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Dear ELINAS friends and colleagues,
Our new projects are diverse and multifaceted. In order to realise them, many factors must align at once. Thus the report on ELINAS activities of the past year has had to wait for the right conditions, and the list of activities has expanded accordingly. We are very pleased to present them to you in our first newsletter.
In order better to report on our projects in future, and at the same time to offer a communication platform on ELINAS topics, we plan to publish regular updates. If you have information about thematically relevant events or publications, please send them to us. We will be happy to share your information with our network.
With warm greetings from Erlangen, The ELINAS Team
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Videos from the lecture series
Videos from the lecture series „Narrating Science/ Wissenschaft erzählen“, the conference „Argument and Rhetoric in Physics“, and the inaugural conference „Physics and Literature: Theory – Popularization – Aestheticization“ as well as the discussions at Poetenfest (August '14) are now available on the ELINAS homepage.
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Conference: Between Literature and Science: Debates, Problems, Visions, 1680-1820 Dates: 02. – 04.10.2015 Location: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Description: Two considerations form the starting point for the conference. First, previous research on the relationship between literature and science has often focused on studying the metaphoric potentials of scientific theories and approaches within literary texts. By contrast, this conference emphasizes investigating the development of scientific discourses through source study, as a first step; and then analyzing the connection of that development to literary texts as a second step. In this way we may at once address fundamental questions of how to describe and assess the relationship between literature and science in both historical and systematic terms.
Second, the period of the „long 18th century“ seems especially attractive for such questions, because at this stage, the various scientific discourses had not yet become entirely differentiated. Hence the conference will not focus directly on studying individual scientific disciplines, such as physics and chemistry, mineralogy and geology, medicine and biology, in isolation. Instead, it seeks to identify thematic debates, epistemological problems, and broad cultural worldviews that are negotiated both in literature and in science, and on which multiple disciplines overlap. Examples include the discussions carried out “between” literature and science on: power and field (from the scientific side, physical, biological and medical concepts of the causes of motion, such as gravity and life-force, may be considered, but also their large-scale effects, which are described as functions or fields); comets, stars and planets (especially significant in this case, in addition to the ‘old’ science of astrology and the ‘new’ science of astronomy, is research on optics); artificial humans (of particular relevance here, besides alchemical representations of the Homunculus, are mechanical, electromagnetic, medical and biological models of the production or generation of artificial life).
Course: Physics for Humanists Schedule: WS 2015/2016, Thursdays 14-16 Uhr Location: KH 0.020, Kollegienhaus, Erlangen Description: Exercises to accompany some of the lectures will be held afterwards, at 16:00.
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ELINAS at the "Long Night of Science" Date: 24.10.2015 Location: Audimax / Raum B702, Bismarckstraße 1, Erlangen Lecture series: ELINAS Creative Laboratory: Formula and Fiction
I Lectures at Bismarckstr. 1 Audimax 18:30-19:00 Jörn Wilms: Images from Space Unlike other sciences, astronomy cannot experiment with its objects of interest. Astronomers have thus become entirely dependent on the light sent from these sources to understand objects in the universe. Using astronomical photographs, Jörn Wilms shows how astronomers transform images into „Astrophysics“ to understand the physics of the universe.
20:30-21:00 Klaus Mecke / Aura Heydenreich: Cosmo-Poetics: Wormholes between Physics and Literature What connects Johannes Kepler‘s „Dream“ of a journey to the moon with the film „Interstellar“? Both construct a fictional world in which a struggle between competing world-pictures is dramatized. Klaus Mecke and Aura Heydenreich show that fictional narratives have scientific as well as literary value.
