@ostrovdoktora
Professor of History, University of Oslo| global social policy| working conditions| ILO |humanitarianism| Quaker relief| New book: The Politics of Service. American Quakers and international humanitarian relief 1917-1945 (2024)
A truly proud and unforgettable day also for the supervisors, Kim Priemel and myself and an "akademiske høymesse" not least thanks to the opponents, Christoph Kalter (Agder) and Maria Framke (Rostock/Erfurt), the committee chair Lucia Carminati and the leader of the defense Veronique Pouillard!
Congratulations to Nikhil Malik, who successfully defended his thesis "Manufacturing Utopia: Refugees, Labour, and the Making of the New Industrial Township Faridabad, 1947-1960" for the degree of philosophiae doctor (PhD) @UiO - Det humanistiske fakultet.
www.gnm.de/your-museum-...
Warmly recommended if you pass my hometown Nürnberg and want more than gingerbread - or eat gingerbread with fuller awareness for its global dimension. #nürnberg #germanischesnationalmuseum
www.gnm.de/your-museum-...
Warmly recommended if you pass my hometown Nürnberg and want more than gingerbread - or eat gingerbread with fuller awareness for its global dimension. #nürnberg #germanischesnationalmuseum
When Algorithms Undermine Democracy: Europe's Wake-Up Call www.socialeurope.eu/when-algorit...
So teaching this course and others this semester (on the welfare state, war and peace, decolonization) is perhaps what comes closest from my perspective to what the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls “resonance”. To be continued!!
Also there has been hardly a better place for me than this room of open academic discussion with smart and engaged people on pressing issues of our day. With all the noise and irrationality surrounding us, there is hope in this.
Why? One lesson is that as historians I think we can and we should contribute more substantially to the discussions on technology and AI and point to the political nature of these issues more than we generally do, in a debate dominated by a lot of presentism and determinism.
To discuss topics like the future of work, automation Luddism and Neo-Luddism, bullshit jobs, technooptimism, and so much more with a highly engaged group of students has been extremely rewarding.
All of that has proven to produce great results and from what I can see also great fun to most. And the various disciplinary and cultural backgrounds of the students has turned out to be treasure chest for everyone's learning experience.
It has been special because of the challenge to work myself into new territory, because of the cooperative design of the course - students work continuously in groups on presentations and a podcast with the professional support from our great media people at @HF:Studio.
At @uio.no we have almost reached the end of this fall's teaching period. What has stood out for me was “Man-Machine-Work”, a course for a mixed cross-disciplinary crowd of Norwegian and int. BA and MA students on the historical relationship between humans and technology in the workplace.
Das war alles eine ganz runde Sache! Mögen die Feierlichkeiten nicht enden!!
Ja, und mit der Forschung zur Verkehrssicherheit im lässt sich getrost korrigieren: es muss heißen: MEHR Ideologie, WENIGER Sicherheit für alle. So einfach ist das. Grrrr. Es beleidigt einfach den Verstand! Ernsthafte Frage: wessen Interessen stehen dabei eigentlich im Vordergrund?
Wir erleben jetzt also nach den Testballons bei der Migration den Frontalangriff der Unionsparteien auf den Sozialstaat samt der Verweigerung einer Debatte um Steuererhöhungen für Besserverdienende. Lässt sich ein Programm zur Stärkung der #noafd eigentlich auf einen einfacheren Nenner bringen?
Beautifully said. 😂
The latter one includes the nicest compliment I have ever received for my writing: "This well-researched, engaging and elegantly written book is hard to put down, capturing the reader's attention even at the expense of sleep." 😃 🤩 Totally blown away by that. From now on that's my yardstick!
Just discovered two fresh reviews of my Politics of Service book on Quaker humanitarianism by Allan Austin in Church History and Marina Pérez de Arcos in European History Quarterly.
journals.sagepub.com/.../10.1177/...
www.cambridge.org/.../0A091020....
🕊In Memoriam: Wulf Kansteiner
With great sadness, the MSA shares the news that Wulf Kansteiner passed away on 8 August.
Read the full tribute on our website: bit.ly/3UZB0Lb
Wieder ein sieg für die noafd. Wann begreift vor allem die spd, dass es hier absolut nichts zu gewinnen gibt. Diese Grausamkeiten führen doch nur in eine weitere Verrohung der Diskussion und Praxis. So falsch wie fantasielos. www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/bund...
Zitat von Yvonne Lott, Leiterin des WSI-Referats Geschlechterforschung, im Podcast Systemrelevant: Was machen diese Forderungen mit der Gesellschaft, was machen diese Forderungen mit der Demokratie? Ich blicke da schon mit großer Sorge drauf. Denn was suggeriert die Politik? „Ihr macht zu wenig, ihr seid faul, ihr seid schuld.“
Allein längere #Arbeitszeiten ≠ mehr Wirtschaftswachstum oder Produktivität.
Eher: Mehr Überlastung, erhöhte Fehlzeiten & #Burnout.
Besser:
➡️ Wahl-Arbeitszeiten
➡️ Verlängerung der Elterngeld-Partnermonate
➡️ Anerkennung und Wertschätzung von #Sorgearbeit
Mehr:
🎧 www.boeckler.de/de/podcasts-...
Right now at the ILO: Valerio di Stefano on Social Europe:Shaping the Future of Digital Work: A Bold Proposal for Platform Worker Rights www.socialeurope.eu/shaping-the-...
Das ist zentral:
Die Rückabwicklung von Bürgerrechten geschieht zwar vor aller Augen, wird aber von den künftig selbst betroffenen Bürgern toleriert, da Politik die geplante Rückabwicklung stets an marginalisierten Bevölkerungsgruppen vornimmt.
Wer dazu schweigt, legt die Axt an eigene Rechte an.
The "contributions to this volume reveal the complexities, variations, and motivations behind the instrumentalization of famine by political actors and regimes, and how the politics of perpetrating hunger and the politics of relieving it have often been intertwined"
The volume takes fresh and timely historical perspectives into how "famines result from political decision-making, and how the threat, occurrence, relief, or memory of famine is instrumentalized as a political and military tool."
It unites a great panel of scholars dealing with a broad range of cases as well as an afterword on "Famines and Power, Past and Present" by Alex de Waal. I was honored having been asked to contribute with a chapter on Quaker relief to Germany after the First World War.
More interesting stuff to read : "The Politics of Famine in European History and Memory" edited by Ingrid de Zwarte and Miguel Ángel Del Arco Blanco is now out with Routledge in open access.
www.routledge.com/The-Politics...
For those who happen to be in the Trento region. On the 26 May I will present my book on Quaker humanitarianism at the University of Trento. eventi.unitn.it/it/american-...
This year's meeting is special because of the historical moment as the ILO is trying to maintain its relevance by entering a debate on a new labour standard on decent work in the platform economy. It was great to get a glimpse of it, share some historical knowledge and feel the engagement.
