Abstract: Starting from the ambiguity of humanist and post-humanist concepts, the place occupied by the social as a political dimension in these critical-theory constructions and especially in ecological and new ontological approaches is examined. Two classical categories seem crucial for the investigation: oikonomia and koinonia. While the former denotes the political order (dispositif), the structure as provided by law but also by utopian notions of salvation addresses the latter, that which constitutes the sociality of the social as such and provides social coherence. Posthumanistic theories, so the thesis, tend to lose sight of the conoistic dimension. To be sure, they extend the social by including the nonhuman and nonsocial, such as artefacts, things, technologies, and so on, but by thinking preferably in terms of networks and by postulating a symmetry of their interrelationality, they miss the essential incommensurability between interpersonal relationships and the more formal and diagrammatic concept of network-relations. The argumentation carried out on the abstract level of philosophical validity criticism, however, has immediate political consequences. For neglecting what makes the social social as well as misappropriating the essential differences between relation and relationship corresponds directly to the current political crisis of the social.

Keywords: Posthumanismus, Oikonomia, Koinonia, Netzwerktheorie, Relation, Sozialität

Abstract: With the increasing interconnectedness of nature and culture in the Anthropocene, new narratives about humanity’s past, present, and future have been emerging. This is associated with a restructuring of cultural memory in the context of Earth history. To contribute to a better understanding of these changes, this paper takes recourse to approaches from Memory Studies. In a post-humanist extension of Memory Studies, the so-called archives of nature (sediments, fossils, ice cores, tree growth rings, corals) are described as the material basis of a natural-cultural memory. The concept of natural-cultural memory refers to the totality of cultural practices and institutions which make the archives of Earth history accessible and thereby constitute a culturally significant time horizon. A crucial question here is how the interplay of cultural archives and the archives of nature as repositories of the past contributes to the specific functioning of natural-cultural memory and which commonalities and differences are constituted in the process. The article develops the general outline of a theory of natural-cultural memory through a comparative analysis of Esther Kinsky’s poetry collection Schiefern (2020) and Robert Macfarlane’s travelogue Underland. A Deep Time Journey (2019). As a result, it becomes clear how literary texts of the ›self-conscious‹ Anthropocene reflect on memory processes in a deep-time context, albeit its continuity is threatened by the cumulative effects of human activities.

Keywords: Archive der Natur, Memory Studies, naturkulturelle Verflechtungen, Esther Kinsky, Robert Macfarlane, anthropozäne Literatur

Abstract: The article scrutinises the transformation of perceptions of the past in the time span between the late tenth and the late twelfth century. In doing so, it takes issue with the argument that much of medieval historiography was based upon imperfect knowledge of the past and, as a consequence, must be subjected to severe criticism of the facticity of the information it provides. Dudo of St Quentin’s and Saxo’s narratives of the Norman and the Danish pasts are examined for evidence to the effect that medieval historiography allows access to perceptions of the past as related to the groups in its focus. Both texts also reveal changes of patterns of transmitting perceptions about the past from group-related property to freely circulating knowledge.

Keywords: Historiographie (mittelalterliche); Vergangenheitswahrnehmung; Dudo von Saint-Quentin; Saxo Grammaticus; Gastrecht

Popularisierung als kultureller Trend der Moderne, so eine zentrale These des Siegener Sonderforschungsbereichs 1472 »Transformationen des Populären«, wird maßgeblich getragen von einer Performativität des Quantitativen, die kulturelle Relevanz an gemessene und inszenierte Beachtung bindet: Publikumsquoten, Charts, Rankings und Ratings, Social-Media-Statistiken usw. Dies bringt nicht nur die Wissenschaft, sondern jegliche Art traditioneller Institutionen und Wertsetzungen unter Druck, sich selbst als populär zu erweisen – oder die eigene Legitimität durch Beharrung auf gewachsenen Sinnstrukturen kultureller Ausdifferenzierung erst einmal einfach weiter zu behaupten (Döring et al. 2021: 4–9).

Im Mai 2022 fand die mittlerweile siebente Jahrestagung der KWG diesmal mit dem Titel »Posthumanismus. Transhumanismus. Jenseits des Menschen?« statt, zu der die ehemalige Gesellschaftsvorsitzende Hildegard Kernmayer an ihre Heimatuniversität nach Graz einlud. Marietta Schmutz war für die Organisation und Mitkonzeption der Veranstaltung zuständig. Im Mittelpunkt der Vorträge und Diskussionen stand, wie im Titel bereits antizipiert, nicht weniger als die Frage nach dem Menschsein, die im beginnenden 21. Jahrhundert erneut Relevanz gewinnt.

Die Moderne, so der Ausgangspunkt der internationalen und interdisziplinären Hybridtagung »Let’s Talk About Revenge! Retributive Emotions, Justice, And Moral Repair!«, behauptet, das Phänomen der Rache überwunden zu haben. Der gesellschaftlichen Fortschrittserzählung und dem Zivilisationsnarrativ zufolge wurde Rache durch die rationale Praxis des Rechts ersetzt: Praktiken der Selbstjustiz und selbstermächtigende Ausgleichsformen nach erfahrenen Ungerechtigkeiten wurden durch Rechtsinstitutionen, Gesetzestexte und Disziplinierungsmaßnahmen abgelöst.