Project
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All Disciplines (3)
General history (without pre-and early history) |
Keywords (9)
social history; genealogy; history of biology; history of law; kinship; diagrams; history and philosophy of science; history of anthropology; family tree
Lay Summary (German)
Lead
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Das Projekt untersucht die enorme Vielfalt von Diagrammen, die seit dem Mittelalter in Westeuropa und in Räumen der europäischen Expansion verwendet wurden, um Verwandtschaft und Abstammung zu konzeptualisieren.
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Lay summary
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Inhalt und Ziel des Forschungsprojekts In den letzten drei Jahrzehnten hat die Sequenzierung und Analyse von Genomen eine schnelle und umfassende Bestimmung von Abstammung, Herkunft und Verwandtschaft zwischen Organismen, einschließlich Menschen, ermöglicht. Hat die Arbeit am ‘tree of life’ unerwartete evolutionäre Affinitäten ans Licht gebracht, so verändern Einsichten der Populationsgenetik und Untersuchungen der DNA von Individuen Vorstellungen von Identität. Parallel dazu setzen sich neue digitale Methoden zur Visualisierung von genealogischen Beziehungen durch. Sie tendieren aufgrund einer langen kultur- und wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Tradition zur Form des Baums und widerspiegeln Annahmen, wonach Evolution und Abstammung einem gabelnden Muster folgen. Das ‘Baumdenken’ wurde schon als dominanter Denkmodus der Biologie und sogar als allgemeine westliche Tendenz bezeichnet, Verwandtschaft auf Abstammung zu reduzieren. Anstatt allein die Geschichte des Baumdiagramms zu verfolgen, analysieren wir vergleichend verschiedenste Formen von Verwandtschaftsdiagrammen, ihre Herstellung und Verwendung. Dafür entwickeln wir eine Diagrammatik, die Diagramme als Techniken analysiert, die über binäre Oppositionen wie ‘Denken/Handeln’ und ‘Bild/Text’ hinausgehen. Wissenschaftlicher und gesellschaftlicher Kontext Das Projekt verbindet kulturwissenschaftliche, wissenschaftshistorische und -philosophische sowie anthropologische Perspektiven zu einer interdisziplinären Diagrammatik. Es initiiert Diskussionen über die Hypothese, dass Baumdenken die westliche Wissensproduktion strukturiere und reflektiert den politischen Einsatz von Verwandtschaftsdiagrammen.
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Responsible applicant and co-applicants
Employees
Publications
Sommer Marianne (2021), The Meaning of Absence: The Primate Tree That Did Not Make It into Darwin’s The Descent of Man, in
BJHS Themes, 6, 1-17.
Müller-Wille Staffan (2020), Punnett Squares and Hybrid Crosses: How Mendelians Learned Their Trade by the Book, in
BJHS Themes, 5, 1-17.
Hounshell Eric, Halsmayer Verena (2020), How Does Economic Knowledge Have a Politics? On the Frustrated Attempts of John K. Galbraith and Robert M. Solow to Fix the Political Meaning of Economic Models in The Public Interest, in
KNOW: A Journal on the Formation of Knowledge, 4(2), 263-293.
PfäffliLea (2020), Review: German Science in the Age of Empire. Enterprise, Opportunity and the Schlagintweit Brothers, in
Traverse, 1, 189.
PfäffliLea (2020), Verzagte Schlittenhunde. Von Gefühlen und Tieren in der kolonialen Arktis, in
Tierstudien, 17, 59-69.
Pfäffli Lea,
Arktisches Wissen. Schweizer Forscher und dänischer Kolonialhandel in Grönland (1908-1913), Campus, Frankfurt am Main.
Müller-Wille Staffan, Corners, Tables, Lines: Towards a Diagrammatics of Race, in
Nuncius, 36, 1.
