Category Archives: News

News, Object of the Month

Object of the Month: Diagram of the precipitation in Berlin-Dahlem in 2022

Object of the Month 08/2023

For the object of the month August, we have chosen the diagram of the precipitation in Berlin-Dahlem for the year 2022 (Fig. 4), which is a piece of the daily weather observation. Morever it also reflects the diversity of research at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as well as allowing the connection to current debates such as climate change and questions of future food security. It is therefore about the one topic where everyone surely always wants to form an opinion: the weather.

The terms weather and climate should be kept apart. Weather describes the measurable instantaneous state of the atmosphere, whereas climate is defined more as a typical recurring annual pattern of weather, usually based on 30-year averages.

Weather is usually associated with sunshine, wind, rain or temperature. These are variables that can be measured or counted and play a central role, especially for agriculture and thus for food. And in order to be able to measure or count them professionally, there are fixed weather stations, which are also located at Humboldt-Universität.

The agro-climatological weather station at the agricultural experimental site in Berlin-Dahlem was established in 1931. The weather data measured since then is used on the one hand for the evaluation of the permanent agricultural experiments at the site (investigation of the relationships between weather patterns and growth, development and yield formation of agricultural crops) and on the other hand for the evaluation of the most diverse field experiments, which are designed to be more short-term. The data is available to all students and staff for the evaluation of their field trials.

In addition, the long-term weather records provide an insight into the climatic changes in Berlin.

Odm_August_2023_Bild_01
Figure 1: Weather station on the grounds of the permanent field experiments of the Department of Crop and Animal Sciences of the Thaer Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences in Dahlem. (Photo: O. Zauzig 2023)
Odm_August_2023_Bild_02
Figure 2: Course of the annual mean air temperature (Ta) since the beginning of weather recording in Dahlem.
OdM_August_2023_Bild_03
Figure 3: Annual precipitation (Pa) over the same period.
The two graphs show the course of the annual mean air temperature and the annual precipitation depth (both y-axis) from 1931 to 2022. The air temperature in Berlin-Dahlem increased significantly by 1.8°C between 1931 and 2022 (1.78 Kelvin in 92 years). Annual precipitation shows no significant trend, with the lowest annual precipitation to date of only 338 mm (equivalent to 338 litres per square metre) measured throughout the year in 2022.
OdM_August_2023_Bild_04
Figure 4: Course of precipitation depth in 2022, measured at the Dahlem site.

Figure 4 shows that only 3 months of the year (February, April, December) had precipitation levels above the long-term average. This led to an annual precipitation deficit of 40 percent and thus to the lowest annual total of 337.8 litres per square metre since observations began in 1931. With only 0.6 l/m² precipitation, March 2022 also set a record, which was due to the highest sunshine duration of 245.3 hours measured to date.

This means that four records were set at once in 2022: highest sunshine duration and lowest precipitation level in March, lowest annual precipitation level since 1931, highest number of “desert days”.

Observing the weather remains our task.

Authors: Prof. Dr. Frank-M. Chmielewski and Dr. Oliver Zauzig

Current measured values of the weather station Berlin-Dahlem (HU)

Acker- und pflanzenbauliche Dauerfeldversuche

Agricultural Climatology

News, Third Mission

Joining forces and strategies: The Hermann von Helmholtz Zentrum für Kulturtechnik (HZK) devotes itself to the multi-year theme “The Elements”

As the interdisciplinary Central Institute of Humboldt-Universität, the HZK has the task of establishing the Third Mission as a new core competence within the university, alongside research and teaching. This includes the transdisciplinarily oriented competence field of “knowledge exchange with society”, which orients Humboldt-Universität as a whole more strongly towards a bi-directional understanding of imparting knowledge. Scientific results should not only be brought into society, but a direct exchange of diversely understood knowledge should be tested in concrete forms of encounter.

In order to bundle the research, teaching and application results gained by the HZK since the turn of the millennium and to become the central point of contact in the area of knowledge exchange with society for the members of the university as a whole, the Central Institute will dedicate itself to the multi-year theme “The Elements” – a fuzzy term from the perspective of the natural sciences, but a historical one from the perspective of the humanities – starting in summer 2023.

