonic, there would be a superficial
academicization of “Fanon” that presents him as a “post-colonialist”
instead of anti-colonialist who both prophesies and opposes
neo-colonialism. The academic distortion of Fanon (and colonialism)
continues to reduce to him to a few pages of one, his first book-text,
the one which was written before the bulk of his anti-imperialist corpus
and his radical turn toward Africa, the “Third World,” and revolution.
This lecture contextualizes the study of Fanon by returning us to the
complete Fanon without the post-colonialist mythologies of
neo-colonizing Western academia. What else can we see in Fanonism as a
result?
Location:
Department of African Studies,
University of Vienna
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 5,
1090 Vienna
Seminar room 1 (1st floor)
In honor of the coinciding anniversaries of the Center for Canadian Studies and the University Campus, we are celebrating the research fest “Canada in Vienna, Vienna in Canada.” The event will take place from Friday, June 15 to Saturday, June 16, 2018 and will include conference presentations – most notably the 3rd Vienna Lecture in Canadian Studies by Käthe Leichter Visiting Professor Tegan Zimmerman and an address by the President of the Royal Society of Canada Chad Gaffield – as well as a concert and a poetry reading.
Further details can be found on our website http://canada.univie.ac.at/anniversary.
Please register by May 30 with helena.oberzaucher@univie.ac.at
We hope to see you there!
American Drama Group Europe/TNT Britain are inviting you to join them for an evening of Shakespearean fun at STADTPALAIS LIECHTENSTEIN (29. Juni 2017). Take in a grandiose performance of TWELFTH NIGHT by W.Shakespeare!
All info and tickets in the links below.
https://www.eventbrite.de/e/twelfth-night-castle-tour-stadtpalais-liechtenstein-tickets-32181308159
Date: June 29, 2017
Dear fellow students, you are cordially invited to the Romanistik’s summer party on the 29th of June at 16 o’clock at the department’s courtyard (Hof 8). Have fun and celebrate the end of the semester!
The semester is drawing to a cl
ose! Have you met all your deadlines yet? Did you know that ‘deadline’ in Welsh is dyddiad cau? If you want to know more about Wales (which is woefully underrepresented at the department) we might just have the thing for you! Come to our first Welsh-themed breakfast!
Take a well-earned break between those final essays and tests and and have a bite! Our monthly feast offers you a pause from studying in order to socialize and mingle with your fellow students over a tasty bite or sip.
When: June 12, 9 a.m. – 1 pm
Where: Student Lounge, 1st floor
Hope to see you there!
Are you interested in practicing your speaking skills with native speakers? One of the most beneficial things you can do during your studies is make connections—meet others with similar interests, experience, and professional goals. Therefore, we invite you to join IES Abroad Vienna and some 30 US-Students from the University of Maryland for a student mixer.
Featuring light food and refreshments, the event offers you an excellent opportunity to socialize with fellow students from the US in a fun and casual setting.
Trans-Atlantic American Studies Seminar: Transatlantic Popular Culture
Universität Wien / University of Texas at Austin
Prof. Dr. Alexandra Ganser / Prof. Dr. Steven Hoelscher
June 8, 2017
2-4pm
Amerika Haus
Friedrich-Schmidt-Platz 2
1010 Wien
This is a joint seminar with students from the University of Texas at Austin. Students from Vienna with an interest in American Studies/Cultural Studies are welcome to join!
Please register by May 31 with claudia.sackl@univie.ac.at
