Upcoming DIAS lectures

Marius R. Busemeyer, Full Professor of Political Science at the University of Konstanz and Speaker of the Excellence Cluster "The Politics of Inequality" and Head of Working Group on Comparative Political Economy Invited and presented by DIAS Senior Fellow Pieter Vanhuysse The consequences of digitalization for education systems and the welfare state: What is the citizens’ view? Digitalization is likely to have a lasting impact on work, welfare, health, education, and the income distribution. It will radically transform not only social risks but also the means by which these are addressed. Much research has been done on the effects of digitalization on labor markets, but its impact on the welfare state and education remains less well understood. In this talk, I want to provide some theoretical perspectives on how and why digitalization affects both welfare state policies as well as the politics underlying it. I also present major findings from a number of recent studies conducted in my working group on the link between technological change and individual preferences on social and education policies. One central finding is that individuals who perceive themselves to be at high risk due to digitalization and automation primarily demand compensation from the welfare state and are less supportive of increasing investments in education and research, even though the latter is often recommended as public policy response from experts. This finding highlights the complexities of the new politics of tech change in the welfare state, which I will elaborate on in the talk. About: Marius R. Busemeyer is a Full Professor of Political Science with a focus on Comparative Political Economy at the University of Konstanz and Speaker of the Excellence Cluster "The Politics of Inequality". His research focuses on comparative political economy and welfare state research, education and social policy, public spending, theories of institutional change and, more recently, public opinion on the welfare state. He received two major grants from the German Research Foundation (DFG)’s Emmy Noether program and the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant scheme. His publications include the recently published A loud, but noisy signal? Public opinion and education reform in Western Europe (Cambridge University Press), the book Skills and Inequality (Winner of the 2015 Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research), an edited volume (with Christine Trampusch) on The Political Economy of Collective Skill Formation (Oxford University Press), a number of special issues (as guest editor) of West European Politics, the Journal of European Public Policy and the Socio-Economic Review. The lecture takes place in the DIAS Auditorium, Fioniavej 34. Everybody is welcome and no registration is needed.

Marie Louise Bech Nosch, professor at the SAXO-Institute - Archaeology, Ethnology, Greek & Latin, History at the University of Copenhagen Invited and presented by DIAS Chairs Anne Marie Mai and Klaus Petersen The Fabric of My Life The fabric of my life. Memory, clothing and emotion in antiquity and today. From Odysseus to sustainable fashion. With examples from Archaeology and ancient texts, and informed by our recent collection of personal clothing stories from Danes and refugees, we explore together how and why clothing can be tokens of lived life and life stories. About: Marie Louise Bech Nosch is a historian, specialized in ancient Greek history. She studied in France and Italy and received her Ph.D. from Universität Salzburg, Austria. Her special area of study is Aegean epigraphy and Mycenaean textile production. Marie Louise Bech Nosch has received several distinctions for her research, including the Dronning Margrethe IIs Videnskabspris and Gad Rausings pris för framstående humanistisk forskargärning. Her current research is focussed on History of textile, Greek history, Aegean epigraphy. The lecture takes place in the DIAS Auditorium, Fioniavej 34. Everybody is welcome and no registration is needed.

Jan Vogler, assistant professor at University of Konstanz Invited and presented by DIAS Fellow Lasse Aaskoven. Pandemics and Political Development: The Electoral Legacy of the Black Death in Germany Abstract: Do pandemics have lasting consequences for political behavior? The authors address this question by examining the consequences of the deadliest pandemic of the last millennium: the Black Death (1347–1351). They claim that pandemics can influence politics in the long run if the loss of life is high enough to increase the price of labor relative to other factors of production. When this occurs, labor-repressive regimes, such as serfdom, become untenable, which ultimately leads to the development of proto-democratic institutions and associated political cultures that shape modalities of political engagement for generations. The authors test their theory by tracing the consequences of the Black Death in German-speaking Central Europe. They find that areas hit hardest by that pandemic were more likely to adopt inclusive political institutions and equitable land ownership patterns, to exhibit electoral behavior indicating independence from landed elite influence during the transition to mass politics, and to have significantly lower vote shares for Hitler’s National Socialist Party in the Weimar Republic’s fateful 1930 and July 1932 elections. Jan Vogler is an Assistant Professor (Juniorprofessor) in quantitative social science at the Department of Politics and Public Administration. He previously held the position of a post-doctoral research associate in the political economy of good government at the University of Virginia; and, prior to that, he received a Ph.D. in political science from Duke University. His research covers a wide range of topics, including the organization of public bureaucracies, various forms of political and economic competition (in domestic and international settings), historical legacies, structures and perceptions of the EU, and the determinants of democracy and authoritarianism. More details on his research and teaching can be found on his website: http://www.janvogler.net/. About: The lecture takes place in the DIAS Auditorium, Fioniavej 34. Everybody is welcome and no registration is needed. Live stream it at youtube.com/@danish-ias

More information to come...