Elements such as earth, fire, water or air play a self-evident role in everyday concepts – and in this they represent not least a bridge between the most diverse disciplines and knowledge traditions. Thus, “earth” can be understood from a geopolitical perspective, as a biological breeding ground (“topsoil”) or as a historically damaged habitat (“scorched” earth), as well as in terms of the technical-innovative potential of “rare earths” or the increase in yields through fertilisation and profound interventions in the landscape, be it through buildings, earth eruptions or erosion.

Various research and outreach formats will test the inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations involved. The Humboldt Labor located in the Humboldt Forum, part of the HZK and one of the central stages of the Humboldt-Universität, will start with a teaser for the overall series “The Elements” before devoting itself to the individual elements in the following years and presenting the results of the research on an ongoing basis.

Contact:
Dr. Elisabeth Lack
Management HZK

Elements HZK
The Elements – HZK (© DaTy)
News, Workshop

Anthropologies of Technique / Techniques of Anthropology: Final student workshops

Ethnographers have to evolve their methods while investigating other people’s artful practices. How to make sense of other ways of making?

Contemporary multimodal ethnographic approaches are deeply rooted in fieldwork interactions with other knowing and making communities. Describing and theorizing making practices contributes to triggering new interests in material cultures. It also branches out to further studies on embodiment and on the techniques of the self. Telling better stories of making means sharpening our techniques for storytelling, experimenting with new media, and probing other ways of entering into collaboration with epistemic partners.

During the summer semester of 2023, we engaged in four collective fieldworks around technical activities: pottery, boomerang making, 3D sketching, and Iyengar yoga. We experimented with various ways to share the ethnographic experiences of “making” practices into text, drawings, workshops, and virtual installations. Students have also actively explored one technique of their choice during the course and documented their practice with a fieldwork notebook, using various techniques such as writing, sketching, 360° captures, etc.

Together on 14.07.2023, we will share our findings with the public in workshop formats, during which students will share their insights, their journals, and their newly acquired practices.

This seminar was taught by Prof. Sharon Macdonald and Dr. Maxime Le Calvé at the Helmholz-Zentrum für Kulturtechnik, part of the curriculum of the Master programme “Ethnography” at the Institute für Europeäische Ethnographie (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin).

AnthroTech2023
News, Object of the Month

Object of the month: The poet and the dolphin skull

Object of the Month 07/2023

The poet Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1838) is probably familiar to most people as the author of the fantastic tale „The Wonderful History of Peter Schlemihl” published in 1814. In it, the protagonist sells his shadow to the devil and thus falls victim to social ostracism. Chamisso’s importance as a natural scientist is far less well known. He was active in the fields of ethnology, zoology and, above all, botany. From 1815 to 1818, he participated in the circumnavigation of the globe by the Russian research vessel Rurik (Chamisso 2012). One of the significant results of this voyage was Chamisso’s discovery of the alternation of generations of the salps. He was not only able to decipher the alternating formation of sexual and asexual generations of these planktonic organisms, but was one of the first researchers ever to recognize the connection between larvae and generational successions of marine animals (Glaubrecht & Dohle 2012).

Fig 1 - Dolphin Skull
The sawed dolphin skull shown here from two sides comes from Chamisso's voyage around the world aboard the Russian research vessel 'Rurik'. (Photography G. Scholtz)

The sawed dolphin skull shown here from two sides also comes from this voyage. In his book “Reise um die Welt” Chamisso mentions dolphins among other things in the notes of May 12 and June 4, 1816: “A dolphin was harpooned, the first of which we got hold of – it served us as welcome food.” “…On the 4th a second dolphin of a different species was harpooned.” In total, Chamisso reports catching of six dolphins, all of whose skulls he donated to the “Zootomisches Museum zu Berlin.” This statement is confirmed by the inventory book of the zootomic collection, as six dolphin skulls collected by Chamisso are listed there. The entry in the inventory book under number 3956 for the skull shown here states: “Crania Delphini n. sp. … cl. a Chamisso ex itinere trans orbem attulit.”

