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Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 17:12:38 +0000
Reply-To: An H-Net List for the Society for Anthropology of Europe
<[log in to unmask]>
Sender: An H-Net List for the Society for Anthropology of Europe <[log in to unmask]>
From: Anthony Galt <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
Subject: FYI: Closing of Max Planck Institut Goettingen?
To: Multiple recipients of list H-SAE <[log in to unmask]>
Many anthropologists working in Europe will be familiar with the
innovative work of the members of the Max Planck Institut fuer Geschichte
in Goettingen. Historians like Hans Medick and Alf Luedtke have been at
the forefront of initiating and furthering path-breaking dialogues =
between
anthropology and history throughout the past two decades. The Institute
has become a multinational center for interdisciplinary research and has
been host to numerous American scholars, including many anthropologists.
I am forwarding a message from the H-German list regarding a
recommendation by the President of the Max Planck Gesellschaft to close
the Goettingen Institute. A number of scholars in the United States are
organizing a protest against this possible closing. Historians at
the Institute would prefer letters from institutions, research centers,
university presidents, department chairs, etc., believing these would be
more effective than a mass campaign of individual letters. The closure is=
to
take effect in eight years with the retirement of the current directors,
but the decision will be discussed on November 22. Those who wish to
write should thus have their letters in before then to:
Professor Dr. Hubert Markl
Praesident der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Postfach 101062
D-80084 Muenchen
=46AX 011-49-21081111.
Please send copies of letters to the Goettingen Institute as well (Dr.
Hans Medick, Max Planck Institut fuer Geschichte, Hermann Foge Weg 11,
D-37073 Goettingen, Germany.)
I had also thought about the possibility of organizing some sort
of petition drive through this H-SAE list, but would I need some =
technical
assistance with that!
Sincerely,
Daphne Berdahl
Department of Anthropology
Harvard University
phone: 617/496-5690
fax: 617/496-8355
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 12:16:35 -0600
=46rom: H-GERMAN EDITOR Dan Rogers <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: H-NET List on German History <[log in to unmask]>
To: Multiple recipients of list H-GERMAN <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Closing of Max Planck Institut Goettingen?
Submitted by: Gerald D. Feldman <[log in to unmask]>
I would like to confirm and add some points to Prof. Marion W. Gray's
timely notice concerning the projected closing of the Max Planck Institut
fuer Geschichte in Goettingen.
The proposal is being made by the newly-elected President of the
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Hubert Markl and it is to close down the
Goettingen institute in 2004, when its present directors, Professors
Herbert Lehmann and Otto Gerhard Oexle are scheduled to retire. If
accepted, it would of course leave these two distinguished historians as
Konkursverwalter of the enterprise founded by Heimpel, and developed so
brilliantly by Josef Fleckenstein and Rudolf Vierhaus. Lehmann and Oexle
have carried on this important work with great distinction and, until =
last
week, the future of the Institute seemed filled with the brightest =
promise
despite some anticipated budget cuts. The Institute has, for example,
become a multinational European research center for history with close
ties to corresponding agencies in France and Britain. Numerous American
scholars have worked at and with the Institute, which has also been home
to a number of Humboldt fellows, and the Institute has of course been a
center of important innovative research throughout its history. It has
been what a Max Planck Institute should be, a center of Grundlagen
=46orschung.
If the proposal to close the Institute is hard to understand, the
method chosen to make the proposal is even more incomprehensible. Let me
quote Point 5 of the Institute's response to the proposal sent to me by
Professor Lehmann ("Basic Research without History?):
5. We are especially troubled that this presidential conclusion was
reached, as far as we can tell, without any prior evaluation of the
qualities of the Institute, and certainly without prior testimony from =
the
directors of members of the Institute. Neither the new President of the
Max Planck Society nor its new General Secretary has thus far even =
visited
the Institute in Goettingen. The plan to shut it down was disclosed to
the Directors at Munich on October 16, was announced by the President on
the following day, October 17, at the meeting of the Scientific Council =
of
the Society in Berlin, and after presentation before the Humanities
Section of the Society, was releasted to the press on October 18.
The attempt by both Directors to slow this rush to judgment, to
allow time for a bosber evaluation of the existing situation and for
cnsideration of the possible consequences of clusure, failed at that =
time.
Compared with the time and trouble the Max Planck Society takes for the
founding of new research institutes--international commissions,
consultation with numerous committees and foreign advisers--this
experience of the Goettingen Institute can be deemed, at best, summary
justice. As a successfully functioning agency it is entitled at the very
least to equal consideration."
Apparently, the only justification given was "Subsidiaeritaet,"
that is, that there were other places doing history in the Federal
Republic so that the Institute was duplicating work done elsewhere. This
is, of course, a very rubbery concept and could just as easily be applied
to physics and chemistry. It does indeed appear to be an attack on the
significance of history as a branch of the humanities and social sciences
worthy of having a Max-Planck-Institute. As the aforementioned document
puts it:
8. "It is the task of historical study critically to develop and sustain
the cultural memory of a society. The Goettingen Institute fulfills this
task through research into the patterns of thought and mentalities of
individuals and groups, examining the forms of their social exchanges and
the institutions that grow out of them. The suggestions that this
Institute should be closed raises disturbing questions about the
understanding of scholarly scientific endeavor within the Max-Planck
Society, and about the relations among its several elements and amoung =
the
forms of knowledge they represent. To these very ends it would be fatal
if the Max Planck Society, with its structural emphasis on the natural
sciences, should abandon the search for and the sustainment of our
cultural awareness, self-recognition, and memory. Nowadays more than
ever, we need critically to analyze and to understand the complex social,
spiritual, and economic transformations of the past centuries out of =
which
our own has been made. Every day, that task is reashaped and renewed. =
But
in no other way can the historic processes of European and global
integration be achieved: only with a sober understanding of how the past
has shaped the present, and how past and present may shape the future. We
believe that these inexhaustible objects of research should be organized
within a context of international scholarly networks. This is the course
upon which the Max Planck Institute for History has set itself."
Certainly scholars on the H-Net who have worked with the
Goettingen Institute or who are aware of its important work an concerned
about its future should seek to prevent this closure. Professor Lehmann
deserves our special support because of his great contributions as
founding director of the German Historical Institute in Washington. Let =
me
urge that those concerned write to Prof. Markl at:
Praesident der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
zur Foerderung der Wissenschaften
Postfach 10 10 62
80084 Muenchen, Germany
It would be useful if a copy of such letters were sent to Prof. Lehmann =
at
the Max-Planck-Institute fuer Geschichte, Hermann-Foge-Weg 11, D-37073,
Goettingen, Germany.
Sincerely,
Gerald D. Feldman
Professor of History
Director, Center for German and European
Studies, UC Berkeley
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