21 research outputs found
INTRODUCTION, CRITICAL THEORY AND JEWISH THOUGHT
No full textThe Frankfurt School’s relationship to Judaism and Jewish thought has typically been considered accidental. Beyond the history of exile from and return to Frankfurt, and their scholarly efforts to understand the origins of anti-Semitism, no essential – or as they would say, “immanent” – correlation seems to exist between the project of Critical Theory and the Jewish background of its protagonists. In the Marxist tradition, moreover, Critical Theory is an objective, materialist undertaking, free of any theological, religious, spiritual influence or affiliation
Theodor W. Adorno & Gershom Scholem:Correspondence 1939-1969
No full textAt first glance, Theodor W. Adorno’s critical social theory and Gershom Scholem’s scholarship of Jewish mysticism could not seem farther removed from one another. To begin with, they also harbored a mutual hostility. But their first conversations in 1938 New York were the impetus for a profound intellectual friendship that lasted thirty years and produced more than 220 letters. These letters discuss the broadest range of topics in philosophy, religion, history, politics, literature, and the arts – as well as the life and the work of Adorno and Scholem’s mutual friend Walter Benjamin.Unfolding with the dramatic tension of a historic novel, the correspondence tells the story of these two intellectuals who faced tragedy, destruction, and loss, but also participated in the efforts to reestablish a just and dignified society after World War II. Scholem immigrated to Palestine before the war and developed his pioneering scholarship of Jewish mysticism before and during the problematic establishment of a Jewish state. Adorno escaped Germany to England, and then to America, returning to Germany in 1949 to participate in the efforts to rebuild and democratize German society. Despite the differences in the lifepaths and worldviews of Adorno and Scholem, their letters are evidence of mutual concern for intellectual truth and hope for a more just society in the wake of historical disaster.The letters reveal for the first time the close philosophical proximity between Adorno’s critical theory and Scholem’s scholarship of mysticism and messianism. Their correspondence touches on questions of reason and myth, progress and regression, heresy and authority, and the social dimensions of redemption. Above all, their dialogue sheds light on the power of critical, materialistic analysis of history to bring about social change and prevent repetition of the disasters of the past
Theodor W. Adorno & Gershom Scholem:Correspondence 1939-1969
No full textAt first glance, Theodor W. Adorno’s critical social theory and Gershom Scholem’s scholarship of Jewish mysticism could not seem farther removed from one another. To begin with, they also harbored a mutual hostility. But their first conversations in 1938 New York were the impetus for a profound intellectual friendship that lasted thirty years and produced more than 220 letters. These letters discuss the broadest range of topics in philosophy, religion, history, politics, literature, and the arts – as well as the life and the work of Adorno and Scholem’s mutual friend Walter Benjamin.Unfolding with the dramatic tension of a historic novel, the correspondence tells the story of these two intellectuals who faced tragedy, destruction, and loss, but also participated in the efforts to reestablish a just and dignified society after World War II. Scholem immigrated to Palestine before the war and developed his pioneering scholarship of Jewish mysticism before and during the problematic establishment of a Jewish state. Adorno escaped Germany to England, and then to America, returning to Germany in 1949 to participate in the efforts to rebuild and democratize German society. Despite the differences in the lifepaths and worldviews of Adorno and Scholem, their letters are evidence of mutual concern for intellectual truth and hope for a more just society in the wake of historical disaster.The letters reveal for the first time the close philosophical proximity between Adorno’s critical theory and Scholem’s scholarship of mysticism and messianism. Their correspondence touches on questions of reason and myth, progress and regression, heresy and authority, and the social dimensions of redemption. Above all, their dialogue sheds light on the power of critical, materialistic analysis of history to bring about social change and prevent repetition of the disasters of the past
Review of German, Jew, Muslim, Gay: The Life and Times of Hugo Marcus By Marc David Baer.