Fig 2 - Crania Delphini
Crania Delphini n. sp. a 3955 diversa. illi Delphini dubii Cuv. oss. foss. affinea aut vero sumuliter (simuliter?) eodem (Translation: Dolphin skull n. sp. (new species) different from 3955. The excavated bones resemble those of Delphinus dubius (Cuvier) or are even the same). cl. a Chamisso ex itinere trans orbem mundum attulit. (Translation: collected by Chamisso, he brought them back from his voyage around the world).

In 1999, the skull and a mandible from the anatomical collection of the Charité were given to the Zoologische Lehrsammlung of the Humboldt-Universität (see Scholtz 2018). The historical significance of these objects went unnoticed for over a decade. It was not until there was an inquiry from Hamburg about the whereabouts of a dolphin skull collected by Chamisso as part of the DFG project “The Appropriation of World Knowledge – Adelbert von Chamisso’s world tour” that our own provenance research led to the identification of the object. Other dolphin skulls collected by Chamisso were identified in the holdings of the Museum für Naturkunde. A comparison with the notes in Chamisso’s travel diaries (Sproll et al. 2023) now offers the possibility to identify individually the six skulls mentioned in the diaries and to which dolphin species they belong.

Fig 3 - Adelbert von Chamisso in the South Seas
Watercolor portrait of Chamisso under palm trees in the Pacific Ocean by Ludwig Choris from 1817 (Collection Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Reproduction: Oliver Ziebe, Berlin, Paper, Sheet: H: 22,80 cm, W: 18,40 cm, Inv.Nr.: TA 00/2026 HZ)

Like many of his scientifically active contemporaries, Chamisso was a member of the “Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin”. As a characteristic product of the Age of Enlightenment, this private association was launched on July 9, 1773, in the apartment of the Berlin physician Dr. Friedrich Heinrich Wilhelm Martini (Böhme-Kassler 2005). The seven founding members, beyond their professions as physicians, pharmacist, astronomer, royal war councillor and royal administrators, showed great interest in natural science issues and were proud owners of natural history collections. Martini, for example, who initiated the foundation, was a dedicated conchologist, and the pharmacist Marcus Élieser Bloch was interested in ichthyology. The eventually twelve full members met regularly in their private residences, discussed natural history issues, and presented their newly acquired collection items. Associate and honorary members were also appointed. Last but not least, the founding of the Berliner Universität in 1810 caused the number of members to rise sharply. When Chamisso was elected to the GNF in 1819, it was already good manners to list membership alongside that in other national and international associations and academies. The explosive development of scientific research in the 19th century was also reflected in the GNF. It grew steadily, and especially the large number of outstanding researchers who belonged to it shows its historical importance. The focus of interests changed more and more towards biological questions. Accordingly, the Society was closely connected with the Museum für Naturkunde, and with the beginning of the 20th century the meetings were held there. The 2nd World War led to a break in the activities of the GNF.In 1955 the revitalisation took place at the newly founded Freie Universität in the western part of Berlin, where the society is still located today. From the beginning, the GNF has dedicated itself to the promotion and dissemination of scientific knowledge. It still follows this ideal today. It is closely connected to the major Berlin universities and the Museum für Naturkunde. It awards an annual prize for outstanding biological bachelor’s and master’s theses. Regular meetings with scientific lectures as well as excursions are still held. It is the oldest still existing private natural history society in Germany. The GNF celebrates its 250th anniversary on July 9, 2023 with a colloquium in the lecture hall of zoology at the Freie Universität Berlin. In addition, a Festschrift published on behalf of the steering committee highlights aspects of its long history (Scholtz et al. 2023).

By Prof. Dr. Gerhard Scholtz

Links
Zoologische Lehrsammlung der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (only in German)
Salpen (Feuerwalzen), Feuchtpräparat (only in German)

References
Böhme-Kassler, K. 2005 Gemeinschaftsunternehmen Naturforschung. Modifikation und Tradition in der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin 1773 – 1906. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart.

