who is missing? and why? normalizations, exclusions and omissions in the self depiction of the...

7/31/2019 Who is missing? And why? Normalizations, Exclusions and Omissions in the Self Depiction of the Humboldt Univers

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Index

Introduction / 2_3

Using the dynamic underscore

Understanding of power relations

Historical background/ timeframe

Curation / installation context

Map of the addressed representations_persons / 4_5

Map of the addressed representations_comments on the selection / 6_7

Map of the addressed representations_questions and comments on the

representations / 8_9

Maps of different categorizations

Financial privilege/ educational privilege / 10_11

Whiteness / 12_13

Gender / 14_15

Binary-gendering / 16_17

Overview of the added captions with contextualizations, comments and

questions in and around the main building / 18_19

Who is missing? And why?

Normalizations, Exclusions and Omissions in the SelfDepiction of the Humboldt University


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origin.

One of our considerations on disability / non-disability related to the fact that the method of

representation of persons leads to a reading of the characters as free of disability, which does

imply and establish non-disability as a norm.

Historical Background / time frame

In some categorizations, such as class and citizenship, it became very clear that they are tied to

historical or political contexts, and arent transferable to other specic time periods and contextsof interpretation. To illustrate this roughly we have the following key features:

History of the university:

The Friedrich Wilhelm University was established in 1810.

In 1949 it was renamed Humboldt University.

Biographical data of the representative persons:

The life spans of people whose representations we addressed, include the year 1762 (year of

birth, Johann Gottlieb Fichte) to 1995 (year of death, Adolf Butenandt).

Historical and political context:

Till 1806: Holy Roman Empire of German Nation

1815-1866: German Confederation (State Union)

1867-1871: North German Confederation

1871-1918: German Empire

1919-1933: Weimar Republic

1933-1945: Nationalsocialism

1945-1949: Allies occupied Germany

1949-1990: GDR

1990-today: Federal Republic of Germany

Curation / installation context

Apart from few exceptions there are no informations when the representations were installed for

the rst time and who curated the different exhibition series.

Thus we asked ourselves for example why the original context of the Marx quotation is addressed,

and the contexts of other portrait collections / sculptures and the memorial is not?


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Map of the addressed representations_persons