II Lectures at Bismarckstr. 1 B702 18:00 Daniela Leitner: When Light Came to Life: Design meets Science [Lecture, Exhibition, and Book Presentation] 19:00 Mike Sinding: Energy in Mind: Concepts of Energy in Intuitive Ontology, Literature and Science 19:45 Iggy McGovern: Science and Poetry – Not so different? 21:00 Maria Sawitzki: Life on Mars: Mars in Science and Contemporary Literature 22:00 Stefan Winter: From Complexity to Creativity [Lecture and Reading] 23:00 Alexander Laska: The Struggle for the Right Words in Science
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Conference: Inaugural Conference of ELINAS - Physics and Literature: Theory – Popularization – Aestheticization Dates: 29.05 – 01.06.2014 Location: Orangerie Erlangen Description: The inaugural conference addressed the hitherto rarely examined history of interrelations between physics and literature, and focused on relevant epoch-specific topics. While in the early modern period physical discussions concentrated above all on questions of “movement” and “force”, and in the 18th century debates over Newton’s mechanics and optics dominated (until Goethe’s 1810 color theory), from the late 18th century the expansion of experimental research, in connection with technical advances, led to a shift towards chemical (C. Berthollet, A. Lavoisier), thermal (T. Young, N. Carnot) and electromagnetic phenomena (A. Volta, G. S. Ohm, M. Faraday, J. C. Maxwell), and also to astronomy, especially in popularizations (A. Clerke, S. Newcomb, J. Mädler). These increasingly move into the foreground in the literature of the late Enlightenment (G. C. Lichtenberg, H. v. Kleist, A. v. Arnim). At the beginning of the 20th century, the reconceptualization of the relationships of space-time and matter-energy in Einstein’s Special and General Relativity, and the debates over the development of quantum theory, raised epistemological problems, which are reflected in literature, and influence the structures of literary writing up to the present day. The interaction of scientific and literary theory-construction was also examined closely.
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DPG-Conference: Argument and Rhetoric in Physics Dates: 12.-14.12.2014 Location: Orangerie Erlangen Description: ELINAS hosted the conference „Argument and Rhetoric in Physics“ on the weekend of 12-14 December. It was held together with the Association for the History of Physics as well as the Working Group on the Philosophy of Physics of the German Physics Society. Although the thematic frame of the conference was much more precise than the inaugural ELINAS conference, the breadth of questions covered showed how wide the field is and how heterogeneous are the various interpretations of the theme “Argument and Rhetoric.” The lectures concerned, among other things, rhetoric and argumentation in the work of individual physicists, in the Third Reich, in popular-scientific writings and films, and in many other contexts. The lively discussions between the lectures, the many ideas for future ELINAS directions in the closing discussion, and the number of new participants indicated that the challenge of bringing physics and literature into contact holds great productive potential. The conference concluded with a reading from author Raoul Schrott.
You can download a report of the conference and watch videos of the talks.
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Workshop: Science, Narrative, and Stanisław Lem's Fiasco Dates: 04.-07.06.2015 Location: Sternwarte Bamberg Description: The participants of this four-day workshop examined Stanislaw Lem’s science fiction novel Fiasco in depth. The focus was on the various scientific concepts that provide the basis for the novel, drawn from game theory, relativity theory, artificial intelligence research, and more. Epistemological questions were also discussed in relation to the text. Guest professor Bruce Clarke (Texas Tech University) also brought narratological perspectives to the examination of the novel with the participating professors, doctoral students, and students from physics and literary studies.
Workshop: Physics - Fiction – Narration Dates: 20.-22.04.2015 Location: Alte Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen Description: Our keynote speaker was the renowned philosopher of science Jürgen Mittelstraß (University of Constance). As the opening speaker of the Lecture Series „Narrating Science: Wissenschaft erzählen“ he discussed The Cultural Form of Science: Theoretical and Historical Reflections, which inspired a large public audience. The following workshop also thematized the cultural conditioning of knowledge and the various possible ways to generate knowledge. Prof. Klaus Mecke gave a lecture on Measurement Narratives and Model Narratives: A Narratology of Physics? ELINAS Postdoctoral Fellow Mike Sinding’s presentation addressed Narrative and Framing.