Chamisso, A. von 2012 Reise um die Welt (Nachdruck). Die Andere Bibliothek, Berlin

Glaubrecht, M. & Dohle, W. 2012 Discovering the alternation generations in salps (Tunicata, Thaliacea): Adelbert von Chamisso’s dissertation “De Salpa” 1819 its material, origin and reception in the early nineteenth century. Zoosystenatics and Evolution 88: 317-363.

Scholtz, G. 2018 Zoologische Lehrsammlung (Zoological Teaching Collection). In: Beck, L.A. (Hrsg.). Zoological Collections of Germany – The animal kingdom in its amazing plenty at museums and universities. Springer, Berlin, pp. 123-134.

Scholtz, G., Sudhaus, W. & Wessel, A. (Hrsg.) 2023 Festschrift zum 250-jährigen Bestehen der Gesellschaft. Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin 57 (NF): 5-320.

Sproll, M., Erhart, W. & Glaubrecht, M. (Hrsg.) 2023 Adelbert von Chamisso: Die Tagebücher der Weltreise 1815-1818, Edition der handschriftlichen Bücher aus dem Nachlass. Brill/V&R Unipress, Göttingen.

News

eFin & Democracy – Democracy issues of the digitalised financial sector

Daniel Tyradellis, Vice Director of the Helmetholtz Zentrum, is a member of the project group “eFin & Democracy” of the ZEVEDI – Centre Responsible Digitality, funded by the Mercator Foundation.
The group, which is made up of representatives from business, law, science, culture and the media, has been critically monitoring the ECB’s plans to introduce the digital euro for five years. The aim is to open up the discussions on the social effects associated with digital central bank money in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary manner.

For further information please visit the website eFin & Demokratie of the ZEVEDI.

eFin & Democracy
eFin & Democracy © Matthias-Seifert
News, Object of the Month

Object of the month: Photographic reproduction of the X-ray image of a bound foot

Object of the Month 06/2023

Over a period of a thousand years, Chinese girls had their feet bound to shorten them. Europeans looked at this beauty practice with a mixture of fascination and astonishment. In the 19th century, doctors also became interested in bound feet, one of them being the Berlin anatomist Hans Virchow, whose podological collection is now housed in the Centre for Anatomy at the HU.

The object presented here, a print of an X-ray image glued to cardboard (cf. https://www.sammlungen.hu-berlin.de/objekte/sammlung-am-centrum-fuer-anatomie/8468/), which is handwritten “Fuß einer 32 jähr. chin. Frau” (“Foot of a 32 year old Chinese woman”), also belongs to this collection.

Foot of a 32 year old chin. Woman
Photographic reproduction of the X-ray image of a bound foot, photo: Felix Sattler

The skeleton shows the characteristic features of bound feet: the small toes are curved under the sole, the instep is arched upwards. Apart from the extreme foreshortening, the nailed sole is particularly striking – obviously the X-ray image was taken through the shoe.

How this came about can be seen in the “Zeitschrift für Ethnologie”: In March 1905, Hans Virchow invited the members of the Anthropological Society to the foyer of the Berlin Circus Schumann “to inspect the Chinese troupe currently staying here” in order to convince himself “of the smallness and reshaping of the Chinese feet”. Advertisements and contemporary sources provide information about the identity of the “troupe”. They were the magician Ching Ling Foo and the “famous small-footed women”: his wife (the “32 year old Chinese woman”), their daughter Chee Toy and Chee Roan, whose name is noted on a photograph in the Náprstek Museum in Prague, another stage of their European tour (cf. Heroldová 2008).

Photograph in the Náprstek Museum Prague
Ching Ling Foo, his wife, Chee Roan and Chee Toy in the Náprstek Museum, 1905, black and white photograph on cardboard, © Náprstek Museum Prague.