Collaboration
Theodore M. Porter, Department of History, UCLA |
United States of America (North America) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results - Publication |
Cornelius Borck, Institut für Medizingeschiche und Wissenschaftsforschung, Lübeck |
Germany (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results |
Michaela Hohkamp, Historisches Seminar, Hannover |
Germany (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results |
Amir Teicher, Department of History, Tel Aviv University |
Israel (Asia) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results - Publication |
Stéphane Jettot, Sorbonne, Paris |
France (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results - Publication |
Helen Gardner, Deakin University Melbourne |
Australia (Oceania) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results - Publication |
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, MPIWG Berlin |
Germany (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results - Publication |
Markus Friedrich, Fakultät für Geschichtswissenschaften, Hamburg |
Germany (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results - Publication |
Jean-Paul Zuñiga, EHESS, Paris |
France (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results - Publication |
Olivier Doron, Univ. Paris Diderot |
France (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results |
Ariane Dröscher |
Italy (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results - Publication |
Elisabeth Timm, Institut für Kulturanthropologie/Europäische Ethnologie, Münster |
Germany (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results - Publication |
Charlotte Bigg, Centre Alexandre-Koyré, EHESS, Paris |
France (Europe) |
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- in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results |
Scientific events
Active participation
Title |
Type of contribution |
Title of article or contribution |
Date |
Place |
Persons involved |
Seminar -- The Politics of Economics
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Individual talk
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How Does Economic Knowledge Have a Politics? On the Frustrated Attempts of John K. Galbraith and Robert M. Solow to Fix the Political Meaning of Economic Models in The Public Interest
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23.02.2021
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Cambridge, Great Britain and Northern Ireland
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Hounshell Eric;
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Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolloquium, Uni-LU
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Individual talk
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Ethnic classification between Austria and the US, ca. 1850-1920s
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18.12.2020
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Luzern, Switzerland
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Hounshell Eric;
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Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolloquium, Uni-LU
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Individual talk
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Populationsgenetische Repräsentationen menschlicher Vielfalt unter der Prämisse von Admixtur (2000–2020)
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11.12.2020
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Luzern, Switzerland
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Amstutz Ruth;
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An Personalakten arbeiten Beitrage und Herausforderungen, methodische und ethische Grenzen
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Talk given at a conference
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Patient.innen eine Stimme geben? Ethiken historischen Arbeitens mit Krankengeschichten
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19.11.2020
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Fribourg, Switzerland
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Kuster Amos;
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Geschichtskontor
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Individual talk
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Limpios de toda raça de judios, moros, mestizos y mulattos? Abstammungs-proben im kolonialen Hispanoamerika
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10.11.2020
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Zürich, Switzerland
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Miguez Julian Angel;
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History of the Human Sciences Authors' Workshop
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Individual talk
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Affinities: Tabular and Diagrammatic Representations of Natural Order in the Long Eighteenth Century
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29.10.2020
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Luzern, Switzerland
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Müller-Wille Staffan;
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History of the Human Sciences Authors' Workshop
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Individual talk
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Making Anthropology Diagrammatic: Samuel George Morton’s ‘American Golgotha’ and the Contest for the Definition of a Young Field
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29.10.2020
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Luzern, Switzerland
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Sommer Marianne;
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History of the Human Sciences Authors' Workshop
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Individual talk
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The Emergence of Tree-Shaped Kinship Diagrams at the End of the Middle Ages
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29.10.2020
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Luzern, Switzerland
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Teuscher Simon;
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Mittelbausymposium der Jungen Zürcher Mediävistik
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Individual talk
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Eine Diagrammatik ohne Diagramme? Beobachtungen zu protestantischen Inzestverboten im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert
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29.10.2020
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Zürich, Switzerland
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Prieto Stéphanie;
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SNF Sinergia Workshop 3
