In media studies it is often argued that the emergence of new media inevitably leads to anxieties among devotees of old media who suspect that these media become irrelevant: photography menaces painting, film executes photography, tv menaces film, and the Internet finishes everything else. The printed book is no exception from this logic. Long before the invention of ebooks and Open access, various prophets predicted the decline of the Gutenberg Galaxis. Even without subscribing to such apocalyptic visions, we can not overlook the fact that the humanistic book has come under pressure. Being the unquestioned and primordial scientific medium in the 20th century, an assembly of habituations and practices has shifted within a few years. That implies institutions of advanced studies, publishers, research communities and the scholars themselves. The question, thus, is: Which role will the printed book play within and without the humanities?
Archiv des Tags «Michael Hagner»
Prof. Dr. Christiane Schildknecht (Philosophy, University of Lucerne) An explication of the concept of knowledge, including its limits and an analysis of different forms of knowledge.
PD Dr. Roland Wenzlhuemer (History, University of Heidelberg) The changing relation between information and knowledge: new communication technologies and contemporary societies’ perception of them – the example of telegraphy.
Prof. Dr. Michael Hagner (Science Studies, ETH Zurich) Generation and transfer of knowledge in the digital age: the fate of the printed book and changing notions of intellectual property, reading, writing and interpretation.
PD Dr. Stefan Willer (Literary Studies, ZfL Berlin) Figurations of future knowledge: a rhetorical and epistemological investigation of knowledge-to- come in connection to current prognostic notions like ‘sustainability’, ‘security’, ‘scenario’, ‘contingency’.