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ish

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k20/37

Eilhard Mitscherlich

Heinrich Heine

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Otto Hahn

Max Planck 3/37

Albert Einstein

Robert Koch

Theodor Mommsen 4/49

Emil von Behring

Paul Ehrlich

Albrecht Kossel

Otto Warburg

Hans Spemann

Werner Formann

Jacobus Henricus vant Hoff

Emil Fischer

Max Planck 3/20

Ernst Curtius

Karl-Heinz Wirzberger

Herman Diels

Johannes Vahlen

Adolf Wagner

Theodor Mommsen 4/23

Rudolf von Gneist

August-Wilhelm von Hofmann

Hermann von Helmholtz 5/66

FriedrichErnst

Daniel

Schleiermacher

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Liselotte Herrmann 90

Rhoda Erdmann

Hedwig Dohm

Gertrud Bumer

Rahel Hirsch

Paula Hertwig

AdolfButenandt

OttoDiels

WalterBothe

MaxBorn

Alice Salomon

Liselotte Welskopf-Heinrich

Agnes von Zahn-Harnack

PeterDebye

WaltherNernst

FritzHaber

RichardWillsttter

EduardBuchner

AdolfvonBaeyer

WilhelmWien

MaxvonLaue

GustavHertz

ErwinSchrdinger

WernerHeisenbe

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JamesFranck

KarlMarx

Hedwig Hintze

Gertrud Kornfeld

Marie Elisabeth Lders

Lise Meitner

Liselotte Richter

Charlotte Leubuscher

August Boeckh

Walter Friedrich

Carl Stumpf

Werner Hartke

Johann Gottlieb Fichte 74

Johannes Stroux

Christian Samuel Weiss

Ulrich von

Wilamowitz-Moellendorff

Karl Theodor Wilhelm

Weierstra

Erich Schmidt

Kurt Erich Schrder

Eduard Spranger 60

Johann Gottlieb Fichte 42

Friedrich W. J. Schelling

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

Hegel 102

Friedrich E. D. Schleiermacher 57

Arthur Schopenhauer

Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg

Eduard Gottlieb Zeller

Rudolf Hermann Lotze

Wilhelm Dilthey

Benno Erdmann

Hans Reichenbach

Eduard Spranger 56

Georg Simmel

Ernst Cassirer

Nicolai Hartmann

Hermann von Helmholtz 5/55

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Map of the addressed representations_comments on the selection

For our project we have limited ourselves to those sculptures and portraits directly in and around the

main building, and which name and depict persons referred to as famous scholars by the Humboldt

University.

Furthermore, weve included the Marx quotation in the foyer and the monument in the backyard in our

research. Thereby we hope to elucidate, to some extent, which role the different historical contexts

for the installation played in the rst place, as well as to point out how individual representationsremain, disappear, or are added.

Beside the maps and informations in this brochure, weve attached written contextualisations on

some of the noted portraits and sculptures.

Our concern is to inform you about the representative gures and the way they are represented, or

to ask questions and to point to issues, which are not mentioned in the existing description cards by

the University.

Recently in our project work, we came across further representations like the Stolpersteine (lit.

stumbling stones) which were laid at the main gate of the main building on the initiative of stu_dents

of Humboldt University, and we found more memorial plaques around the main building. Even

though we didnt include them in our project we still wanted to mention them.Those representations themed by us follow the installation logic of the spatial arrangement of the university, and are divided into the

following subgroups:

Sculptures in front of, next to, and behind the main building (Ground Floor)

Installation of the Marx quotation in the foyer (Ground Floor)

Portrait series of the Noble Prize Winn_ers (First Floor)Portrait series of rec_tors and pr_esidents (First Floor)

Portrait series of womanied scienti_sts (First Floor)

Portrait series of philoso_phers (Second Floor)

Monument for those fallen in the ght against Hitler fascism (Ground Floor)

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Monument for those fallen in the

ght against Hitler fascism

Sculptures in front of, next to,

and behind the main building

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Portrait series

of the Noble Prize Winn_ers

Portrait series of rec_tors

and pr_esidents

Portrait series of

womanied scienti_sts

Portrait series of

philoso_phers

Installation

of the Marx

quotation

in the foyer

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Why is the term Hitler fascism used on

the monument, and not Nationalsocialism

or German fascism?

What impression does that create?

When and by whom and under what policymeasures was the monument installed?

What kind of remembrance is still / no

longer existing?

Who is not remembered, and what

exclusions are (re)produced by this?

When, and by whom, and under what

political circumstances were which

statues installed?

Why is the context of creation and the

stories of the sculptures not addressed?

Map of the addressed representations_questions and comments on the

representations

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What image of Philosophy is produced by

the selection of portraits?

Why was Marlis Drkop in 1992, the rst

and, until today, the only womanied re_

ctor? Why is Marlis Drkop not portrayed?What impression is created by this?

Who curated the picture gallery of the

scie_ntists / studen_ts at the Friedrich

Wilhelm/ Humboldt University and when

was this portrait collection installed?

On what criteria were persons / biographieschosen?

Which womanied persons are not shown

here? For example womanied persons

who worked under precarious conditions

(i.e. without payment and without being

ever honored and acknowledged for their

achievements) and were academically,

scientically active, before ofcial

enrollment in Germany was possible for

women. They are still ignored.The only similarity of the illustrated

womanied persons is that they lived

around the turn of the 19th/20th century

and therefore, were protago_nists of the

until-then-forbidden access, and only

then won access to a higher school and

university education in Germany.

Why is this background only occasionally

mentioned in the info texts of the exhibitions

and the discriminatory structure of the

university is de_mentioned?

How does the quotation from Marx gets

contextualized and what kind of impact

does this have? Would the quotation from

Marx still exist if it were not standing of

listed?

