Austria
In collaboration with
Institute for Human Sciences
The Institute for Human Sciences / Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences. Since its foundation in 1982, it has hosted more than 1500 scholars, journalists and translators from all over the world. Many of the Institute’s Permanent and Visiting Fellows are regular contributors to Eurozine or its focal points The World in Pieces and Ukraine in European Dialogue (see below).
Website: www.iwm.at
Twitter: @IWM_Vienna
Youtube: IWMVienna
Articles
The pandemic prompts fundamental questions. How do we define society’s relationship to nature? How resilient are our democracies to the abuse of emergency powers? How far can science dictate political decision-making? And will the primacy of the economy remain unassailable?
Paradox Europa
Opening lecture, Vienna Humanities Festival 2019
Ágnes Heller transformed a troubled life: ‘I lived through terrible things. But I had to understand them. […] Philosophers do not despair.’ Shalini Randeria and Ludger Hagedorn honour her legacy on her birthday.
In moments of crisis, reflecting on loss can be especially hard. Philosopher Krzysztof Michalski’s meditation on an unexpected death lends gravitas to universal questions of belief, awareness and fear in times of transition.
Sensationalism has focused on fistfights over toilet rolls, but the real story is the withdrawal of democratic oversight, and how little public resistance there is to the declaration of martial law. Power granted is power conceded; and power relinquished is power reclaimed with difficulty.
Focal points
Inspired by a lecture that Clifford Geertz delivered in 1995 at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, this focal point engages with ‘deep diversity’, ‘a sense of dispersion, of particularity, of complexity and of uncenteredness’ rather than unified world order. It follows the launch of a research programme of the same name at the institute in January 2023.
Post-revolutionary Ukrainian society displays a unique mix of hope, enthusiasm, social creativity, collective trauma of war, radicalism and disillusionment. With the Maidan becoming history, the focal point ‘Ukraine in European Dialogue’ explores the new challenges facing the young democracy, its place in Europe, and the lessons it might offer for the future of the European project.
Projects and publications
