Humboldt University Berlin

In this course, students practice writing simple texts and train grammar topics that are important for both casual and formal writing. The focus is on writing occasions from everyday private and student life (e.g. creative writing, notes, emails). Students also prepare a short essay at the end of the course. The grammar topics that are covered are based on the students' texts. Students' willingness to write short texts on a regular basis is therefore important.

This course aims to provide a range of qualitative research tools to invoke different stories, views, voices, identities, embodimenets and experiences. We discuss the theory, methodology and foundation of non-textual research methods. These different methods are hoped to provoke a new way of thinking away from the Western canon, contribute to more democratic and just research settings, and open up possibilities for transforming social inequalities. Through readings, class discussions, lectures from invited guests, and practical exercises students will explore the potentials and challenges of various methods, identify opportunities to use them, and consider how to treat and deal with data that comes out of the use of creative methods. This course is suitable for anyone who would like to experience and learn more about alternative and/or complementary methods to existing qualitative approaches (i.e. focus groups, interviews). It is of advantage if participants have prior experience of and with qualitative research. Participants at the early, middle and final stages of a qualitative research project will benefit, but if possible, it is best to consider data collection and analysis at the proposal stage.

In literary uchronies, fictional scenarios are created that are based on an alternative course of history. They can therefore be understood as thought experiments that seek an answer to the question of what would have happened if history had taken a different path at one point: What if the Second World War had taken a different course? What if the turning point hadn't happened? What if the First World War had never ended or had never happened at all? The lecture approaches this phenomenon from different perspectives, tracing the history of concepts and genres as well as identifying thematic focuses of concrete literary uchronies. The distinction from Uchronia in historical science will also play an important role. In this way the course shows that literary uchronia is not just a (sometimes quite amusing) game of the imagination, but in most cases also a challenging and intensive examination of the past as well as the present.

This is the second part of my lecture series ‘Kant and the Constitution of Objectivity’.  This course deals mainly with Transcendental Dialectic. I will argue that Kant establishes a new and distinct notion of objectivity here, which is built on the insight that the objects of empirical cognition are always conditioned with respect to certain metaphysical grounding relations and provoke the idea of something that is unconditioned in this respect. Understanding how this notion of objectivity arises and why it falls short of providing us with cognition, e.g., of the self, of the world as a whole, and of God, will allow for a better understanding of Kant’s arguments against rationalist psychology, cosmology and theology. We will also deal with the object of practical reason – the good – and see in how far the objects of theoretical and practical reason are distinct and in how far they are similar.

In the 19th century, the Tibetan Plateau was one of the last so-called "blank spots" on European maps, along with other regions of Central Asia. Due to its strategic position in Central Asia and growing economic interests, developing Tibet became an ambitious goal for many Europeans. The seminar examines in what form and with what motives different interest groups such as missionaries, traders, adventurers, scientists and colonial officials acquired and circulated knowledge about Tibet. Why was certain knowledge considered important? How was the collected knowledge interpreted, used and presented? The aim of the seminar is the methodical introduction of the students to colonial history in Asia and the discussion of the role of the so-calledGreat Game between Great Britain and Russia for supremacy in Central Asia, the effects of which reach into the present.
 

This course focuses on the relationship between violent conflict and economic development. The first half of the course examines the concepts of conflict and development, as well as some associated theories. The second part focuses on the nexus between conflict and development, the cultural dimensions of conflict and development, and concludes with some policy interventions that could be applied to reduce the risk of conflict and accelerate development. Reference is made to some case studies in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In this course, we will bring together Plato's and Wittgenstein's discussions of negation, truth, and being. This is not an arbitrary juxtaposition: Plato's Theaetetus is a text that Wittgenstein responds to directly in the Philosophical Investigations--one of a very few philosophical texts to be mentioned at all. In the first half of the semester, we will engage in close reading of parts of Plato's Theaetetus and Sophist that discuss the structure of propositions, the nature of truth, the possibility of false belief and false statements, and also negation. (The Sophist is closely tied to the Theaetetus, by both literary signals and philosophical themes.) In the second half of the semester, we will turn to Wittgenstein, reading selections from the Tractatus and the Investigations. We will be interested both in how Wittgenstein responds explicitly to Plato and in how Wittgensteins responds indirectly (or unintentionally) to Plato.

This course is designed for beginners in the French language (i.e. no prerequisites or prior knowledge are needed). The content of this course consists of the basics of French taught through interactive listening, speaking and reading tasks. At the end of the course, students will be prepared for French A2 according to CEFR standards.

How can we understand the relationship between gender and environment? And what can feminist thinking contribute to debates on the current ecological crisis and the needed sustainability transition? Drawing on feminist and gender scholarship the course introduces students to key theories and debates including ecofeminism and feminist political ecology. Over the course of the seminar we look at early critiques of the women-environment nexus to more recent debates on care politics or posthumanism. Through diverse empirical examples of topics such as agri-food regimes, climate change, natural resources and environmental activism this course addresses the gender dimensions of environmental issues.

This seminar is designed to offer students a first insight into the broad range of writings during the Romantic period. It explores a number of the many authors, genres, and thematic facets of the Romantic period, from responses to the French revolution in essays, poetry, and fiction to programmatic turns towards a new kind of poetry, issues of Romantic nature writing, and the Romantic imagination (also in the visual arts). Travel narratives, the concern with science, and finally the socioeconomic contexts of publishing is also addressed. Thus, the literary versatility and (cultural) politics marking the Romantic period comes to the fore within their broader contexts; almost inevitably, gender as a critical category plays a key role.