We enable self-organized scientists who want to research, develop and test emancipatory strategies and practices independently of or beyond the academic establishment.
The interdisciplinary research platform of Association:E is an association of young scientists from different disciplines and universities. The aim is to overcome the isolation of the researcher and to create a diverse, internationally oriented scientific context that fosters an awareness of the necessities and possibilities to shape society. To this end, a collective of (young) researchers has been formed, which meets weekly for open research workshops and once a month for a colloquium.
The Project
The interdisciplinary research groups emerged from the Des.orientierungstage at TU Munich. The starting point was and is an emancipatory understanding of science, which sees science as a means to an end, to contribute to the realization of a society based on solidarity, in which all people can live a dignified, self-determined life without suffering.
The common denominator of all participants is the question of concrete utopia and utopia in its broad sense: What is utopia today? Which utopias have failed and why? To what extent do we recognize moments of (failed) concrete utopia in our own scientific practice? And what role does the (re)recollection of utopia / the development to concrete utopias play in the search for a consciousness aware of the necessities and possibilities to shape society, in the interplay of science, technology and society?
We want to tell the story of (failed) utopia starting from the cultural-scientific and social-theoretical finding of a collective self-limitation inherent in our present, which Mark Fisher has called capitalist realism. If central discourses of our time tend to dogmatic self-limitation with regard to the question of social design options, the fundamental claim of our research platform presupposes a reflected challenge of such dogmas.
The (concrete) Utopian is always present in
the research of the logical, inorganic, organic, social, cultural, psychological conditions of our world
the development of technologies, as well as in
the reflection and reappraisal of the failure to create better worlds.
And can transform from a merely scientific to an emancipatory societal horizon, if prevailing delegitimation and repression mechanisms against utopian thought are invalidated - at least that’s what we want to contribute to.
To guarantee the scientific nature of our exchange and our joint work, the quality criteria of the respective disciplines are decisive. Our interdisciplinary orientation thereby amounts to a methodological pluralism, in which different epistemologies from different disciplines can be equally valid as scientific principles. The common criterion in each case is a reflexive methodological approach appropriate to the subject matter. We also understand such pluralism as an essential common denominator with regard to a scientific openness towards the world, which is indispensable for an interdisciplinary foundation of a consciousness aware of the possibility to shape social conditions.
In our interdisciplinary work, we constantly search for better ways to put the various tendencies and trends of the different disciplines and research fields into a constellation with each other, in order to be able to create a scientific context for a consciousness of emancipatory praxis. Our collective experiment also promises to generate interesting empirical insights regarding the negotiation of the tension between different research practices and understandings of science: especially between quantitative and qualitative research, i.e. the objectifying measurement and the subjectifying comprehension of phenomena.
The Formats
An open research workshop has been held weekly since November 2021, and a monthly colloquium since February 2022. Students and researchers gather in research groups with different focuses to bundle their interdisciplinary efforts. Topics are selected and discussed based on the considerations and questions outlined at the beginning: What do we consider important contributions to the question of Utopia, Lost Futures, Scientific Horizons?
Scientists who are active in research themselves - as research assistants, doctoral students, post-docs or other forms of engagement with a field of research - are invited to give presentations. Our scientific standards correspond to common principles of peer review (reflexive use of appropriate methodology, original research question). Nevertheless, we do not directly follow the practice of peer review, or even presuppose for presenters that they have already been published in a peer-reviewed manner, as we also want to provide a space for young researchers on their way to publication and academic renown.
All contributions to the colloquium are to aligne with two main questions:
Introduction to the research object, against the background of the respective method / theory of the field. What is my object of research: what are my presuppositions, what prior knowledge of the field is necessary, what methods do I use and why?
Relation to Scientific Horizons and/or Utopia (Dystopia) and/or Lost Futures. To what extent is my topic about these issues? How do I position myself on the utopian dimension of research and beyond?
The research platform has a supra-regional and international orientation in terms of personnel as well as through cooperations.
Contact: info@assoziation-e.org
Past Semesters & Topics
Colloquium topics in summer term 2023
04/1 Leon Reichmann, philosophy & pedagogy
Pedagogy between value law and abjection
04/2 LyA, history
On the anti-authoritarian history of 1 May
05/1 Matthias Lenz, molecular biotechnology
Protein Engineering
05/2 Niklas Lefflik, ethnology
Empirical Police Research
06/1 Sarah Maâfi, architecture
Artistic Intelligence?
06/2 David Suica, theoretical philosophy
On the philosophy of the Natural Beauty
07/1 Max Nahrhaft, social sciences
Climate Catastrophe & Conformity
07/2 Dr. Francis Seeck, social sciences
FLINTA* in teaching and research
Winter term 2022-23
10 Alfredo Linguini, sociology
Building Rat Park
11/1 Clara Zeppelin, history
On the History and Actuality of Council Communism
11/2 München Freiräume*n, Urban Developing
Common Spaces & Urban Practice in Munich
12 Roman Thurn, sociology
Criminalisation of Poverty & Communalisation of Security
01/1 Florian Hinterwimmer, medical data science
AI in Medicine - how much longer will we need radiologists?
01/2 Victor Wagner, accounting, auditing & analysis
Paris-aligned Financial Reporting
Summer term 2022
04/1 Henri Kruse, medicine
The Boredom of Choice. Dopamin's Reality Principle
04/2 Laboria Cuboniks, philosophy: Xenofeminism
05/1 Igor Krawczuk, machine learning & optimization
Optimization Theory, Economics & the Real World
05/2 Anna-Lu Rausch, media- and cultural studies
Traces of Feminist Epistemologies in 'Grotesque' Performances
06/1 Barbara Braunschweiger, molecular biotechnology
Symbiosis between Crops and Fungi
06/2 Mario Cravallo, history
After Utopia. On the History of Ideas of Left Melancholy
07/1 Jakob Neef, theoretical physics
Gravitational Waves. A New View on Black Holes
07/2 N.N., sociology
On the Problematic of Left Hegemony
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