Are/ Were there Nobel Prize Winne_rs

at the Friedrich Wilhelm University/

Humboldt University who are for

example not read as white and

manified?

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Financial privilege/ educational privilege

Which of the represented persons did not grow up in a nancially privileged situation?/ Which of

the represented persons did not grow up in academic families where education was suggested and

enabled?

Johann Gottlieb Fichte_42/74

Peter Debye_33

With nancial privilege, we are referring to the economic conditions and social status of families in

which the people have grown up. As part of our research, we found that among the most common

professions, the fathers were referred to as businessman, civil servant, lawyer, priest, teacher,

professor, doctor, and major entrepraneur.

Why, in our sources, are only the professions of fathers named? Why are the mothers mostly

mentioned by name or dened by their family of origin (= fathers)?Why did we not nd any biographies beyond the suggested, taken-for-granted heterosexual family

(father-mother-child model)?

How insurmountable were estate-based and class boundaries in the 18th, 19th and early 20th

century, and how transparent are they today?

The concept of educational privilege refers to the fact that children from nancially privileged families

have higher chances of attending upper secondary schools or universities. Furthermore, we also

assume that, regardless of nancial privilege, it is easier to gain access to higher education for

children who are raised and socialized by a_cademics.

Why do politics still uphold educational privileges today?

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How many of the represented persons did not grow up in a nancially privileged situation?/ How

many of the represented persons did not grow up in academic families where education was

suggested and enabled?

2 Persons

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Whiteness

Which of the represented persons are not constructed/ legible as white?

0 Persons

According to the denition of Mythen, Masken und Subjekte (Maureen Maisha Eggers et al.),

we understand whiteness as a category that describes not the naturally given visibility, but the

produced, interpreted and practiced visibility.

We assume that the represented persons are invariably read as white, so the image ofwhite science

gets (re)produced and Person of Color scien_tists get de_named. In addition, the active role that

many sc_ientists have played in colonialism and their participation in colonialist exploitation and

murder of People of Color in the name of science gets de_mentioned.

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Gender

Which of the represented persons are not assigned to the categorization manied?

Rahel Hirsch_75

Paula Hertwig_76

Hedwig Hintze_77

Gertrud Kornfeld_78Charlotte Leubuscher_79

Liselotte Hermann_80/90

Marie Elisabeth Lders_81

Rhoda Erdmann_82

Lise Meitner_83

Hedwig Dohm_84

Liselotte Richter_85

Gertrud Bumer_86

Alice Salomon_87

Liselotte Welskopf-Heinrich_88Agnes von Zahn-Harnack_89

Mildred Harnack-Fish_92

Liane Berkowitz_93

Ursula Goetze_94

Eva-Maria Buch_95

Rosemarie Terwiel_96

Gender is constructed and read as binary in the representations of people. That means that people are

seen as women or men. According to the denition of Feminismus schreiben lernen(AK Feministische

Sprachpraxis) we call those constructions womanied and manied.

Why are 80% of the represented persons at Humboldt-University manied?

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Binary-gendering

Which of the represented persons are not assigned to a binary gender system (i.e. womanied and

manied)?

0 Persons

Binary-gendering is the assumption that there are two genders and that all people can be clearly

categorized as one of the two genders. This distinction is set as self-evident, natural, unquestionable

and objective.

In addition to stereotypical depictions of clothing and habitus, this impression is also created by the

name. The disambiguation of gender is performed not only by passing on cultural gender norms but

also by our assumptions and our gaze.

At the level of the curation of the exhibition, binary-gendering is also generated by the separation of

the womaned scien_tist in the hallway of the female scien_tists.

What space remains in these binary constructions for trans and intersex people?

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Overview of the added captions with contextualizations, comments and

questions in and around the main building

Alexander von Humboldt_2 Which role do persons like

Alexander von Humboldt play for the euphemizing, romanticizingand de_naming of colonialism framed by the construction of the

explorer-myth? Why is an exclusively positive picture drawn of

Alexander von Humboldt in the German context through today?

