Return-Path: <[log in to unmask]> Received: from arwen.unibe.ch by morgoth.unibe.ch (MX V4.2 AXP) with SMTP; Fri, 01 Nov 1996 22:11:39 MET Received: from msu.edu (actually ibm.cl.msu.edu) by arwen with SMTP (PP); Fri, 1 Nov 1996 18:15:56 +0100 Received: from MSU.EDU by msu.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 2798; Fri, 01 Nov 96 12:15:07 EST Received: from MSU.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@MSU) by MSU.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 2241; Fri, 1 Nov 1996 12:15:06 -0500 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