Joint Guest Lecture by Ana Queirós and Cintia Organo Quintana Ana Queirós: Seaweed blue carbon, or is it? Nature-based solutions for climate change are much sought after strategies to use nature to address the causes and impacts of changes in our global climate system. Within this scope, seaweed conservation and farming have been placed in the spotlight as potentially important strategies. However, large questions remain around the potential carbon value of these habitats, and their broader effects our ability to limit climate change. In this talk, I will explore recent, promising findings of the seaweed blue carbon research community, and major data gaps in our current understanding of the value of these strategies as nature-based solutions for climate change. Cintia Organo Quintana: Climate regulation services of coastal vegetated ecosystems Coastal vegetated ecosystems, such as seagrasses and salt marshes, are well-known for their ability to store carbon, commonly referred to as "blue carbon." Despite decades of research focused on quantifying carbon storage in these ecosystems globally, little attention has been given to the losses of carbon through mineralization and export. During my presentation, I will explore the climate mitigation potential of seagrasses and salt marshes while addressing the knowledge gaps in carbon cycling and greenhouse gas emissions of these vital ecosystems. It is crucial to verify carbon budgets and accounting in blue carbon ecosystems to provide evidence-based knowledge to inform decision and policy-making at the local, regional, and national levels. About: Ana Queirós is an internationally recognised expert on seaweed blue carbon and climate change ecology, with expertise in field, laboratory and modelling based approaches. She has for the last 10 years led research advancing our understanding of the connectivity between seaweed habitats and the seafloor. Ana Queiros has an extensive track record in the development of nature-based solutions for ocean management, and is leading research within globally distributed programmes that aim to help practitioners build climate resilience into marine conservation, restoration, harvesting and marine spatial planning, including important blue carbon habitat management (e.g. UNESCO Man & Biosphere programme collaborations). Cintia Organo Quintana's (SDU) research covers topics from species-specific effects of benthic marine invertebrates, such as polychaetes, bivalves and crustaceans, to ecosystem level responses to diverse disturbances (e.g. pollution, hypoxia, eutrophication, physical stress, climate change and bioengineering solutions for restoration of coastal habitats). Cintia O. Quintana is also the PI of the SDU Climate Cluster's Elite Centre of Aquatic Nature-based Solutions for Climate Change adaptation and mitigation. The centre works with methods based on ecosystem restoration and/or in combination to soft engineering interventions to tackle climate change by working with people and nature towards sustainable development and net-zero emission. The centre's research outcomes will include analysis of ecosystem functions and associated valuation of ecosystem services, and guidelines on the cost-effectiveness in upscaling aquatic nature-based solutions, addressing opportunities and challenges. The lecture is presented by DIAS in collaboration with the SDU Climate Cluster and takes place in the DIAS Auditorium, Fioniavej 34. Everybody is welcome and no registration is needed. Live stream it at youtube.com/@danish-ias

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Siegert, Gerd Bucerius Professor for the History and Theory of Cultural Techniques at Bauhaus Universität Weimar From Filtering to Imaging - MediaNatures of Plankton (1889 – 2019) By giving the concept of “environing technologies” (Sørlin and Wormbs) a media theoretical twist, the talk undertakes to re-perspectivize the history of plankton research in the North Atlantic from the angle of a praxeology of media. The talk will be divided into four sections: First, the concept of “environing media” is explained. The remaining sections will be devoted to three historical epochs of plankton research in the North Atlantic, or more precisely to the media practices (or “Kulturtechniken”), by which we can distinguish these epochs, and which gave rise to three different “medianatures” of plankton. Thus, it can be shown that the media history of microbiological oceanography proceeds through unstable distinctions between medium and message. By conclusion one could argue that plankton as such never existed, but only the "effective range" of the media systems used in each case. About: Bernhard Siegert is Gerd Bucerius Professor for the History and Theory of Cultural Techniques at Bauhaus Universität Weimar. From 2008 to 2020 he was co-director of the International Research Center for Cultural Techniques and Media Philosophy at Weimar (IKKM). Since 2021 he leads the project “The New Real – Past, Present, and Future of Computation and the Ecologization of Cultural Techniques” funded by the NOMIS Foundation. Siegert has held visiting professorships and scholarships at UC Santa Barbara, New York University, University of British Columbia, University of Cambridge, Freie Universität Berlin, Stockholm University, and Harvard University. His many publications have drawn upon disciplines including the histories of sciences and technologies, art, literature, and data processing to deconstruct supposedly ontologically or naturally given entities in terms of a history of mediums and cultural techniques. Translations in English of his work on media theory and history have appeared as Relays: Literature as an Epoch of the Postal System (Stanford University Press, 1999) and, more recently, Cultural Techniques: Grids, Filters, Doors, and Other Articulations of the Real (Fordham University Press, 2015). The lecture takes place in the DIAS Auditorium, Fioniavej 34. Everybody is welcome and no registration is needed.

More information to come...

More information to come...