FINAL Set of Summaries: German Colonialism and the Great War—Europe between the Wars—Nazi-Germany and the Second World War

This is the last of my book summaries. Ergo, I’ll have to come up with “real” posts again from now on. Shouldn’t be too hard as I’ll embark on my dissertation research on May 7. Or maybe May 13, after the grades will be submitted for this semester (which is at the same time my last semester of obligatory teaching).

The following set of summaries deals a lot with German empires—during colonialism and Hitler’s rule in Germany. In particular the histories of colonialism contain some exceptionally well-executed and creative works. I must say, as a German, these histories touched me very personally and literally made me cry one time. It’s strange how war seems so far away from my US-American peers. Sure, they haven’t had it on their own continent for many, many decades. Not so the Germans. To this day, my grandmother starts crying when she talks about her escape from Silesia. Continue reading

Don’t Freak out about the Weird Header …

… I’m doing enough of that already!1 Only a few more days of maintenance at hypotheses.org, and we’ll hopefully have the neuroscience-y header back:

cropped-cropped-cropped-cropped-cropped-Header1.pngBut let’s distract ourselves with research content and let me introduce my current summer project to you: Continue reading

  1. Congratulations to you if you’re reading this in your RSS inbox and don’t know what I’m writing about. []

Impressive Brains: Latour and Bechdel, Cartoons and ANT

“I am not a closed circuit; I don’t trust my own subjectivity. This is why I try to get as much outside-assertion as I can.”—It’s almost a month ago since Alison Bechdel stated this confession during her keynote address for the Queer Method Conference at Penn on October 31st. I suggest you find a way to get to know her work, listen to her, and see her (!). But try not to freak out during Q&A and tell her how much you admire her, or she will ask you to “please, keep cool.” Afterwards, I suggest you go home and read Latour’s Reassembling the Social. Continue reading