No full textWhen Hugo Marcus (1880–1966), a German Jewish gay author, philosopher, and activist, converted to Islam in 1925, he “did not know yet what significance the word ‘jihad’ would one day mean to [him]. For it also signifies the duty to leave the country that is under godless rule, even if in so doing one has to give up one’s homeland. In this sense,” he wrote retrospectively in 1951, “I have been on a pilgrimage for the last twelve years” (135). In a footnote to this quotation from Marcus’s unpublished manuscript, Marc David Baer, author of this fascinating, erudite, and unusual biography, clarifies Marcus’s probable confusion between the Islamic terms jihad (holy war) and hejira (exile, migration). Driven away from his homeland in 1939, Marcus interpreted his own life in the religious vocabulary of Islam. But, ascending to become one the most prominent Muslims in pre-war Berlin, he also interpreted Islam in the light of his own experiences, worldviews, and wishes: as a German Jewish gay man. Not only was Marcus assigned with the monumentally significant project of editing and annotating the Qur’an’s translation into German, aimed at rendering it accessible to non-Arab speakers (reminiscent of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig’s project of the Hebrew Bible’s translation into German, which would be an interesting point of comparison), but he also published numerous articles discussing Islam and philosophy as well as homoerotic fiction with Islamic themes
Wet chemical passivation of interface defects in a a SI H c Si heterojunction solar cells with randomly distributed pyramids
No full textWET CHEMICAL PASSIVATION OF INTERFACE DEFECTS IN a SI H c SI HETEROJUNCTION SOLAR CELLS WITH RANDOMLY DISTRIBUTED PYRAMIDS H. Angermann, J. Rappich, K. v. Maydell, E. Conrad, I. Sieber, D. Schaffarzik and M. Schmidt Hahn Meitner Institut Berlin, Kekul str.5, D 12489 Berlin Corresponding author H. Angermann, Hahn Meitner Institut Berlin HMI , Kekul str.5, D 12489 Berlin, Tel 49 30 8062 1368, Fax 49 30 8062 1333 e mail angermann helmholtz berlin.de ABSTRACT Two non destructive, very surface sensitive tech niques, the large signal field modulated surface photovoltage SPV method and pulsed photoluminescence spectroscopy PL were applied to investigate both wet chemically treated substrate surfaces and a Si c Si interfaces. In order to prepare silicon substrates with randomly distributed pyramids without surface micro roughness and native oxide contamination and to passivate them during the technological process, we investigated special combinations of wet chemical etching and cleaning procedures. Compared to conventional pre treatments, significantly lower densities surface states and recombination loss were achieved on silicon substrates textured with randomly distributed upside pyramids and on the resulting a Si c Si in terfaces after deposition. It was shown that the open circuit voltage Voc and solar cell efficiency of TCO a Si H n c Si p Al solar cells are mainly influence by the preparation induced morphology and electronic properties of substrate surface. Keywords silicon substrates, defect density, wet chemical pretreatmen
Russian merchants in Livonia in the 17th century
No full textThe paper describes the trade activity of Russian merchants in Livonia (in the widest sense of
the term, including Estonia), which was under the rule of Sweden and Poland in the 17th century and later
only under the Swedish rule. The main purpose of Russian merchants in the beginning of the 17th century
was Reval (Tallinn) and later Narva. They also visited Riga and much less Dorpat (today’s Tartu). The author
was able to identify new evidence of this by working in the archives of Baltic cities. Shopping yards for
Russian merchants were established in Riga, Narva and Dorpat, which served as living quarters and a place
for storing and selling goods. Interesting information about this is provided by the accounts of German farm
administrators in Narva and Derpt, which are analyzed in this article for the first time. Russian guests in
Livonia were mainly middle and minor merchants, as well as representatives of the largest trading companies
in Novgorod and Pskov, commissioners of the tsars and, on the other hand, artisans, peasants and fishermen.
