February 2012
2 posts
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Hidden City Philadelphia →
Discovered a great website: Hidden City Philadelphia.
I am fascinated by the explorations of the legacies of the “failures” of urban development. Maybe there is something to learn from it, or to spark some ideas for the future. Besides, Philadelphia is just an interesting place to explore.
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Conference on Industrial Disasters →
The program for the conference “Wahrnehmung, Kommunikation und Bewaeltigung industrieller Katastrophen vom 18. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert. Bergbau - Chemieindustrie - Kernenergie” in Konstanz has been published. I will contribute a presentation on the strategies and policies that prevented disasters in the lime mining industry.
January 2012
6 posts
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Conference Report on GSU Nachwuchstagung
My conference report on the young researchers’ conference of the Gesellschaft für Stadtgeschichte und Urbanisierungsforschung has just been published in the latest issue of the Informationen zur modernen Stadtgeschichte.
Tagungsbericht: GSU-Nachwuchstagung und Workshop „Stadt und Moderne“, Darmstadt (22.-23.9.2011), in: Informationen zur modernen Stadtgeschichte 2011/2, 105-107.
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Förderinitiative Interdisziplinäre Forschung
Submitted a proposal for the Förderinitiative Interdisziplinäre Forschung at TU Darmstadt together with Maren Harnack, Mario Tvrtković and Tobias Wolf. The proposal is now off and on its way. If we succeed we will receive a nice little grant to explore processes and chances of identification with the built environment of large scale housing estates of the 1960s and 1970s.
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Article for SGWSG Jahrbuch
Working on a contribution to the 2013 Volume of the Schweizerisches Jahrbuch für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte. The article is based on a presentation I gave in Bern last May at a conference on “habitation”. The article on citizens’ initiatives’ strategies for low income housing is going to be along the lines of the presentation, with some considerable amendments...
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Conference Report "Industrialisation in European... →
Eva-Maria Roelevink has written a report on the conference on ”Industrialisation in European Regions” that took place in Bochum last November. It is interesting and in a way pleasing to read what she writes about my presentation there: “Einen Abstraktionsschritt weiter ging SEBASTIAN HAUMANN (Darmstadt), indem er programmatisch die Frage verfolgte, inwieweit...
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Collaborative Grant Proposal
Spent most of the day revising a collaborative grant proposal on the architectural potential of 1960s/70s mass housing.
December 2011
2 posts
1 tag
AHR Review
Working on a review for the American Historical Review. To my own surprise i have been invited to write a review for AHR - of course, it’s only a review, but it is nonetheless the AHR. Anyway, a manageable workload for these days between Christmas and New Year.
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Strategic Presentation at TU Darmstadt
Presented first bits and pieces of my research results at our history department’s colloquium. I have tried to present an outline of what remains to be written over the next couple of years and read some short exemplary passages of what I have written during the last week. The prospects were grand - to say the least - but it felt good. Criticism was extremely productive and motivating!
November 2011
4 posts
1 tag
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Started Writing
Started to write down and organize some ideas on my surface mining project. there still is a lot work to do in the archives, but after collecting material for two months and presenting the ideas several times over the last weeks, I feel like it is time to take the effort and start writing - even if it is preliminary only.
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Conference on Industrializing Regions
Presented at the conference on Industrial Regions in Bochum yesterday. The whole conference seems to be dominated by economic historians. On the positive side, I am getting another insight into how economic history deals with space. On the negative side, these attempts to describe regions from an economic perspective are for the most part not very innovative and often not very convincing. It is...
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DigiPEER →
yesterday I took part in a meeting at the Deutsche Bergbaumuseum. A group of institutions that are working in the filed of the history of technology and planning history is currently digitizing parts of their archival holdings. The documents will be available as high resolution images on the internet. The documents they will pull together seem to be very heterogenous, ranging from sketches used to...
October 2011
8 posts
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Zeitschrift für praktische Geologie
Went through the first decades of the Zeitschrift für praktische Geologie starting in 1893 at the Bergbau Bibliothek in Bochum today. Even though I found disappointingly little on lime or lignite mining, I found that this journal is an interesting source. I was especially struck by the many contributions that are apparently part of a colonialist agenda. Many notes about resources being discovered...
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Redevelopment at Döppersberg →
Visited the construction site at Wuppertal’s Döppersberg last night. It is a fairly large and complex project to redevelop the area between Wuppertal main station and the inner city. What makes it so remarkable is that it is located on a steep slope (the station sits on a hillside). They have already started taking away the very top of the hill that the station used to border in order to...
