Current News

Professor Adam Berg will give a lecture titled “What happens to science and art in the age of transcoding?” on 22^nd of March 2012 in Y 311 from 11:45 till 13:30 (the abstract is available here).

Professor Berg is an adjunct associate professor in the Liberal Arts and Sciences department at Otis College of Art and Design and also teaches at the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts). He studied art at the Academia delle Belle Arti, Rome, Architecture at the…

Yoram Carmeli, Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Haifa, Israel, arrived last week in Konstanz. He has already visited the Zukunftskolleg before and this time he will stay till 31.05.2012. The Zukunftskolleg is glad to have Professor Carmeli here again!

Franz Huber, Fellow at the Zukunftskolleg, accepted a tenure-stream position in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, Canada, downtown campus (St. Georg), at the rank of Assistant Professor, starting 1st January 2013. The Zukunftskolleg congratulates Franz Huber on the new position!

On Monday, 19th March 2012, a workshop of the Department of Philosophy will take place from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in V 1001. All Members of the Zukunftskolleg are invited to join the workshop with Jeffrey A. Barrett dealing with "Philosophy of Science".

Program

David Leep was elected to a member of the Executive Committee in February and he gladly accepted the new offer. The Zukunftskolleg congratulates Prof. Leep and wishes good luck!

Prof. Iris-Tatjana Kolassa, Alumna of the Zukunftskolleg, received Janet Taylor Spence Award For Transformative Early Career Contributions To Psychological Science from the Association for Psychological Science. This prize distinguishes special creative approach to the research, which motivates re-thinking in the area of Psychology. Iris-Tatjana Kolassa is head of the Department of Clinical and Biological Psychology at the University of Ulm since 2010. In 2006 she became a member of the…

The research results of the joint work of Fellow of the Zukunftskolleg, Simon Hanslmayr with Prof. Mikael Johansson and with Dr. Gerd Waldhauser (University of Lund, Sweden) showed for the first time that retrieval of associated memory contents inhibits interfering contents which leads to the forgetting of the latter. A distinction between the patterns of contents which have to be recalled and of interfering contents was achieved by means of EEG.  This method provides direct evidence for the…

Gunhild Berg, Fellow of the Zukunftskolleg, edited a book "Collegium über Naturlehre und Astronomie bei Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Göttingen 1796/1797; ein Skizzenbuch der Experimentalphysik“ which was recently published. In this book the author, Jakob Friedrich Dyckerhoff collected sketches and notes of the lectures of G. C. Lichtenberg. He also described there Lichtenberg’s principle of trusting in nature as in a teacher.

More information about the book and also the abstract are available h…

Academic philosophy is closely associated with the individual sciences in that as a science theory, it contributes to the analysis of hypothesis formulation and theory development. Viewed formerly as a universal, today as a basic science, the question arises as to how philosophy can be positioned within the spectrum of university research, and how other disciplines can enter into a fruitful discourse with it. The Zukunftskolleg would…

January 26, 2012/ A 703/ 6 p.m.

As in the Summer Term 2011, the Zukunftskolleg would like to distinguish two Senior Fellows Prof. Dr. Sabine von Heusinger (University of Cologne) und Prof. Dr. Klaus von Heusinger (University of Stuttgart) who contributed massively to the interdisciplinary environment of the excellent researchers of the University of Konstanz.

In their common lecture (in English) they will deal with the meaning and function of the names from a linguistic and historical point…

Yaron Matras, distinguished linguist from the University of Manchester, arrived today in Konstanz. He was nominated by Eleanor Coghill. He will work on the project titled “Neo-Aramaic morphosyntax in its areal-linguistic context” till 15.5.2012. Welcome to the Zukunftskolleg!

The Zukunftskolleg is happy to greet Senior Fellows Christoph Fehige (University of Saarbrücken) and Dimitri Ginev (University of Sofia) who both arrived at the University of Konstanz on 09.01.2012. Christoph Fehige (nominated by Atilla Tanyi) deals with the topics of Practical Philosophy and his current project at the University of Konstanz is titled "Peace and Tolerance in Consequentialist Ethics". The focus of Dimitri Ginev (nominated by Jeff Kochan) is on Hermeneutics. His…

Chemist and Zukunftskolleg Alumnus Jörg Hartig receives a Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities Award for Chemistry for “his innovative and trend-setting works in area of Chemical Biology of nucleic acids”.

The Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities awards its research prizes “for outstanding scientific works published by young researchers in international magazines”. This award was donated by the Dyneon GmbH and by the Chemical Industry Fund.

Further information is available in…

On Monday December 12^th, 2011, Jeffrey A. Barrett will chair a first workshop taking place 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in room V 1001. Following topics are intended:

15:00-16:00: Jeff Barrettt (UC Irvine/Senior Fellow): Pure Wave Mechanics and the Very Idea of Empirical Adequacy

16:15-17:15: Mathias Frisch (Maryland/Munich): Incantations of Causation and Other Philosophical Sins

17:30-18:30: Carl Hoefer (Barcelona): A Humean Looks at Quantum Probability

18:45-19:45: Charlotte Werndl (London School of…

The Zukunftskolleg welcomes Prof. Jeffrey Alan Barrett who arrived in Konstanz today. He will stay as Senior Fellow at the Zukunftskolleg until July 31^st, 2012. Jeffrey A. Barrett comes from the University of California in Irvine (USA) where he is Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the School of Social Sciences. He was nominated by the Fellow of the Zukunftskolleg Franz Huber. During his stay he will work on the project „Modeling the coevolution of descriptive language and physical…

On Monday, 28^th of November, 2011 in auditorium A 703, Zukunftskolleg Alumnus Prof. Sven Reichardt will hold his inaugural lecture titled "Konsens und Gewalt im Faschismus".