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Workshop: Science & Poetry-Lab Dates: 04.-06.02.2015 Location: German National Museum Nürnberg Description: In the Science & Poetry Lab, created in 2014, authors can work on their projects on site as Writers in Residence, in the context of current academic research and in interdisciplinary dialogue, and present work-in-progress at ELINAS workshops and panel discussions. In the winter semester of 2014/2015, writer and literary scholar Raoul Schrott was our guest, and in this framework presented unpublished material from a project entitled Die erste Erde. Von der Entstehung des Universums bis zur Erfindung der Schrift [The First Earth: From the Origin of the Universe to the Invention of Writing], which, as a modern epic, aims to establish the connection of central Creation myths with the discourses of science, In addition, students worked together with Raoul Schrott, Aura Heydenreich, Klaus Mecke and literary scholar Holger Helbig on assembling a selection of extremely various poems on physics and physicists, and by physicists. Thus, for example, James Clerk Maxwell and Erwin Schrödinger wrote entire poetry collections, while well-known lyric poets such as Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Paul Celan and Hans Magnus Enzensberger have addressed physics themes. These poems will be published by De Gruyter (Berlin) in an annotated anthology. The German National Museum in Nürnberg, with its historical telescopes and protractors, provided the perfect setting for work on astronomy, cosmology and mechanics, and their lyrical treatments.
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Workshop: Physics and Literature – Historical Perspectives Date: 17.07.2014 Location: Erlangen Lectures from: Prof. Dr. Nicolas Pethes (Professor of Modern German Literary Studies, University of Cologne) „Alfred Döblin's 'Berlin Alexanderplatz' and the formula-knowledge of the Sciences“ Prof. Dr. Friedrich Steinle (Professor of the History of Science, TU Berlin) „Johann Wolfgang Goethe's 'Der Versuch als Vermittler' ['The Experiment as Mediator']: On the Practice of Natural Scientists and Poets“
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Study Week: Physics and Poetry: Theory – Aestheticization – Popularization Dates: 30.03.2014-03.04.2014 Location: Villa La Collina, Lake Como, Italy Description: In the Study Week on picturesque Lake Como, students from physics and from the Master's program „Ethics of Text Cultures“ investigated numerous literary and physics texts, such as Durs Grünbein's moon-cycle, Cyrano oder die Rückkehr vom Mond [Cyrano, or The Return from the Moon], and Einstein's explanation of special relativity theory. In preparation they created „Tandem“ teams in order to facilitate interdisciplinary engagement. The Study Week was led by Klaus Mecke, Aura Heydenreich and Christine Lubkoll. Writer Raoul Schrott also offered a preview of his epic Die erste Erde [The First Earth] and discussed poems from his volume Tropen [Tropics] with students.
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Lecture Series: „Narrating Science: Wissenschaft erzählen“ Dates: Summer Semester 2015 Location: Kollegienhaus, Erlangen Description: Scientific research is defined by formulas, variables and numbers. At first glance, one might not expect to find sophisticated argumentation, rhetorical devices and even narratives. A second glance, however, raises questions pertaining to interdisciplinary work: What role do narrative strategies play in communicating scientific theories? Do scientific articles use rhetorical devices to illustrate knowledge? What functions do images have in the creation of knowledge and reader-reception in humanistic and scientific contexts? And how are scientific theories poetized? Do such theories inform literary structures and even lead to innovative forms of writing in literary texts? These are the key questions of the Lecture Series „Narrating Science: Wissenschaft erzählen“, which has featured scholars from Philosophy of Science, History of Science, and Natural Science as well as from the cultural and social-scientific field of Science and Technology Studies. Among others, Holger Schulze (Erlangen) lectured on Sprache, Gehirn und Kreativität [Language, Brain and Creativity], John Holmes (Reading) on Evolutionary and counter-evolutionary narratives in Pound’s “Cantos“ and Michael Hampe (Zürich) on Erzählen und Erklären in der Kosmologie [Narration and Explanation in Cosmology].