Their activities served the extensive European trade in linen, hemp, leather, fat and fur as the main Russian
supplies. The Livonian inhabitants were also supplied with industrial and agricultural products. The number
of visitors to Livonia from northwest Russia and beyond was significantly higher than the number of Livonian
merchants trading in Novgorod, Pskov and Moscow
A radiation and propagation problem for a Helmholtz equation with a compactly supported nonlinearity
No full textThe present work describes some extensions of an approach, originally
developed by V.V. Yatsyk and the author, for the theoretical and numerical
analysis of scattering and radiation effects on infinite plates with cubically
polarized layers. The new aspects lie on the transition to more generally
shaped, two- or three-dimensional objects, which no longer necessarily have to
be represented in terms a Cartesian product of real intervals, to more general
nonlinearities (including saturation) and the possibility of an efficient
numerical approximation of the electromagnetic fields and derived quantities
(such as energy, transmission coefficient, etc.). The paper advocates an
approach that consists in transforming the original full-space problem for a
nonlinear Helmholtz equation (as the simplest model) into an equivalent
boundary-value problem on a bounded domain by means of a nonlocal
Dirichlet-to-Neumann (DtN) operator. It is shown that the transformed problem
is equivalent to the original one and can be solved uniquely under suitable
conditions. Morever, the impact of the truncation of the DtN operator on the
resulting solution is investigated, so that the way to the numerical solution
by appropriate finite element methods is available
Active Learning for Real Time Detection of Polyps in Videocolonoscopy
No full textAbstractIn this paper a method to perform real-time detection of polyps in videocolonoscopy is introduced. Polyps are at the origins of colorectal cancer which is one of the deadliest diseases in the world. Many methods to improve detection of polyps have been proposed so far. However performance of these methods strongly depends on the available computational resources and, until now, are not able to perform real-time detection during a standard examination. The proposed method, based on active learning, is able to solve these issues. Most precisely, this approach allows us to detect approximately 90% of polyps on a freely available database introduced to the community in 2012, for a F2 score of 65%, and matches real-time constraint by making possible the analysis of a frame in only 0.023s (average value) on a standard computer not necessarily dedicated to that kind of application
[Rezension zu:] "Das totum ist das Totem." Theodor W. Adorno und Gershom Scholem. Briefwechsel 1939-1969. Herausgegeben von Asaf Angermann. - Berlin : Suhrkamp, 2015
No full textAls Adorno 1950 nach Deutschland zurückkehrte, kam er in ein Land, dem er zutiefst misstraute. Die objektive Unmöglichkeit, hier wieder zu existieren und zu arbeiten, wurde für ihn paradoxerweise zum Stimulans seiner Existenz und Arbeit. Statt sich innerlich an die neue Umwelt anzupassen, immunisierte er sich ihr gegenüber. Als jemand, der nicht dazugehören wollte, vermochte er die zähen Rückstände einer Ideologie der Zusammengehörigkeit zu zersetzen. Eine Rücksichtnahme auf sogenannte fundamentale Gewissheiten war aus seiner Sicht deswegen nicht geboten, weil sich solche Gewissheiten als Selbsttäuschung erwiesen hatten. In dem Maße, wie Adorno im Deutschland der Nachkriegszeit ein Bedürfnis nach kritischer Reinigung verspürte, begann sich sein intellektuelles und publizistisches Schaffen expansiv zu entfalten. Der Außenseiter, der gebraucht wurde, rückte unverhofft ins Zentrum, ohne doch sein Außenseitertum einzubüßen. Wenn Gershom Scholem, Adornos Briefpartner, tastend, von seiner neuen israelischen Heimat herkommend, über die Schweiz wieder Kontakt mit Deutschland, seiner alten Heimat, aufnimmt, so vollzieht sich bei ihm eine ähnliche Entwicklung wie bei Adorno. Dass auch er innerhalb der deutschen Geisteswelt eine Rolle zu spielen beginnt – allerdings später als Adorno –, kann überraschen. Als Katalysator dafür fungiert die Durchsetzung des OEuvres von Walter Benjamin. Das Werk Adornos wird durch seinen Briefwechsel mit Scholem, dem entschiedenen Juden, in ein neues Licht gerückt. Deutlicher als vorher tritt nun zutage, wie sehr doch das Denken Adornos von spezifisch jüdischen Intuitionen bestimmt wird