Virchow had already dampened hopes of an inspection of uncovered feet in the invitation, “for it is well known [that] Chinese women are particularly difficult about their feet”. In fact, bound feet were never publicly shown naked in China. Foreign photographers and doctors often broke the gaze taboo in the 19th century by harassing women with money and gifts. Female performers also refused the intrusive gaze, but allowed themselves to be x-rayed – through the shoe. Whether this succeeded, as James Fränkel claimed in the “Zeitschrift für orthopädische Chirurgie” (Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery), only because the women were unaware of the procedure discovered in 1895, or whether he was invoking the topos of the secret “X-ray gaze” here, cannot be decided. In any case, the photograph bears witness not only to the encroaching medical gaze, but also to the resistance of the women.

For the anatomists, the campaign was a success, because it not only allowed them to see the feet in three stages of deformation, but – contrary to the popular prejudice of the inability to walk – also in motion. Virchow made several revisions to the X-ray images for the publication of the examination results: He rotated and retouched the images to make them more legible (cf. Dünkel 2021). For him, the on-site visit was neither the first nor the last encounter with bound feet. As early as 1903, he had examined a wet preparation that had come into the Berlin collection after the First Opium War, and in 1912 he macerated the feet of a woman who had died of typhus, which he had received in the course of the “Boxer War”, the suppression of the Yihetuan movement. Whereas medical practitioners in the 19th century had repeatedly complained about the lack of access to Chinese corpses in addition to the gaze taboo, the situation changed with the establishment of mission hospitals and the colonial wars. Soon almost every anatomical collection of the imperial powers possessed preparations of bound feet – some of them from looted graves. Virchow’s collection of casts, models and bones of bound feet also owes much to colonial conditions. The exhibition “unBinding Bodies” in the Tieranatomisches Theater opposite has set itself the task of re-contextualising these sensitive objects. The focus is not on the feet, but on Chinese women and their lives. The exhibition runs until 31 August.

Jasmin Mersmann and Evke Rulffes

Exhibition
unBinding Bodies. Lotosschuhe und Korsett at TA T

Catalogue
unBinding Bodies – Zur Geschichte des Füßebindens in China
Jasmin Mersmann / Evke Rulffes (Hg.)
transcript Verlag, 2023. Open Access.

Literature
Vera Dünkel (2021): Beyond Retouching. Hans Virchow’s Mixed Media and his X-ray Drawings of the Lotus Foot, in: Hybrid Photography, ed. by Sara Hillnhuetter, Stefanie Klamm, Friedrich Tietjen, London/New York, pp. 79-88.

James Fränkel (1905): Ueber den Fuß der Chinesin, in: Zeitschrift für orthopädische Chirurgie 14, pp. 339-356.

Helena Heroldová (2008): Příběh jedněch botiček, in: Cizí, jiné, exotické v české kultuře, ed. by Kateřina Bláhová and Václav Petrbok, Prague, pp. 126-133.

Jasmin Mersmann (2023): Bis auf die Knochen. Gebundene Füße in anatomischen Sammlungen, in: unBinding Bodies, ed. by ders. and Evke Rulffes, Bielefeld, pp. 119-129.

Hans Virchow (1903): Das Skelett eines verkrüppelten Chinesinnen-Fußes, in: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 35:2, pp. 266-316 and (1905): Further communications on the feet of Chinese women, in: ZfE 37:4, pp. 546-568.

News, Publication

The publication “Heritage Futures” is shortlisted for the EAA Book Prize 2023

The EAA (European Association of Archaeologists) annually awards the EAA Book Prize to honour recent publications by EAA Members. By the 28 February 2023 deadline, we received altogether 49 nominations. The Book Prize selection committee shortlisted ten publications, which the committee will further evaluate. The winning title will be announced at the Opening Ceremony of the 29th EAA Annual Meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The publication “Heritage Futures” is shortlisted for the EAA Book Prize 2023: Website of the EAA Book Prize 2023.

Heritage Futures: Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices
by Rodney Harrison, Caitlin DeSilvey, Cornelius Holtorf, Sharon Macdonald, Nadia Bartolini, Esther Breithoff, Harald Fredheim, Antony Lyons, Sarah May, Jennie Morgan, and Sefryn Penrose.
UCL Press 2020, Open Access.
For further information and to freely download the publication, please visit the UCL Press website.