Where is a critical examination of the German colonial past and

the continuity of colonial habitus?

Arthur Schopenhauer_70 They are sexus sequior, thesex that falls short in every aspect, their weakness should thus

be protected, but to show them respect is ridiculous beyond allmeasure. (Arthur Schopenhauer: Ueber die Weiber. In: Parerga

und Paralipomena - Kleine philosophische Schriften, 1851;

Quoted from: A. Schopenhauer Smtliche Werke, 2. Band, E.

Brodhaus Verlag, Wiesbaden 1947, S. 657-658; our translation)

Is Schopenhauers misogyny an exception in philosophy,

and among the philosoph_ers that are portrayed here? Isnt itconstitutive for his theory and is it irrelevant for the appreciation

of his philosophy? What does the normalization of misogynist

science do to womanied scien_tists?

Johann Gottlieb Fichte_42/74 That Jew, who achieves

a general love for justice, the humankind and truth is a hero

and a saint. I dont know if there are or were any of those. I will

believe it as soon as I see it [...] they must have human rights,

although they dont concede them to us [...] But in order to give

them civil rights, I see no other means than cutting off their headsin one night and to substitute other heads, in which there was

no single Jewish idea. To protect ourselves from them, I see no

means other than to overtake their holy land to send them there.

(Johann Gottlieb Fichte: Beitrge zur Berichtigung der Urtheile

des Publicums ber die franzsische Revolution, 1793; Quoted

from: J. G. Fichte: Schriften zur franzsischen Revolution,Reclam Verlag, Leipzig 1988, S. 143-144; our translation)

How neutral is philosophy?

When and how is anti-Semitism de_named or normalized?

Why, and since when is Fichtes portrait hanging here (still)?

What does that say? And how does it feel? For whom? Who isaddressed here implicitly?

Gertrud Bumer_86 Gertrud Bumer was anti-Semitic.

Bumer herself dened herself as an opponent of anti-

Semitism, but there were contemporaries who regarded

her a disguised anti-Semite. As is generally known, she

prevented the election of Alice Salomon for presidency of

the BDF [Bund deutscher Frauenvereine; our comment] in1919, hinting at the anti-Semitic undertones in public. [...]

Regarding foreign affairs, Bumer supported the Nazis untill

the end. Her dream of a Greater German Reich was so

important to her that she did not perceive the persecution,

ostracism and murder of non-Arians, or perceived it only

very limitedly. Her thoughts mainly circulated around herselfand her own work. She hopelessly overestimated her own

publications and rhetorical possibilities, and the damage

she caused through assimilation and selective perception

has not been considered. Bumer classed herself among

the fraction of inner emigration, which she classied aspolitical resistance. (Elke Kleinau: Sammelrezension: A.

Schaser: Helene Lange und Gertrud Bumer, 2004; Quoted

from: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=34307;

our translation)

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Adolf Butenandt_34 Butenandt was the successor of Carl

Neuberg, who had been dismissed as the director of the Kaiser

Wilhelm Institute of Biochemics in the course of the anti-Semitic

Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service in1934. Therefore, Butenandt beneted from the Nazi politics. The

fact that Butenandt destroyed all les of the Institute that had

been labeled as secret Reich business proves his enmeshment

in Nazi crimes. Butenandt was also working closely together with

Gnther Hillmann and Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, directorof the Kaiser Wilhelm Insitute of Anthropology, and a so-called

racial hygienist and eugenicist. Verschuer and Hillmann worked

together on a research project, for which they received blood

samples and body parts provided by Joseph Mengele fromAuschwitz. It can be assumed that Butenandt had been informed

about this research project and its test series. Furthermore,Butenandt himself participated in dubious medical military

research projects. While working on a test series of hemopoietin

(erythropoietin), he wasnt reluctant to experiment on human

livers.