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Individual talk
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Comment on J. C. F. Fryer, "An Investigation by Pedigree Breeding into the Polymorphism of Papilio polytes, Linn"
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28.09.2020
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Basel, Switzerland
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Ceccon Andrea;
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SNF Sinergia Workshop 3
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Individual talk
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Comment on Matthew Parker, «An Admonition. To all suche as shall intende hereafter to enter the state of Matrimony Godly, and agreably to Lawes»
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28.09.2020
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Basel, Switzerland
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Prieto Stéphanie;
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SNF Sinergia Workshop 2
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Talk given at a conference
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Verfahren zur Feststellung von Abstammung und Rasse im iberischen Raum
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28.10.2019
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Lübeck, Germany
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Miguez Julian Angel;
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SNF Sinergia Workshop 2
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Talk given at a conference
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Registering Doom -- Pathological Genealogies
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28.10.2019
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Lübeck, Germany
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Kuster Amos;
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SNF Sinergia Workshop 2
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Talk given at a conference
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Incest Prohibitions and the Protestant Reformation: Systematizing Kinship without Diagrams
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28.10.2019
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Lübeck, Germany
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Prieto Stéphanie;
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SNF Sinergia Workshop 2
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Talk given at a conference
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'Diagrams of 'Race' in Human Population Genetics and Critical Theory: Zum aktuellen Stand des Forschungsvorhabens
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28.10.2019
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Lübeck, Germany
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Amstutz Ruth;
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SNF Sinergia Workshop 2
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Talk given at a conference
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The Age of Affinity: Diagrams in Natural History, 17th to early 19th Century
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28.10.2019
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Lübeck, Germany
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Goersch Niklaas;
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SNF Sinergia Workshop 2
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Talk given at a conference
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Drawing Continuity: The Making of Bourgeois Family Trees
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28.10.2019
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Lübeck, Germany
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Vicent Fiona;
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SNF Sinergia Workshop 2
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Talk given at a conference
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Verwandschaft im Blick. Zirkulation diagrammatischer Techniken in der Verwandtschaftsethnologie, 1850-1975
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28.10.2019
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Lübeck, Germany
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Pfäffli Lea;
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Conference in Honor of Enriq Porqueres
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Talk given at a conference
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Consanguinity with and without blood
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27.05.2019
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Paris, France
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Teuscher Simon;
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Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolloquium für BA- und MA-Studierende sowie (Post)-Doktorierende
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Individual talk
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"The genealogical method." Zirkulation diagrammatischer Techniken in der Verwandtschaftsethnologie, 1850-1975
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25.03.2019
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Luzern, Switzerland
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Pfäffli Lea;
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Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolloquium für BA- und MA-Studierende sowie (Post)-Doktorierende
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Individual talk
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Regimes of Social Classification in Twentieth Century Central Europe
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18.03.2019
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Luzern, Switzerland
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Hounshell Eric;
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Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolloquium für BA- und MA-Studierende sowie (Post)-Doktorierende
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Individual talk
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Die genetisch-genealogische Diagrammatik von 'Rasse'
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11.03.2019
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Luzern, Switzerland
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Amstutz Ruth;
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Self-organised
Guest Lecture by Marina Belobrovaja (Luzern), "The DNA Project"
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04.12.2020
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Luzern, Switzerland
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Guest Lecture by Stefanie Claudine Boulila (Lucerne), "Feministische Widerstande gegen Intersektionalitat"