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Landesarchiv NRW
Spent the latter part of the week in the Landesarchiv NRW working on some files of the county authorities that supervised quarries. A lot of repetitions: neighbors complaining about rock blasting and negotiations about proper workers’ safety. Finally I took a look at a record on the cleansing of local creeks, but interestingly found no reference to mining related pollution that I had...
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New Post-Doc and Guest Researcher Fellowships at...
Das interdisziplinäre Graduiertenkolleg “Topologie der Technik” ist am Fachbereich Gesellschafts- und Geschichtswissenschaften der Technischen Universität Darmstadt angesiedelt. Es wird von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) gefördert (GRK 1343). Forschungsgegenstand des Graduiertenkollegs ist das Spannungsfeld von Technik und Raum. Das Forschungsprogramm zielt jenseits...
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Back to Darmstadt for a day
My first trip back to Darmstadt today. It’s a 2.5 hour ride, but it is good reading time. It was really nice to go back to the old routines of organizing work, going to the library, having lunch with colleagues. Since the semester is only starting everything was still very laid back at the TU. Actually I enjoy going there once a week and coming back the same day. It’s a hassle but it...
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Bergbau Bibliothek →
My first visit to the Bergbau Bibliothek (Mining Library) in Bochum. I am especially interested in the older periodicals on mining in general and those journals that were issued by specific interests groups of companies engaged in lime or lignite mining. I still have to look out for scientific journals on mining engineering and geology - I haven’t yet gotten a good overview over those.
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Conference Report on GSU Nachwuchstagung
Writing a conference report on the young researchers conference on urban history that took place in Darmstadt three weeks ago. Thinking about the conference in retrospective, it is surprising how well all the presentations fit together and how lively the discussions were. Of course this is difficult to depict in a conference report, but I’ll try.
The report will be published in the next...
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Arrived at Wuppertal
I have finally arrived at Wuppertal. Started working and resorting all kinds of things during the last couple of days and now I finally feel ready to go ahead with my archival work and exploring the city.
September 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Conference: Industrialisation in European Regions →
Will be speaking at the upcoming conference in Bochum on 9 November: “The Industrial Reconstruction of Space: Lignite Pits and Lime Quarries in the Rhineland, ca. 1900”
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CfP: Industrial Disaster →
I have sent in a paper proposal for this conference in Constance. The questions the organizers raise seem very relevant for my own work - even though I don’t really know much about disasters. It’s the idea that one can only understand these disasters in their complexity if one pays attention to the physical characteristics of the material involved. Hopefully I will be invited to say...
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Otto-Borst-Preis 2011 →
The official praise for my book as the winner of this year’s Otto Borst-Preis has been published - so nice to read …
August 2011
7 posts
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CfP: Urban History Group Meeting 2012 →
The Urban History Group seeks papers for their 2012 conference in Oxford. The theme of the conference is “The Living and Liveable City: Health, Lifestyle and Sustainability”.
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Publication on "Stadtindianer" out now!
The volume edited by Martin Klimke, Jacco Pekelder and Joachim Scharloth “Between Prague Spring and French May. Opposition and Revolt in Europe, 1960-1980” has arrived in print! It includes my chapter on “Stadtindianer”. The chapter is based on one of the very first papers I presented at a conference back in 2006.
“Stadtindianer” and “Indiani Metropolitani”....
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Arch+ "Strategien im Umgang mit Großsiedlungen" →
Arch+ reports on the the history and legacy of large scale housing estates. Definitively an upcoming field of discussion and also for historical research.
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Automobility and the Urban Environment →
The Centre for Urban History at Leicester University offers a PhD studentship funded by the Leverhulme trust. The studentship contributes to a project on “Automobility and the Urban Environment in Nagoya and Birmingham, c.1955-1973”. This is a great opportunity to work on an interesting topic with the support of the CUH. I really like the comparative aspect of it.
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Conference "Writing Post-1970 History" →
Nice conference report by Reinhild Kreis on “Writing Post-1970 History: Conceptualizing the Late Twentieth Century in German and American Historiography”. Seems like it would have been interesting to have participated in that workshop. Contrasting German and US historiography on the 1970 makes sense. So many similar developments have been interpreted in such different ways.
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Fritz Thyssen Stiftung Grant
I have been awarded a one-year research grant by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung. The title of the project I applied with is: “Ressourcenverbrauch und Rearrangement des Raums: Praktiken und Materialität des Tagebaus um 1900”
The funding will begin in September and I hope to be able to collect archival material and write a first journal article. Later, the research from this project can be...
