This contribution revisits the dictum "history is the teacher of life" (historia magistra vitae) and shows that modern knowledge-societies are beginning to use their growing information about natural and human history to address present-day problems. Starting with Leopold von Ranke's refusal to investigate history for the benefit of learning from it, the essay cites two contemporary attempts at extracting useful knowledge from history: "real-world experiments" and "natural experiments." Wolfgang Krohn developed the former with collaborators in Bielefeld and Jared Diamond features the latter.
Sezin Topçu
This article adduces evidence of the central role played by scientists in the 1970s and “lay persons” in the post-Chernobyl period in the production and legitimation of alternative types of knowledge and expertise on the environmental and health risks of nuclear energy in France. From a constructivist perspective, it argues that this shift in the relationship of “lay persons” to knowledge production is linked not only to the rise of mistrust vis-à-vis scientific institutions but also, and especially, to a change in the way they have reacted to “dependency” on institutions and to “state secrecy”. Counter-expertise is constructed as a politics of surveillance where alternative interpretations of risk are buttressed by a permanent critique of the epistemic assumptions of institutional expertise. The identity of “counter-expert” is socially elaborated within this process.
In Nature and Culture
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2008
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 225–245 (21 total)
Between ‘Greatness’ and ‘Ignorance’
The Transition to Nuclear Power in Turkey
Sezin Topçu
in the Turkish context and the forms of justification presented. This is followed by an exploration of the forms of ignorance production and their evolution since the Chernobyl accident, with a view to understanding the current forms of risk
In Anthropology of the Middle East
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 6–28 (23 total)
Fall-Out and the German People
The Political Climate in Pausewang's Novel Die Wolke (1987) and Anike Hage's Manga Adaptation (2013)
Sean A. McPhail
When Gudrun Pausewang's Die Wolke [ Fall-Out ] first appeared in West Germany in 1987, the consequences of the previous year's nuclear disaster at Chernobyl were still largely unknown. The novel's epigraph – Inge Aicher-Scholl's prose poem ‘Sie
In European Comic Art
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 41–64 (24 total)
Editorial
Comics and Transnational Exchanges
Lawrence Grove, Anne Magnussen, and Ann Miller
the Chernobyl accident, whose subject matter is a (fictional) nuclear disaster on German soil and its consequences. McPhail notes the change in the political and ideological climate that has taken place since Pausewang's book was written: where her
Mobile Disasters
Catastrophes in the Age of Manufactured Uncertainty
Steve Matthewman
possible.” 47 The defining happenings of our time—the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the implosion of the Soviet Union, anthropogenic climate change, the global financial crisis, and the crisis in the eurozone (to which we can now add Brexit and US President
Introduction
Posthuman? Nature and Culture in Renegotiation
Kornelia Engert and Christiane Schürkmann
exposed and transformed into an ethical category. Phenomena, incidents, and developments—such as the great challenge of climate change, accidents as witnessed in Chernobyl 1989, catastrophes such as tsunamis and bushfires, or the mutation of pathogens as
Belarusian Professional Protesters in the Structure of Democracy Promotion
Enacting Politics, Reinforcing Divisions
Alena Minchenia
declaration of independence by the Belarusian People's Republic (BPR) on 25 March 1918; 10 and the Chernobyl March (commemoration of the Chernobyl disaster on 26 April). For these actions, professional protesters decide on details such as the schedule
In Conflict and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2020
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 218–235 (18 total)
Jan Ifversen
accidents that simply happen. 17 Crisis was more in vogue in the late 1970s, when Koselleck was writing his entry. It was the time of the deep economic crisis that began with the so-called oil crisis in 1973. With the 1980s—specifically after the Chernobyl
In Contributions to the History of Concepts
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2017
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 1–11 (11 total)
Malfunctioning Affective Infrastructures
How the “Broken” Road Becomes a Site of Belonging in Postindustrial Eastern Siberia
Vasilina Orlova
rupture. An example of such affective powers activated in disruption can be the Chernobyl disaster ( Brown 2013, 2019 ; Petryna 1995 ). This does not mean that a smoothly functioning road does not produce or reveal its affect, but it does suggest that