english version
Normalizations, Exclusions and Omissions in the Self Depiction of the Humboldt University.
What image of science and scien_tists is produced by the exhibition of sculptures and portraits in and around the main building of Humboldt University? Which persons were selected in different historical contexts as represe_ntatives of the university and, most importantly, which were not? At which points do we find ourselves in these representations, and again, where not? What does this say about our own positioning? These and similar questions puzzled us when we started to design this project.
We are 2 white, ableised, womanified,
educationally privileged students of Gender Studies at Humboldt University, who
feel the need to demonstrate that the supposedly neutral constructions of
knowledge and its protagonist_s aren’t neutral at all, but produce a very
specific self-image of the university, in which many people are unconsidered
and unnamed, and many power structures become invisible.
In most of the cases,
people not only aquire a privileged position as famous scien_tist not only due
to their outstanding performance, which is then found worthy of honoring in the
form of a sculpture or a portrait. The ability to achieve in science and gain special
recognition is also a privilege caused by several interrelated power
relationships and therefore was, and is, denied to many people.
To show this is an
intention of our project, hence the title question of who is missing and why.
But we also want to show
that the sculptures and portraits discussed, and the way they get presented and
the fact that they are (not) contextualized, show that they are instruments of
the university’s self-representation. This self-presentation not only conceals
many, sometimes suspect, issues regarding their context but also postulates
specific norms and (re)produces them repeatedly.
This is done in a
variety of ways such as appellation, concealment, spatial arrangement of the
exhibited portraits or sculptures, and not least, through our gaze. We hope, that we manage to point some
of it out to you.
Many times, we even
noticed while researching, how difficult it is to recognize exclusions and
norms which privilege us as white, ableisised, stat(e)ified, and therefore
often seem to us self-evident and unproblematic, so that we are frequently not
even aware of them.
We have nevertheless
tried, next to sexist structures and exclusions which also discriminate against
us, to address constructions of whiteness and discrimination structures,
such as anti-Semitism and classism.
In any case, it is
important for us to say that we understand this project as an attempt to raise
questions which are followed by new questions, in different directions.
We hope that we and
ideally you would start to think about it. The former has already been
achieved.
Using the dynamic underscore
“To further break down
binarities and not evoke the visual signature of the re_presentation of
a male-conventionalized word with ‘attached’ feminine-conventionalized ending,
the underscore wanders as ›d. u.‹
in the personal appellation-forms.” (AK Feministische Sprachpraxis
(ed.): Feminismus schreiben lernen, 2011; our translation)
Understandig of power relations
Although we did not
refer explicitly to all existing power structures and categorizations in our
project, we assume that they always act in interplay with each other, at
different levels of society, and do not stand alone.
Categorizations that we
won’t go into, but that play an equally important role in the production of
standards, are, for example, disability / non-disability, religion, and
privilege based on national 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 aren’t transferable to some specific time periods and contexts of
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-Universität.
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 first 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?
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,
we’ve 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 context for the installation played in the first place, as
well as to point out how individual representations remain, disappear, or are
added.
Beside
the maps and informations in this brochure, we’ve attached written
contextualisations on some of the noted portraits and sculptures.
Our
concern is to inform you about the representative figures 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 didn’t
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 womanified scienti_sts (First
Floor)
Portrait series of philoso_phers (Second Floor)
Monument for those fallen in the fight against
Hitler fascism (Ground Floor)
Map of the
addressed representations_questions and comments on the representations
1_Why is the context of creation and the stories of the sculptures not
addressed?
2_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 policy measures 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?
3_When, and by whom, and under what
political circumstances were which statues installed?
4_ What image of
Philosophy is produced by the selection of portraits?
5_ Why was Marlis Dürkop
in 1992, the first and, until today, the only womanified re_ctor? Why is Marlis
Dürkop not portrayed? What impression is created by this?
6_ 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?
7_ Are/ Were there Nobel Prize Winne_rs at the
Friedrich Wilhelm University/Humboldt University who are for example not read
as white and manified?
8_ 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 / biographies chosen?
Which
womanified persons are not shown here? → For example womanified persons who
worked under precarious conditions (i.e. without payment and without being ever
honored and acknowledged for their achievements) and were academically, scientifically active, before
official enrollment in Germany was possible for women. They are still ignored.
The
only similarity of the illustrated womanified 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?
Financial
privilege/ educational privilege
Which
of the represented persons did not grow up in a financially 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
financial 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 defined by their family of origin (= fathers)?
Why
did we not find 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
financially privileged families have higher chances of attending upper
secondary schools or universities. Furthermore, we also assume that, regardless
of financial 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?
Whiteness
Which
of the represented persons are not constructed/ legible as white?
0
Persons
According
to the definition 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 the represented persons are invariably read as white,
so the image of white 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.
Gender
Which
of the represented persons are not assigned to the categorization manified?