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13.11.2020
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Lucerne, Switzerland
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History of the Human Sciences Authors' Workshop
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29.10.2020
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Luzern, Switzerland
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In the Shadow of the Tree: The Diagrammatics of Relatedness as Scientific, Scholarly, and Popular Practice. Conference 1 (canceled due to covid-19)
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02.04.2020
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Lucerne, Switzerland
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SNF Sinergia Workshop 2
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28.10.2019
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Lübeck, Germany
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SNF Sinergia Workshop 1 incl. Data Management Plan
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05.04.2019
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Lucerne, Switzerland
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Knowledge transfer events
Active participation
Title |
Type of contribution |
Date |
Place |
Persons involved |
Communication with the public
Communication |
Title |
Media |
Place |
Year |
Media relations: print media, online media
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Die andere Klimakrise: Als die Schweiz eine Eiszeit fürchtete 08.02.2020
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Aargauer Zeitung/Luzerner Zeitung/CH Media
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German-speaking Switzerland
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2020
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Talks/events/exhibitions
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L. Pfäffli tour at Landesmuseum Zürich, 05.03.2020
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German-speaking Switzerland
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2020
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Media relations: print media, online media
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Wie die NZZ die Polarforschung antrieb 7.2.2020
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Neue Zürcher Zeitung
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German-speaking Switzerland
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2020
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Awards
Associated projects
Number |
Title |
Start |
Funding scheme |
135055
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Königsfelden und sein Adel: Annäherungen an eine neue Sozialgeschichte |
01.05.2012 |
Project funding |
145387
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Visibility Matters: Rendering Human Origins and Diversity in Space and Time |
01.04.2013 |
Scientific Conferences |
112788
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Geschlecht sichtbar machen - Das Diagramm in der Geschichte der Paläoanthropologie |
01.02.2006 |
International short research visits |
Abstract
In the past three decades, whole-genome sequencing and analysis have created unprecedented capacities for the rapid and copious determination of ancestry, descent, and kinship among organisms, including humans. Work on the ‘tree of life’ has brought to light unexpected evolutionary affinities, and the possibility to study the genetic make-up of human populations as well as to identify the place of individual human DNA within ‘the human family tree’ has impacted our understandings of relatedness. In parallel, new digital methods to visualize such relations have proliferated. Drawing on a long cultural and scientific history, such visualizations tend to take the form of a tree, reflecting the assumption that evolution and descent follow a bifurcating pattern. ‘Tree thinking’ has therefore been identified as a dominant mode of thought and the tree as a canonical icon in modern biology. Indeed, tree thinking has been made out as a general modern Western rationale that reduces relatedness to descent.Although the tree does appear as a structuring device for organismic relatedness in religion, law, genealogy, natural history, biology, anthropology, psychiatry, eugenics, genetics, etc., from the Middle Ages to the present, there seems to be a more dynamic history of conceptualizing and visualizing relatedness both in terms of descent and otherwise. Naturalists around 1800, f.e., preferred the network to explore ‘natural affinities’ among organisms rather than descent. Furthermore, diagrams that look like trees do not necessarily embody their logic of embranchment. Many medieval and early modern ‘forerunners’ of tree diagrams actually depict linear relations of descent, while modern family trees may be pervaded by a reticulate logic derived from understandings of kinship laid down in canon law. Such complicated connections between diagram and meaning suggest a set of questions: What different understandings of relatedness are associated with particular visualizations, and what are their respective social and political implications, f.e. with respect to incest prohibition, (male) hereditary succession of power and wealth, or the determination of ‘purity of blood and race’? Why did evolutionary anthropologists prefer to visualize human evolution as proceeding through independent and isolated lines that continually split to form new lines? What does it mean that eugenicists and human geneticists analyzed inheritance on the basis of pedigrees that placed equal emphasis on maternal and paternal contributions? And what can be learned from the drafting, discarding, or redrafting of family trees by laypeople? This project will be the first to investigate the bewildering variety of diagrams that have been used to conceptualize, determine, and produce relatedness in Western Europe and in spaces of European expansion since the Late Medieval Period. We seek to understand the enormous influence that tree diagrams have had in certain domains, and posit that this success can only be adequately understood by, first, attending to alternatives, such as the scale, the circle, or the net, and secondly, by shifting focus from the iconography of such diagrams to their production and use as well as the transformations of their meanings. Developing a new understanding of diagrammatics as an interdisciplinary approach that analyzes diagrams as techniques that transcend such binaries as ‘thought and action’ and ‘image and text’, we also significantly go beyond the existing literature on a methodological level. Rather than tracing the history of a particular idea or icon, we offer a comparative analysis of diagrams of relatedness as epistemic, cultural, and political practices.
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