In this article, by means of simultaneous measuring of brainwaves (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance tomography (MRT), it is shown which neuronal synchronization patterns are at the bottom of the formation of new memory contents.

The article from "The Journal of Neuroscience" is available here.

The nation-wide premiere of a “Geistes Slam” inspired about 200 visitors at the University of Konstanz. The auditorium was bursting at the seams on Saturday, November 19th, 2011 as five brave young researchers from the Faculty of Humanities and from the Zukunftskolleg introduced themselves to the audience. With maximum eight-minutes long talk, the protagonists showed Immanuel Kant’s understanding of human’s freedom not only as the one of a spatula (Philosopher Federica Basaglia) and also how a…

Nathan Weisz, Fellow of the Zukunftskolleg and Emmy-Noether group leader in area of Clinical Psychology of the University of Konstanz, receives European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for his research project "Brain-state dependent perception: finding the windows to consciousness“. This implies maximum funding of € 1.5 million for his research of conscious perception. The young scientist’s assumption is that conscious and unconscious perception in the brain differs by activation pattern…

Acting on behalf of the Foundation Science and Society at the University of Konstanz the Zukunftskolleg annually awards the Manfred-Ulmer Scholarship to doctoral students. This year’s awardee - Friedrich Cain - is cultural scientist and prospective PhD student of the University of Konstanz. In his Master thesis he examines methods of knowledge creation and day-to-day research works in NS-occupied underground Krakow. Friedrich Cain is associated fellow of the Zukunftskolleg since October 2011.…

“Earthquake Night” is an event which will take place on November 16th, 2011 from 18.00 to 22.00 in the main building of Sparkasse Bodensee within the framework of the exhibition “Fernbeziehung”. This night is dedicated to the memory of the earthquake which happened on November 16th 1911 in Konstanz. The event “Die Nacht, in der die Engel fielen. Ein Konstanzer Erdbeben” offers its visitors a multifaceted lecture program consisting not only of local and media historical but also scientific…

Simon Hanslmayr, Research Fellow of the Zukunftskolleg, published an article concerning successful memory formation in the renowed journal “The Journal of Neuroscience”. Using simultaneous EEG–fMRI recordings in humans during long-term memory encoding it was possible to demonstrate which neuronal synchronisation  pattern underlie the formation of new memory effects. The complete article “The Relationship between Brain Oscillations and BOLD Signal during Memory Formation: A Combined EEG–fMRI…

On November 4-5 the Zukunftskolleg Mentorship Workshop "Silvretta Historica: Satellite Image Analysis in Alpine Archaeology" will take place. All members of the Zukunftskolleg are invited to participate in the workshop organized by Karsten Lambers on Friday, November 4, 2011, in Y 311.

October 20th, 2011, Doris Penka was elected of 14 candidates as a new member of the Executive Committee of the Zukunftskolleg. Now all three faculties of the university (Faculty of Science, Faculty of Humanities and Faculty of Politics, Law and Economics) are represented in the Executive Committee. In the first meeting directly afterwards the EC decided to affiliate Senior Fellow Jean-Pierre Tignol as another member of the EC. Jean-Pieree Tignol was very pleased about the suggestion and accepted…

The final part of the exhibition "Fernbeziehung - Über den Nutzen und Nachteil des Telefons für das Leben" themed "Gespenst" attends to the spooky aspects of the telephone. Since the invention of this medium a division of body and voice was possible for the first time. The exhibition was created by the media scholar and Research Fellow of the Zukunftskolleg Albert Kümmel-Schnur together with the computer scientist Prof. Harald Reiterer and students of the literature of the University of…

Samuel Schindler, who just moved as an Associate Professor in Philosophy of Science from the Zukunftskolleg to the University of Aarhus in Denmark, will be back in Konstanz as one of the organizers of the PSX2—2nd International Workshop on the Philosophy of Scientific Experimentatio. The workshop of the Department of Philosopy (University of Konstanz) is supported by the Zukunftskolleg and will take place October 21/22 2011.

more information

Together with organic chemists of the University of Konstanz the working group of the Zukunftskolleg Fellow Malte Drescher developed an innovative research method for studying bonding mechanisms between multivalent carbohydrates and proteins. The results of this research are published as a cover article in the journal “Angewandte Chemie” and could be used in cancer research.

Further information is available in the (German) press release of the University of Konstanz.

Link to the article: http:…

An event in German Language:

Samstag 19. November 2011, 16.45 - 18.00 Uhr, Raum A 704

Wer schafft es, innerhalb kurzer Zeit sein Forschungsthema verständlich und unterhaltsam zu vermitteln? Am Tag der Geisteswissenschaften findet der erste Konstanzer „Geistes Slam“ statt. Den Teilnehmenden aus der Geisteswissenschaftlichen Sektion und aus dem Zukunftskolleg stehen maximal 8 Minuten zur Verfügung, um ihr Thema vorzustellen und die Herzen der gespannten Zuschauer zu gewinnen.

Am Ersten…

In the summer 2011, shortly after another Konstanz stay, Senior Fellow Gregory A. Miller moved from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was Director of the Biomedical Imagine Center, to the University of Delaware, where he is chair of the Department of Psychology. (He reports that being 1900 km closer to Konstanz was not the only reason for the move to Delaware.) He looks forward to continue collaborations with the Zukunftskolleg colleagues and visits to Konstanz are planed…