Antje Linkenbach presents a working paper on 'The Power of Audibility: Contestation and Communication as Route to Cohesive Development'

Imagining ‘cohesive development’ as a new paradigm means turning away from a focus on economic growth and giving priority to an integrative, social perspective on development. The paper, therefore, focuses on three concepts – cohesion, difference, and development. In the first part the paper explores how these concepts are being defined and interpreted within the disciplines of sociology and anthropology, what are the relevant debates evolving around these concepts and how these debates merge in the paradigm of cohesive development. In the second part the article will draw attention to regionally and socially marginalized groups in India and their ‘capacity to aspire’. This section will reveal the plurality and heterogeneity of visions for a ‘good life’ and the ways how to shape the future. The paper concludes with reflections on the social and political conditions for audibility and parity of participation within the wider project of cohesive development.

Christoph Hennig presents a working paper on "Materiality and Experience in Creative Labour: A Pragmatistic Interpretation of Interviews with Artists and Designers"

In an interdisciplinary research project at the University of St. Gallen („Creativity as a Vocation", 2013/14) we conducted 20 interviews with local artists and designers. Our aim was to analyse these interviews both from the perspective of sociology and philosophy. This, however, proved more difficult then expected, not least because a philosophical analysis of qualitative sociologicla data is a methodological innovation, not always well received by established traditions, and not to be achieved so easily. In this paper, which I did not have the time to translate unfortunately, I use some ideas from the field of „New Materialism" and Latours „Actor-Network-Theory" in order to interpret sections of these interviews in a new way. This also leads me to discuss Harmut Rosa`s ideas about art in his book on resonance (2016).

New International Graduate School of the Max-Weber-Center jointly with the University of Graz, Austria

The Max-Weber-Kolleg working together with the University of Graz have set up a joint international graduate school on resonant world relations in socio-religious practices of antiquity and the present.

What do ancient rituals such as the placing of marble noses in front of god images or common banquets with the deceased have in common with today's practices such as the setting up of teddy bears for young victims of an amok run or weddings of atheistic couples in cosy chapels of Saint Mary? - They represent socio-religious practices that define, express the important relationships of people to their worlds - that is, to other people, to things, to nature, to their own selves, to heaven or to gods or god. The nature of world relations tells a lot about the culture that characterizes them. It can, on the one hand, provide information about our cultural heritage, as well as on the other hand, about our own practices in order to create resonant - ie, responding - relationships with the world.
The question of world relations in antiquity and the present is raised in the context of a joint international graduate school, which the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz with the Max-Weber-Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Sciences at the University of Erfurt has taken. The school is planned to train young scholars in a joint research and study program in interdisciplinary projects that bring together scholarship of antiquity and late antiquity on the one hand and cultural and social sciences with a focus on the present on the other. From this interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly innovative results are expected for both fields of research. A special focus is placed on concrete socio-religious practices as objects of investigation, ie the sometimes peculiar rituals yesterday and today. Through this approach, the all too easy-going view of foreignness as the outflow of a polytheistic world image can be avoided and the foreign culture can be taken seriously in its peculiarity.
One of the specifics of this two-country-school will be that PhD students will enjoy a temporary stay in the partner country and, from the start, will be supervised by two supervisors, one from Austria and one from Germany - moreover, the students from both countries will form a community where exchange of knowledge and social cross-country relations are fostered.
After the German Research Foundation (DFG) endorsed the promotion of the joint international graduate school at the end of autumn of 2016, the Science Fund of Austria (FWF) has now also agreed to the funding of the new graduate school. 'We are looking forward to working together and would like to see many international applicants to the soon-to-be-advertised doctoral bursaries', says Jörg Rüpke, spokesman for the Graduate School at Erfurt.

Cécile Stephanie Stehrenberger is presenting a working paper on 'Praktisches Wissen, Wissenschaft und Katastrophen. Zur Geschichte der sozialwissenschaftlichen Katastrophenforschung, 1949-1989'

During the second half of the 20th Century several US-American social science „disaster research groups“ conducted field studies after earthquakes, factory explosions and “racial riots”. Their aim was to provide practical knowledge that could be applied in the planning and managing of future disasters of both peace- and wartime nature. In this paper, I will elaborate on how this research goal conflicted with some scientists’ aspirations to develop more theoretical knowledge, and how, more generally, it endangered disaster research’s “scientificity”. I will also show how the generated research results came to be ‘impractical knowledge’, which was difficult or impossible to apply. Furthermore this paper analyzes the scientific practices that were involved at different stages of the knowledge production process and contributed to disaster research’s ‘precarious’ character.

Paul Lichterman on "Towards a new sociology of civic action"

This week, Paul Lichterman (University of Southern California), was invited to speak to the members of the Max-Weber Kolleg about his recent research on "civic action":

Sceptical of neo-Tocquevillian assumptions like

1.   Sectors: it happens in a specific “sector” outside market, family, and state, one in which small, face-to-face groups are typical

2.   Skills and virtues: it cultivates one set of “skills and virtues” that are transposable to all civic groups (fosters democratic orientation and skills”)

3.   Normative: it is “good” in itself

Lichterman suggested a new definition of civic, asking how people are coordinating action, how they act together, hence "civic" taken as an adverb, looking for styles of action and discerning different scene styles.