In post war Germany Butenandt propagated an image of pure

science independent from respective politics. He also advocatedfor his Nazi colleagues during the denazication trials. He argued

that, having conducted pure science, they didnt bear the blame

for the crimes against humanity. His involvement in this regard

led to the rehabilitation of many perpetra__tors.

Otto Hahn_19 Otto Hahns politically disinterested

stance until the Nazis seized power illustrates his socially

privileged position, compared to persons such as Albert

Einstein, for instance, who left Germany as early as 1932

due to increasing anti-Semitic aggressions against him.

It can be concluded, that for Otto Hahn it was possible toignore the increasing anti-Semitic atmosphere.

Lise Meitner had contributed signicantly to the discovery

of nuclear ssion (see portrait number 83). In the course

of the annexation of Austria in 1938, Lise Meitner had toee to Sweden due to anti-Semitic persecution. Like FritzStramann she has been overlooked in the awarding of the

Nobel Prize. This fact is de_mentioned here.

At that time Mister Hahn and I realized clearly that there

was the possibility to produce explosive energy when

we achieved nuclear ssion in 1938. (Klaus Hoffmann

(1993), Otto Hahn Schuld und Verantwortung, S. 159; ourtranslation)

Why did they continue their research in the given political

situation in Germany?

What about the responsibility of science towards people?

As a scien_tist, isnt it my duty to reect on the possible

outcomes of my research continuously? Whom they could

benet and whom they could harm?Why is science always posited as neutral and independent

of societal contexts?

Hedwig Hintze_77 Was Hedwig Hintze divested of herpermission to teach because of her Jewish origin or due

to state-organized anti-Semitic discrimination, that wasimplemented by the university staff to their own advantage?

How is it that responsibilities and persecution are dis_

mentioned, and Nazi rationales are repeated?A comparative example:

Infotext of portrait number 77: In 1941 came an offer for

Associate Professor of History at the New School for Social

Research in New York, that she couldnt accept due to the

German occupation of the Netherlands. (Author unnamed)

Vs.Infotext of the Hedwig Hintze-Society: Shortly before the

outbreak of the war, she ed to the Netherlands, hoping to

get an exit visa. After the death of her husband in 1940 and

several failed attempts to enter the US, without any nancial

support and psychically devastated, she presumably

committed suicide in 1942 in Utrecht - under not yet fullyclaried circumstances.

(Author Dr. Elisabeth Dickmann; Quoted from: http://www.

hhi-bremen.de/hedwig.html; our translation)

Lise Meitner_83 Lise Meitner had contributed signicantly

to the discovery of nuclear ssion (see portrait number 83). In

the course of the annexation of Austria Lise Meitner had to ee

to Sweden due to anti-Semitic persecution. Like Fritz Stramann

she has been overlooked in the awarding of the Nobel Prize. This

fact is de_mentioned here.

Alice Salomon_87 In an early act of anti-Semitism,

Getrud Bumer, who is portayed in this corridor as well,prevented Alice Salomons election for president of the

BDF (Bund deutscher Frauenvereine Union of German

Feminist Organizations) in 1919.

In Alice Salomons case, employees of this university

enforced the anti-Semitic persecution immediately after the

takeover in 1933 with reference to her Jewish orgin.The term Jewish origin consistently used in this portrait

collection was introduced by the Nazis, arbitrarily ascribed

and invoked as an explanation for the persecution and the

murder of those named. Alice Salomon wrote about this in

her autobiography: Character is destiny. (Alice Salomon:

Charakter ist Schicksal Lebenserinnerungen, BeltzVerlag, Weinheim und Basel, 1983, S. 236 ff.; Original title:

Character is destiny, written in 1940, rst published in the

German translation in 1983 and in the orginal version in

2004.)

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For questions, suggestions and critique write to:

[email protected]

The contents of this leaet as well as photographs and upda-

ted information on the project are available at:

whoismissingandwhy.blogspot.de

We would like to thank everybody who inspired and

supported this project!

who is missing? and why? normalizations, exclusions and omissions in the self depiction of the...

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