Rahel
Hirsch_75
Paula
Hertwig_76
Hedwig
Hintze_77
Gertrud
Kornfeld_78
Charlotte
Leubuscher_79
Liselotte
Hermann_80/90
Marie
Elisabeth Lüders_81
Rhoda
Erdmann_82
Lise
Meitner_83
Hedwig
Dohm_84
Liselotte
Richter_85
Gertrud
Bäumer_86
Alice
Salomon_87
Liselotte
Welskopf-Heinrich_88
Agnes
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 definition of “Feminismus schreiben lernen” (AK Feministische
Sprachpraxis) we call those constructions womanified and manified.
Why
are 80% of the represented persons at Humboldt-University manified?
Binary-gendering
Which
of the represented persons are not assigned to a binary gender system (i.e.
womanified and manified)?
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 womanfied scien_tist in the hallway of the female
scien_tists.
What
space remains in these binary constructions for trans and intersex people?
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, romanticizing and 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, the sex that falls short in every aspect,
their weakness should thus be protected, but to show them respect is ridiculous
beyond all measure.“ (Arthur Schopenhauer: Ueber die Weiber. In: Parerga und
Paralipomena - Kleine philosophische Schriften, 1851; Quoted from: A.
Schopenhauer Sämtliche Werke, 2. Band, E. Brodhaus Verlag, Wiesbaden 1947, S.
657-658; our translation)
Is Schopenhauer’s misogyny an exception in philosophy, and among the
philosoph_ers that are portrayed here? Isn’t it constitutive for his theory and
is it irrelevant for the appreciation of his philosophy? What does the normalization
of misogynist science do to womanified scien_tists?
Gertrud Bäumer_86 Gertrud Bäumer was anti-Semitic. “Bäumer herself defined 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] in 1919, hinting at the anti-Semitic undertones in public. [...]
Regarding foreign affairs, Bäumer 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 herself and 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. Bäumer classed herself among the fraction of „inner emigration“,
which she classified as political resistance.“ (Elke Kleinau: Sammelrezension:
A. Schaser: Helene Lange und Gertrud Bäumer, 2004; Quoted from:
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=34307; our translation)
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 don’t 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 don’t concede them to us [...] But
in order to give them civil rights, I see no other means than cutting off their
heads in 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: Beiträge
zur Berichtigung der Urtheile des Publicums über die französische Revolution,
1793; Quoted from: J. G. Fichte: Schriften zur französischen 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 Fichte’s portrait hanging here (still)?
What does that say? And how does it feel? For whom? Who is addressed
here implicitly?
Lise Meitner_83 Lise Meitner „had contributed
significantly to the discovery of nuclear fission“ (see portrait number 83).
In the course of the annexation of
Austria Lise Meitner had to flee to Sweden due to anti-Semitic persecution.
Like Fritz Straßmann she has been
overlooked in the awarding of the Nobel Prize. This fact is de_mentioned here.
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“ in 1934. Therefore, Butenandt
benefited from the Nazi politics.
The fact that Butenandt destroyed all files of the Institute that had
been labeled as “secret Reich business” proves his enmeshment in Nazi
crimes. Butenandt was also working closely together with Günther Hillmann and
Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, director of 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 from Auschwitz. 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 wasn’t reluctant to experiment on human livers.
In post war Germany Butenandt propagated an image of pure science
independent from respective politics. He also advocated for his Nazi colleagues
during the denazification trials. He argued that, having conducted pure
science, they didn’t 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 Hahn’s 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 to ignore
the increasing anti-Semitic atmosphere.
Lise Meitner „had contributed significantly to the discovery of
nuclear fission“ (see portrait number 83). In the course of the annexation of
Austria in 1938, Lise Meitner had to flee to Sweden due to anti-Semitic persecution. Like Fritz Straßmann 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 fission in
1938.“ (Klaus Hoffmann (1993), Otto Hahn – Schuld und Verantwortung, S. 159;
our translation)
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, isn’t it my duty to reflect on the possible outcomes
of my research continuously? Whom they could benefit and whom they could harm?
Why is science always posited as neutral and independent of societal
contexts?
Alice
Salomon_87 In an early act of
anti-Semitism, Getrud Bäumer, who is portayed in this corridor as well,
prevented Alice Salomon’s election for president of the BDF (Bund deutscher
Frauenvereine – Union of German Feminist Organizations) in 1919.
In Alice Salomon’s 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, Beltz Verlag, Weinheim und Basel, 1983, S.
236 ff.; Original title: Character is destiny, written in 1940, first published
in the German translation in 1983 and in the orginal version in 2004.)
Hedwig
Hintze_77 Was Hedwig Hintze divested of her permission to teach „because of her
Jewish origin“ or due to state-organized anti-Semitic discrimination, that was
implemented 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 couldn’t 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 fled 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 financial support and psychically devastated, she presumably
committed suicide in 1942 in Utrecht - under not yet fully clarified
circumstances.“
(Author Dr. Elisabeth Dickmann; Quoted from:
http://www.hhi-bremen.de/hedwig.html; our translation)
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