News, Publication

Magdalena Buchczyk: Weaving Europe, Crafting the Museum

The new book offers fresh insights into the little-known collection of the Museum Europäischer Kulturen (Museum of European Cultures, MEK) in Berlin. Buchczyk’s monograph Weaving Europe, Crafting the Museum delves into the history and the changing material culture in Europe through the stories of a basket, a carpet, a waistcoat, a uniform, and a dress. The focus on the objects from the MEK offers an innovative and challenging way of understanding textile culture and museums. The book shows that textiles can be simultaneously used as the material object of research, and as a lens through which we can view museums. In doing so, the book fills a major gap by placing textile knowledge back into the museum.

Each chapter focuses on one object story and can be read individually. Swooping from 19th-century wax figure cabinets, Nazi-era collections, Cold War exhibitions in East and West Berlin, and institutional reshuffling after German unification, it reveals the dramatically changing story of the museum and its collection. Based on research with museum curators, makers and users of the textiles in Italy and Germany, Poland and Romania, the book provides intimate insights into how objects are mobilised to very different social and political effects. It sheds new light on movements across borders, political uses of textiles by fascist and communist regimes, the objects’ fall into oblivion, as well as their heritage and tourist afterlives. Addressing this complex museum legacy, the book suggests new pathways to prefigure the future.
 
More information: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/weaving-europe-crafting-the-museum-9781350226739/ 
 

About the author: Magdalena Buchczyk is a Junior Professor in Social Anthropology of Cultural Expressions at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She conducts ethnographic research on collections, material culture and intangible heritage. 

News, Publication

Viktoria Tkaczyk: Thinking with Sound – A New Program in the Sciences and Humanities around 1900

Viktoria Tkaczyk is Professor of Media and Knowledge in the Department of Media Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Thinking with Sound undertakes a historicisation of auditory neuroscience, an interdisciplinary field of research that is currently expanding rapidly. The book traces how the identification of the auditory cortex in the neuroanatomy of the 1860s inspired very different disciplines to new theories of a “thinking in sound images”.

Ferdinand de Saussure interpreted the “acoustic image” as the key to human language, Sigmund Freud approached the human psyche via the auditory unconscious, for Henri Bergson imaginary sounds proved the independence of the mind from physical perception, Ernst Mach declared comparative listening to be the central method of experimental physics, Carl Stumpf started from culturally shaped ideas of sound and used them for comparative cultural studies.

In its various forms, the topos of “thinking in sound images” connected an academic landscape at the turn of the 20th century that split into increasingly specialised fields of research. In the process, disciplines in the humanities and natural sciences exerted a literally disciplining influence on the ways of speaking, listening and thinking of their time – supported by numerous new media technologies, but also closely linked to colonial, imperial and national political programmes.

Further information about the publication.

inherit, News

InHerit: Call for fellows now open!

The new Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study inHerit. Heritage in Transformation, based at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, invites applications from both experienced and early career post-doc researchers for fellowships to begin in 2024. The application deadline is 12 May 2023.

Applications should address questions of heritage in transformation in relation to one or more of the Centre’s guiding themes: Decentring the West, Decentring the Human, and Transforming Value. Successful projects are likely to be based in original empirical or archival study/analysis of source material (which may have already been undertaken) or creative work, and to probe historically and socio-culturally situated notions and practices of inheritance, heritage, value and temporality – and associated key concepts – through alternatives, such as those based in non-Western, indigenous, historically marginalized or imaginative perspectives. Projects examining or creatively addressing transformations at the intersection between increasingly globally widespread practices, such as restitution, digitalization, genetic ancestry testing and legal changes, and those that address transregional experiences and practices are especially welcome.

Researchers and topics from areas currently underrepresented in heritage scholarship, including the global South and Eastern Europe, are especially encouraged to apply. We also welcome applications from artists, film-makers and curators.

For more information about the call, please see: https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/