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July 2011
11 posts
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TAZ Article on 45+ Conference →
It seems like the general public is interested in modernist architecture now. Nice summary of our conference. Even I made it into the TAZ - who would have thought?
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"Woanders is auch scheiße" →
I am impressed! Apparently the slogan “Woanders is auch scheisse” didn’t make it to become the official slogan of the cultural capital of Europe 2010 - the Ruhrgebiet. However - and that’s what impresses me - you can get a T-Shirt with the slogan from the official cultural capital website. This is definitively not conventional marketing of a cultural capital. Still,...
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EAUH Conference Directory →
The European Association of Urban History renewed its homepage. It now includes a directory of all papers given at the EAUH conference from 1992. It also seems like the urban history community has constantly been growing over the last two decades.
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Architecture 45+
Off to Berlin to present a paper on “Image Construction and Decline of West-German Public Housing, 1960s-1970s.”. I did quite some extra research for that presentation over the last weeks - primarily going through architectural journals. It’s probably enough material o write an article and maybe it can even serve as the basis for an application for research funding - we’ll...
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H-Net 2.0 →
Interesting discussion of the need of H-Net going 2.0. I think I agree with the article: 2.0 can complement scholarly exchange by increasing the precision and speed through which information is spread, but it cannot replace more stable forms of documenting knowledge.
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Evolutionary Tree of Post-Modern Architecture,... →
Categorizing architectural styles. If you stay on the level of aesthetics - maybe, yes… but if you think about WHY architects designed the way they did - please don’t consider these categories! I am wondering why you would do this to let’s say the work of Venturi (who is mentioned in the diagram). In his, and even more in denise Scott Brown’s writings you will always be...
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A Week in the Archives
Completed another week in the archives. Things are going ahead: It’s fascinating to see, how lime companies went about in acquiring land for their quarries. I am starting to see different patterns and strategies.
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European Society for Environmental History
Received the official letter that I have successfully become a member of the European Society for Environmental History. It was not as much of a challenge as it might seem …
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Arch+ (1968-1978)
Went through the first decade of Arch+ issues (1968-1978). It turned out to be a great source to interpret the self-perception of critical architecture in West-Germany during that time. Two things struck me: 1. the ongoing discussions over the reform of the university education of architects and planners, concerning both the structure of the programs and the content to be taught. This overlaps 2....
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Baunetzwoche reports on Darmstadt →
Baunetzwoche devotes its current issue to the Architektursommer Rhein-Main and especially the activities taking place in Darmstadt.
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JAPA on Public Housing
The Journal of the American Planning Association will publish a special issue on Public Housing in the US, explicitly including a historical perspective. Deadline for proposals for articles is Sept. 15. I am looking forward to reading the results scheduled for publication in 2012.
June 2011
20 posts
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Conference Report on "The Big Plan" →
The conference Report Gernot Schaulinski, Eyke Vonderau and I wrote on the GSU conference in Berlin last November has been published in Planning Perspectives.
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ESEH 2011 in Turku
What a great atmosphere at the European Society for Environmental History here in Turku. It is really easy to get in touch with all kinds of people - and that’s what conferences are about, aren’t they. Also heard some interesting presentations and discussions (especially Heike Weber’s small session on waste was very inspiring for me). It’s also an interesting experience to...
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ESEH 2011 →
The next conference is coming up right away. I am just back from Munich and almost off again to Turku - what a week.
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History Underground
Just got back from the conference History Underground, held at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich. It was the first time I presented my new project and some very preliminary results - the responses were quite encouraging. Besides, I got to know many people working in the field of an environmental history of mining and got an insight into the discussions going on in that community. Still, I...
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Review of Vogel (2010) published
Review: Meike Vogel: Unruhe im Fernsehen. Protestbewegung und öffentlich-rechtliche Berichterstattung in den 1960er Jahren, Göttingen 2010, in: Neue Politische Literatur 55 (2010), 504-505.
Finally received a paper copy of this review I wrote sometime last year.
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McKee (2008): The Problem of Jobs
McKee, Guian A.: The Problem of Jobs. Liberalism, race, and deindustrialization in Philadelphia, Chicago 2008.
When this book came out in 2008, it was probably beyond my focus at that time wanting to get my own book finished. Otherwise I should have clearly read it back then. First of all, It is a great account of industrial policy in Philadelphia of the 1950s and 1960s. The focus on such...
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Architektursommer Rhein-Main →
Many interesting projects and temporary installations around Darmstadt and the other cities in the region. It’s definitively worth checking out some of these events.