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Lecture Series „Quarks and Letters: Science in Contemporary Literature and Culture“ Dates: Winter Semester 2012/2013 Location: Kollegienhaus, Erlangen Description: What quarks are to matter, letters are to written language: Elementary particles, from which worlds are composed. Scientists research the world of quarks, while humanists are concerned with the world of letters. But are the two research fields really two different worlds, and their discourses „two cultures“? Every printed letter consists of quarks, as every physical formula consists of letters. Questions and answers in brain research, quantum mechanics and evolutionary theory enter into novels, and physicists and biologists apply rhetorical figures to communicate and even generate their knowledge. The fifteen lectures in the series focused, on the one hand, on scientific themes in literary texts – as in the novels of Richard Powers (USA) (Antje Kley / Karin Höpker), Can Hue (China) (Monika Gänßbauer) and Dietmar Dath (Germany) (Roland Borgards). On the other hand, they also illuminated the role played by aesthetics in literature and science (Bernadette Malinowski, Dirk Vanderbeke), how metaphorical practices in physics lead to discoveries (Klaus Mecke), and the communication of this knowledge in museums (Holger Helbig).
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ELINAS Science Slam Date: 06.05.2015 Location: Kollegienhaus, Erlangen Description: Since July 2014 a successful and very popular series of Science Slams has been established in Erlangen and Nürnberg. The series allows young scientists to reach a broad public by reporting on their research in an accessible and entertaining manner. Based on the format of Poetry Slams, a Science Slam offers junior scientists the opportunity to present their own work on stage. A Mini-Science Slam took place as part of the Lecture Series „Narrating Science: Wissenschaft erzählen“, with a colourful selection of three Science Slammers from previous Science Slams in Erlangen and Nürnberg. Philosophy student Sebastian Walther slammed on Putnam's „Brain in a vat“ thought experiment, cultural geographer Benedikt Kopera showed how maps can distort reality, and winner Andreas Kirchmayer illustrated the hardening processes he studies in nanotechnology, using the analogy of concert-goers pushing through crowds to reach the toilets.
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Exhibition and Lecture: When Light Came to Life Date: 29.04.2015 Location: Physikum Hörsaalfoyer, Erlangen Description: Design meets physics in Daniela Leitner's book „Als das Licht Laufen lernte“, which recreates physics phenomena in remarkable photographs. The author presented her work as part of the Lecture Series „Narrating Science: Wissenschaft erzählen“ in the physics lecture hall buildings. Afterwards, Dr. Aura Heydenreich (Literary Studies), Prof. Dr. Klaus Mecke (Physics) and Leif Stolberg (student of physics) held a discussion with the author. Selected photographs from the work, in connection with the event, were on display until 30 May.
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Poetry Festival and Readings At the Erlangen Poetry Festival 2014, ELINAS took part in two panel discussions: Writers Thomas Lehr and Raoul Schrott discussed „Zahl und Erzählung. Physik und Literatur“ [Number and Narrative: Physics and Literature] with Aura Heydenreich and Klaus Mecke; and writer Ulrike Draesner, astrophysicist Jörn Wilms, writer Ulrich Woelk and Klaus Mecke spoke on „Kosmopoetik. Astronomie und Literatur“ [Cosmopoetics: Astronomy and Literature]. Both roundtables were moderated by Florian Felix Weyh. Videos of the events can be found here.
In 2014 a number of readings also took place in relation to our cooperation with writers who deal with scientific themes: Among others, Reinhard Jirgl read from „Nichts von euch auf Erden“ [„Nothing of You on Earth“], Durs Grünbein read from „Cyrano oder die Rückkehr vom Mond“ [„Cyrano, or The Return from the Moon“], and Markus Orths read from „Alpha und Omega. Apokalypse für Anfänger“ [„Alpha and Omega: Apocalypse for Beginners“].
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Impressum: Erlangen Center for Literature and Natural Sciences Prof. Dr. Klaus Mecke, Dr. Aura Heydenreich Staudtstraße 7, Gebäude B3, 91058 Erlangen If you do not like to receive this newsletter: Unsubscribe.
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